Carlton Gary: After 41 Years….The End….But No Real Closure

Serial killers were supposed to do their evil in Boston, Los Angeles or Chicago.  Columbus, Ga., was Colonel Chick, Katie the Cow, Miss Patsy, Wednesday night wrestling, Rozell Fabiani, Wells Dairies, Weracoba Park and the Water Wiz.

During a phone conversation with a long-time friend Thursday night, the light bulb went off in my mind.  “Do you realize I was 23 when Carlton Gary started his reign of terror?” I rhetorically asked.

Carlton Gary (a/k/a The Stocking Strangler) was executed by lethal injection Thursday night in Jackson, Ga.  Thus ends one of the longest stays on death row in the history of the Peach State.  Gary’s demise may mean the final chapter of a grievous story.   Yet, for those of us who lived through his months as a domestic terrorist, the story will never depart our minds.

Forty-one years ago, I was in my sophomore year as a Columbus anchor and reporter.  Only three weeks earlier, I moved from WRBL to WTVM.

As a little boy who lived between 1956 and 1961 in the parsonage of Sherwood Methodist Church on 35^th Street, the idea of one man striking terror into our city was unthinkable.  People kept their doors unlocked in the daytime.  Men left toolboxes in their yards without fear of theft.  Kids walked or rode bikes to school.

When a police monitor blared out a suspicious call on a Friday afternoon in September 1977, none of us on the Action 9 News team had a clue we were about to experience the first chapter of a real life murder mystery.

Because most of us were editing other stories for the 7 o’clock newscast, Mitzi Oxford—who had just moved into the role as WTVM’s lead weathercaster—went to the scene.

Ferne Jackson, sister-in-law of the former state senator and future Columbus mayor Harry Jackson, was found dead—-strangled to death with a nylon stocking.  Ms. Jackson was 60.  A debate ensued in our newsroom and with other media in town as to whether the word “elderly” should be used as a descriptive adverb for Ms. Jackson.

At the time, we did not have a weekend newscast on WTVM but general manager Lynn Avery was concerned enough that he made a rare appearance onto our set during a commercial break.

Addressing my co-anchor and news director Kathy Pepino, Avery asked:  “Are you going to commission people to be on call in case something else happens?”  Kathy assured him she had things under control.  Avery was oblivious to the fact that he was still talking to us on live television, back turned to the camera, when the break ended.

I checked in Saturday morning. Kathy gave me the okay to go on to Auburn with my buddy John Hamilton.  We saw the Tigers take one on the chin against Southern Mississippi 24-13.  We talked a bit about Ferne Jackson’s murder on the drive back to Columbus.  Mostly, John griped about Auburn coach Doug Barfield’s playcalling.

Eight days later, I was called early on Sunday morning.  The fear was a second woman had been strangled to death.  A production videographer met me near Cross Country Plaza in front of the home of 71-year-old Jean Dimenstein.  Neighbors nervously walked around their yards amidst a plethora of police cars.

Realtor Charlie Morgan’s wife agreed to talk on camera.  She said, “What’s going on in our town?  We’re all scared to death.”  As much as I was glad to have the comment for my story, I questioned Ms. Morgan’s wisdom in offering it.

I talked to a couple of police officers.  They were reluctant to say anything.  One, however, told me Ms. Dimenstein’s murder fit the same pattern as did Ms. Jackson’s.

Eventually, I was sent to four of the crime scenes.  With each passing one, I became more emotionally nauseous.  Every time we heard certain codes on that police monitor, we questioned if this would be another murder.  Five more times, it was.

Over the next several months, I saw the best and worst of journalism in Columbus.  I also saw and heard the best and worst in our community.

The strong suit in Columbus media during those horrific months was relentlessness.  Police Chief Curtis McClung, a man I genuinely respected, was old school when it came to answering reporters’ questions about the murders.  He favored saying nothing.

Ultimately, the leadership of the Columbus Press Club—-which was headed by Ledger-Enquirer reporter David Everett at the time—-forced the hand of Chief McClung.  David Hopkins, a former WRBL reporter with law enforcement experience, was hired as public information officer for the Columbus Police Department.

Prayer vigils for the community and Sunday sermons addressing the rampant fear were on the rise.  As one who was a pastor’s son and understood the devout religious life in Columbus, I convinced Kathy that we needed to do a series of reports on the role of the church in helping the community through the crisis.  One of the first of the citywide services of unity was at nearby Wynnton United Methodist Church.  Little did those in attendance realize one of that church’s own would eventually be a victim.

Religion reporting is one of the most glaring deficits in local television newsrooms across the nation.  In 1978, the first of my 13 Associated Press awards for reporting was for that series on the church as a solace in a time of community crisis.

At times, we were sent on assignments that made us uncomfortable.  My videographer Lee Davis and I were sent to cover the burial service of one of the victims.  While we stayed at a considerable distance from the tent to shoot our footage, we could not escape the wrath of mourners who were aghast at our presence.

One woman, intent on giving me a piece of her mind, railed.  “You news people have no heart, no concern, no compassion for these people,” she said.  “The very idea of you showing up with a camera when this family is grieving.  I want you to know how I feel.”

As we drove away, Lee and I both expressed our misgivings.  “You know, a funeral service and a burial are a private thing,” Lee said.  “Aren’t you supposed to ask for permission to shoot video at something like that?”  I agreed.

“I didn’t like the way that lady chewed us out,” I said, “but I don’t blame her for being upset.  We just showed up.”

When we returned to the newsroom, we made the request not to be sent to any more funeral services or internments unless the victim’s family had given us permission.  I made that a policy several years later when I became a news director, even if every one of my colleagues disagreed with that decision.

At one point after the fourth strangling, I encountered my friend and former WRBL colleague David Eisen at a pizza restaurant.  We discussed having been mutually warned by police to examine the inside of our cars at night before entering them.

“I don’t unlock my door until I check the back seat and the passenger’s side up front,” David told me.

I followed the same procedure.  Concerns had been shared with us by some authorities that this serial killer might try to go after a journalist.  Reason existed to believe that he fit the profile of one who would watch news coverage of his exploits.  If he became angered at the reports, he could take his ire out on a newscaster.

Another debate ensued in the community and within newsrooms after the third murder over use of the label “The Stocking Strangler.”  Many callers were upset at the reference.  One scoured me about it on the phone.

“We don’t need to be compared with The Boston Strangler in Columbus, Georgia,” he said.  “All you’re doing is giving him more spotlight.  Don’t you have anything better to do than that?”  That was one of the nicer calls.

For a while, we compromised on a reference to “The Columbus Strangler,” but national media outlets, especially ABC News, solidified the name “Stocking Strangler” to our unknown villain.

The worst of our community erupted after retired teacher Martha Thurmond’s murder.  To a degree, the people who participated in a semi-witch hunt might have been forgiven because the entire city was desperate for an arrest.

One evening, between our 7 and 11 o’clock newscasts, we fielded approximately 600 calls in the WTVM newsroom.  A rumor spread like wildfire that led to people fingering a young man as the strangler and accusations toward journalists that we were protecting him.  The scuttlebutt followed a predictable pattern.  People knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody who knew the young man was the killer because he once was treated for emotional illness.

One of many calls I took went something like this:  “Y’all all know who did it.  Every last one of y’all know who did it but y’all are just covering up for him because his Daddy was a big name.”  Daddy, in this case, was a recently deceased Columbus television executive.

Many amateur armchair detectives put two and two together.  Their equation added up to an answer of eight but for about a month, a significantly vocal element in Columbus were certain the man’s son was the killer.  No rational or reasoned argument would convince them otherwise.  Even a man in my church insisted we were covering up the strangler’s identity.

Thank goodness social media did not exist 41 years ago.  The new generation of conspiracy theorists have raised the same name again online in recent weeks.

One of our women reporters, whom I considered to be a tough cookie and still do, took a call one night from a most irrational viewer who accused her and our entire news team of creating unnecessary hysteria.  The caller, a woman, called our reporter an unprintable name and engaged in a personal attack.  I never saw my colleague emotionally break down before or after that night but she exploded in tears.

We were all accused of attempting to use the story of the Stocking Strangler to further our personal careers.  One man let me know in no uncertain terms at a school Halloween carnival where I was judging costumes.

“You’re just sensationalizing everything so you can go to New York,” the man, who never introduced himself, said.  “I don’t know how I could live with myself the way you go on and on about these murders every night.”

I offered an edited number of those reactions for a column in 2004 in Electronic Media magazine titled, “The Viewers Don’t Always Get It Right.”

Not only were we not looking to go to New York, more than one of us pondered whether we might consider an alternate career.  The emotional toll was enormous on all but the most emotionless of journalists.  I often entered the newsroom at WTVM at 2:30 in the afternoon dreading the prospect of having to inform viewers of yet another murder.  In that day, no one considered the novel idea of employing mental health counselors to help reporters decompress.  We could have hugely benefited from their therapy in 1978.

On a weekend trip home to Kingsland, Ga., I discussed the prospect of getting out of TV news with my father.  He gave me his usual wise advice.  “If you want to do that, just be sure it’s not because you’re running from it,” he said.  “But you’re going to find it’s not easy in any other job you do, even in the church.”

My father, Rev. F.J. Beverly Jr., knew of which he spoke.  He dealt with at least a couple of troublesome congregations in his years as a pastor.

We had one brief moment of celebration during those eight exasperating months.  On a Saturday morning in February 1978, I was called to a home in the same radius where six of the seven murders occurred.  Ruth Schwob was a prominent resident of Columbus.  In her late seventies, Ms. Schwob did not even stand five feet tall.  Physically, she was as fit as any woman her age.  That fact saved her life.

At approximately 3 a.m., Ms. Schwob heard a noise outside her bedroom.  In the darkness, she sensed a figure approaching.  At the moment the intruder would likely have wrapped a nylon stocking around her throat, she took a desperation swing and popped her invader in the jaw.  That gave her a split second to hit a bedside button that triggered a loud burglar alarm.  Carlton Gary ran.

One sensed the 200,000 residents of Columbus collectively standing as one to applaud Ruth Schwob.  At 2 o’clock that afternoon, Ms. Schwob spoke with me briefly.  She managed a smile and thankfulness that she escaped a fatal attack.

WTVM still did not have a weekend newscast.  Television in markets such as Columbus was still a few years away from live remote units.  Lynn Avery opted to open up three minutes at 7 p.m. for a special report on Ruth Schwob’s survival.  I taped an open and close and narrated video of the police presence and gathering of people around Ms. Schwob’s home, inserting her brief comments.  I have no idea how Lynn arrived at a decision on adjusting commercial content in “Gunsmoke,” which we aired from 7 to 8 p.m.

Our sudden joy was about to turn sour.  The next afternoon, we were startled to learn that yet another victim had been claimed by The Stocking Strangler.  Only two blocks down the street from Ruth Schwob’s home, another woman in her late seventies—Mildred Borom—was found dead.  Police were certain the strangler went to Ms. Borom’s home immediately after he was scared away from Ms. Schwob’s.  The coroner placed time of death at approximately 3:45 a.m. the previous morning.

One visitor we saw frequently in Columbus was Bob Sirkin, the Atlanta correspondent for ABC News.  At one point, he was almost adopted as a member of Action 9 News when he came to town to file reports on the strangler.  One day, Bob showed us his technique of doing standups in his reports.  He recorded his transition on a small cassette recorder, attached an earphone inside his right ear and repeated what he heard himself saying on tape when he reported on camera.  I tried it twice and gave it up.  Saying what I was just saying on a recording created a distracting echo effect for me.  Nonetheless, Bob was a generous guy and once told us, “I can’t imagine what it’s like for you people to be doing this night after night with the whole city up in arms.”

At one point in 1978, I faced an encounter with my general manager which grew testy.  An old friend from college, Nadine Stewart—who later went on to work for NBC News and CNN—called me from Jacksonville.  Calling on behalf of her news director, Nadine asked if it were possible for me to do a story for WJXT on the effect of the stranglings on the city of Columbus.  My new boss Dave Richardson okayed it with the caveat that I not neglect my work for our newscasts.  I used a lot of file tape and soundbites from interviews which I had saved.  I shot one fresh standup closer.  I edited the piece in about an hour one evening after my workday was over.

The story aired on the Saturday night edition of Eyewitness News on WJXT, which Nadine anchored.  A little more than a week later, I was blindsided by Lynn Avery when I came into the building at WTVM for work.

“Do you have any explanation for this?” Lynn asked.

He immediately presented me with an envelope addressed to me on a WJXT mailing label.  “How many more of these am I going to expect to see?  How many more stations are you applying to?  Do you dislike it so much here that you’re trying to get out?” he questioned.

I was utterly stunned.  To be candid, WJXT was a station I grew up watching from the third grade through college.  Had I ever been offered an opportunity to work there, I would have seriously considered it.  I had no offer.  I had sought no job.  I loved WTVM and Columbus because the city was one of my two hometowns.  The envelope contained the tape on which I had done the story on the Stocking Strangler as a favor to Nadine.

“Why don’t we go in Dave’s office and I think you’ll have proof that this was not an audition tape?” I told Lynn with a combination of irritation and trepidation.  Our boss had largely treated me well but he also had a reputation for a quick trigger on employees.  Lynn was also paranoid about the job section in Broadcasting magazine.  For a period, he ripped out the employment pages before he released the publication for station consumption.

Dave Richardson confirmed that he had cleared me to do the story for WJXT and that, to his knowledge, I was not looking for another job.  Lynn left but exited with a mild warning that he never wanted to see another tape with another station’s mailing label addressed to me.

When Janet (Cindy) Cofer became the final victim of The Stocking Strangler in the spring of 1978, we had no way of knowing she was the last.  For months, we continued to work as if we had a perpetual police radio going off in our ears.

Reporters came and went over the next three years at WTVM.  Gradually, our attention drifted to other community issues.  In 1980, my colleague Andy Still and I collaborated on a documentary on political interference in public safety in Columbus.  A fire captain named Jeff Amerson became the central figure in the controversy.  Fire department whistleblower Frankie Fussell dramatically revealed in sworn testimony the demands of a mysterious orthopedic surgeon who ordered that the fire chief and several senior fire supervisors “have got to go.”  Andy and I were nominated for a DuPont-Columbia Award for that 90-minute documentary.

Eventually, I made a difficult decision to leave Columbus in late 1981.  Over the next two years, I made stops in Mississippi, in Spartanburg, S.C. (as assistant news director at WSPA) and Savannah, Ga.

In May 1984, I was in my first week as news director of WWAY in Wilmington, N.C.  My phone rang shortly before noon.

“Are you sitting down?” the voice asked.  I knew immediately the caller was Andy Still, who was now anchor at WSAV in Savannah.

“They’re having a police convention here and I went out to have coffee with (then Columbus police chief) Jim Wetherington,” Andy said.  “He was called to the phone.  When he came back, he said, ‘Looks like I’m going to have to leave early.  That call was about an arrest in Albany.  They think this may be the strangler.’ ”

For once, a name could be attached to the most infamous individual crime wave in Columbus history.  Carlton Gary would be extradited to Columbus.  Two years later, he stood trial and was convicted of the murders of three of the women he was suspected of killing.

I finally left daily television news in 1992 to become a college professor of broadcast journalism.  My parents retired to their native city of Waycross, Ga.

As the years rolled on, the conversation during visits to Columbus or Waycross would periodically revert to Carlton Gary.  At times, adjectives such as “despicable” and “vile” would be among the kinder ones to refer to the convicted Stocking Strangler.

As the years evolved into decades, residents in Columbus who had lived through the nightmare became weary with the legal system.  Appeal after appeal, motion after motion for a new trial, and attempts to challenge evidence from the original trial dragged on five, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 years after his convictions.  Twice over those years, I was asked to be a contributor to local news retrospectives on the stranglings and Gary.

Sure, people with adamant views against capital punishment held to their stand that even the most heinous of murders should not be punished with death.  Yet, when I returned for visits to Columbus to see family, friends or old colleagues, the prevailing view was of frustration that Carlton Gary was still alive.

Today, I supervise a daily newscast produced and anchored by my students at Union University in Jackson, Tenn.  Many times, when the situation is appropriate, I have woven stories for them about the odyssey of The Stocking Strangler.  Usually, those tales are in answer to the question of what was the most difficult story I ever reported.

Many people in the television audience have the misguided perception that journalists thrive on violence and death.  In their minds, a serial killer is fodder for a career to skyrocket and for ratings to soar.  Success at the hands of murder is the perception of some segments of the audience to journalists and television news.

My answer to that is for anyone to try measuring the many, many nights we left WTVM after the 11 o’clock news, arrived at our individual homes or apartments and could not sleep well.  Our worries were the same as the community’s as a whole.  I was a member of a church that had a number of senior-aged women who could easily have been targets.

Thursday night, as I watched the live reports from Jackson on both WTVM and WRBL on my Roku television set, I was struck by a stark notion.  None of the reporters assigned to cover the execution of Carlton Gary were even born when his rampage began.  They know what they have researched or been told about his dark mark on Columbus history.  Yet, they didn’t live it.  Emotionally, they have no idea what those months were like.

The word “closure” is almost becoming a reporting cliche.  I may add it to Twitter’s @TiredTVTerms.  I counted at least twelve times on Columbus stations Thursday night that reporters used sentences to the effect, “The execution of Carlton Gary will finally bring closure for the families and close friends of the victims.”  At one point, I said, “Will it?”  The popular perception today is that a conviction or an execution brings an end to the story.  Contemporary media perpetuates that idea.  With something as despicable as Carlton Gary’s mindless acts, the story may end for those writing the book.  Emotionally, closure never comes for people who lived through the fear and torment.

Two generations have passed since Carlton Gary first struck terror on a Friday afternoon in 1977.  All of the victims would now be more than 100 years old were they still alive.  A number of the seven women’s children have left us.  The grandchildren and great grandchildren no longer have to live with the worry of whether their ancestor’s killer will live or die.  Many of those who were the absolute closest to the victims left this earth without having any closure.

For those of us who lived, worked, reported, and feared those eight horrific months in 1977 and 1978, we can never truly close the door.  No, closure is not an accurate word.  Too many of us still want to ask the one question that will forever stump us about Carlton Gary:  why?  That answer now goes with him to his grave.

A So-Called Viewer of WALB Who Should Be Shamed and Ashamed, Whether He Realizes It

My long-time friend Al Fleming, a multiple Emmy-winner, won one of his statuettes with a commentary which began:  “In the news business, it’s been said to never, ever, ever answer your critics.”

Al explained he was inclined to let the issue pass but that he was about to take on the United States Army.  He did.  In one of the most powerful perspective pieces in any city in America, Al took off the gloves as if he were in a rematch with Ali vs. Frazier.

I am about to take on a single television viewer.  However, this one individual is a reflection of one of the sickest elements in social media since its invention.  Trust me, plenty more are out there like him.

Emileigh Forrester is a young weekend anchor and reporter at WALB in Albany, Ga.  I have a fondness for that station.  WALB is located about halfway between the two hometowns in which I grew up in the fifties through the seventies.  At one point, before all of the nutsy battles over compensation from cable companies, WALB was seen in almost every city in deep South Georgia.

WALB is one of those markets that for more than 60 years has been the lifeblood of local news for many rural areas of lower Georgia.  People in cities such as Sylvester, Tifton, Hahira, Valdosta, Ashburn, Nashville, Enigma, Fitzgerald and Hazlehurst have looked to Channel 10, the long-time NBC affiliate, for news and information.  No doubt, that has been exceptionally true during the past weekend with the threat of Hurricane Irma to WALB’s coverage area.

Emileigh is like hundreds of young men and women in television newsrooms across America.  Except during a couple of weeks of vacation during the year, her weekends are spent in a place that is far quieter than it is during an average weekday.  She has to fill two half-hours of news on Saturday and Sunday.  Emileigh has what has historically been known as a “skeleton staff” to help find enough local, regional and national news to deliver those newscasts to viewers who expect it, even if the content is largely softer than the Monday-through-Friday output.

If she is like many weekend anchors in small markets, she is reporter, videographer, producer, and editor.  Emileigh is in that professional period in which jobs like hers are part of the pay your dues years.  One with a solid work ethic agrees to such a role in the hope one can vault someday to a better-paying and more prestigious role either in the same station or one in another city.

Since my purchase of two Roku smart TVs more than a year ago, the NewsON app—one of the greatest inventions for a former news director—has allowed me to reacquaint myself with WALB, as well as a number of other stations across the country.  I watch the station’s newscasts a few times each month in order to reconnect with what is happening in the region of my roots.  Jim Wallace, an old college classmate from the unofficially labeled Bill Martin School of Broadcast Journalism at the University of Georgia, is WALB’s senior news anchor.

Occasionally on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon after football season ends, I click NewsOn over to WALB to catch one of Emileigh’s weekend newscasts.  I have always found her pleasant, engaging, personable and authoritative in her presentation.  One afternoon, I sent her a thumbs up message on Twitter as I periodically do with a number of young reporters and anchors across the country.  As a former professional in the field, I feel a calling to offer encouragement to the next generation of reporters and anchors.  I did so several times Sunday afternoon with reporters from WINK in Fort Myers, Fla., who were exemplary during their coverage of Irma.

The weekend just past was a rare one for the WALB newsroom and staff members such as Emileigh.  Hurricanes, or threats of them, rarely reach as far as Southwest Georgia.  Remnants, tropical depressions, maybe even the leftover tropical storm may show up.  This time, the path of a powerful storm had people who live in those many rural communities surrounding Albany on pins and needles and depending on the long-reliable news staff of WALB to provide accurate, frequent and consistent weather and safety information.

As I write this, I am watching WALB News 10‘s late Sunday evening newscast after the Cowboys-Giants NFL game on NBC.  In the first 12 minutes, I counted crucial emergency information for 11 different counties in the WALB coverage area.  That is exactly what viewers expect and deserve in a weather crisis.  Emileigh, as usual, carried the ball solo until she handed off to weekend meteorologist Andrew Gorton.

So, you ask, why all of this about one young woman among many in newsrooms in hundreds of cities toiling with a limited number of colleagues in order to keep people informed on Saturday and Sunday evenings?  A few times a week one of the jackal pack of dunderheads (I borrowed that term from Al Fleming’s award-winning commentary in 1979) demonstrates utter ignorance as well as abuse of the privilege of social media use.  Just read what was posted on Twitter by someone calling himself @Tblake762:

Well, well, well, Mr. @TBlake762, your brilliance and articulation are overwhelming.  If we had a Mount Rushmore for insolence and cruelty, you would be carved on it.

People like this have been out there well before social media was created.  They used to use an item called a landline telephone.  Just as on Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr, they would either often lie about their names or refuse to reveal their identity.

This guy, who claims to be a Marine, has exhibited enough mental skills to make Gomer Pyle appear to be a Rhodes Scholar.  What he did only energized the troops.  Look at some of the responses:

I am equally heartened by the WALB web producer.  Most of the time, difficult as it is, colleagues will just turn the other cheek.  In most instances, that is the right thing to do.  However, in this situation, I appreciated the retaliation:

As for Emileigh, she took the high road.  Trust me, even if you have been raised with the Biblical principle of turning the other cheek—as have I, the toughest thing to do when you are hit with a cruel slap in the face is to respond with salt and light.  Here is how Emileigh handled it—-and her web producer chimed in with another appropriate salvo:

I have never forgotten what happened shortly after I hired a young woman named Natasha as a reporter in 1991.  This was her first job out of college.  She had a great education and interviewed well.  I was glad to get her.

Admittedly, Natasha struggled in her first few weeks.  She had difficulty with speed and with editing skills.  I saw huge potential in her, so even though her early work was not up to snuff, I decided patience was the appropriate posture.

At the end of the third week, a call came after the 6:00 newscast from a viewer.  He called himself Charlie, though I doubt seriously if that was his name.  Twenty-six years later, I am paraphrasing this conversation but Charlie said something to the effect of:  “How come you can’t do any better than that new girl you have on there?”  In the next five minutes, Charlie proceeded to provide every generic reason why he did not like Natasha.  Then came the payoff.  Charlie had to throw in the firebomb that he didn’t understand why we had to have so many people who had the color of skin as Natasha.

I paused for a moment to collect my thoughts before I responded.  Again, paraphrasing, I said:  “That, sir, is something to which you and I could never agree.  You have just demonstrated the fallacy and insolence of your entire argument.  Since this is the direction you have taken it, this conversation is now over.”

I wonder what he thought over the next year when Natasha blossomed into an outstanding reporter with more and more confidence.  She overcame the speed issues and the editing deficiencies.  She broke some significant political stories, some of which had statewide impact.  She went on to a larger market and stayed in touch with me for several years.

I equally ponder what the @TBlake762s of the world will think when Emileigh’s career blossoms even more than the way it already is at WALB.  Then, again, he had his one evening in the Twitter moonlight.  That is probably all he cared about at the time.  Next time you look in the dictionary, see if he isn’t listed as one of the definitions of the word “cruel.”

What this guy does not realize—probably among many things—is that a large fraternity and sorority of journalists, both active and retired, will not sit back and allow a colleague be unfairly and unreasonably assailed.  The troops are on the warpath and we have Emileigh’s back.  

I retired from being an active news director 25 years ago and went into broadcast journalism education.  Yet, for the last nine years I have been a quasi-news director because I supervise a daily cable newscast on local television produced, reported and anchored by my students.  I will unequivocally say that I would have been proud to have had Emileigh Forrester as a student or on any of my news staffs when I was still in the daily TV news profession.  Further, I will at any time be equally pleased to use Emileigh’s work as a role model for my graduates who want to follow her into the field.

Emileigh, hold your head high, just as high as the road you took with @TBlake762.  What is gross?  Anyone who would take to Twitter to invoke such a despicable post fits the description.

As for people like him, remember the famous words of my good friend and homespun humorist Don Hudlow, who said:  “There are a lot of naysayers in this world…..and they’ve all been vaccinated with lemon juice.”

 

Combating Cliches in Television News

As one who teaches young people to enter the profession of broadcast journalism, I find interesting and often puzzling the things I have to do differently than I did 25 years ago.

For one, I struggle more and more to slow the pace of my students’ speech. I have no idea what happened a decade ago but, year by year, they talk faster and faster and faster.

They don’t just do it on the air. That’s the pace they address each other in conversation. I call it machine gun speech because they rattle out their words just about as fast.

I try to explain it this way: the viewer has one shot at hearing your delivery. They typically do not DVR newscasts. If you are delivering your copy as if you are in a hurry to get home, they will never grasp your information.

In years past, I often cringed or turned the channel when Jen Carfagno started at The Weather Channel. The young woman is popular enough now to be part of the early morning “AMHQ” team. I am sure she is a delightful person. When she began, she discussed cold fronts and high pressure systems as if she were racing a contender at the Kentucky Derby. How many times did I yell at the screen: “SLOW DOWN!” Someone must have worked with Carfagno. I can actually comprehend her detail now because her rate of speech has seriously declined from seven words per second.

A couple of weekends ago, I was watching the same network’s Saturday remote from an outdoor festival. Reagan Medgie, a correspondent for TWC, is engaging and pleasant. I am certain I would like her if I met her. However, she has a case of the Carfagnos from past years. When she tossed the segment back to Maria LaRosa and Paul Goodloe, so help me, I had no idea what she said, where she was or who she was because she was speaking at the speed of a hurricane.

Interestingly, some of my students give me pushback. “Well, that’s the way I normally talk,” I have heard more than one complain. That is when we go into the control room and look at their tape. Occasionally, I will bring in a colleague who will verify my assessment. Most pay attention, though begrudgingly at times. A few are just insistent that their high school flash-and-dash conversational rate of speech is acceptable.

The other challenge we face is to eliminate terrible use of the language, some of which the TV news industry has sadly adopted. Twitter has two identities, @tiredtvterms and @producerprobs. Both are dedicated to people like me who gripe about worn out clichés and bad phrases, even if we sound like old men in a rocking chair in front of a senior citizens’ center.

My biggest pet peeve is one I have been harping on for five years. When, oh when, are anchors and reporters going to stop using the ridiculous and incorrect phrase “went missing?”

Somehow, around the start of this decade, broadcast news adopted that phrase. Here’s how it typically is presented: “Thirty-two-year-old Brenda Kaddidlehopper went missing three days ago. Law enforcement authorities are asking for your help in finding her.”

To say one “went missing” or “has gone missing” is to suggest an active or planned intent by an individual to be missing. A person can be “reported missing” to authorities. You can say that same person “is missing.” Went missing or gone missing? Don’t ever say that in my presence. Yet, I will wager you will hear it on your local newscast in a matter of days.

On a similar note, I heard a new one last week. On the local news in the city where I live, an anchor received a press release from an area police department. I was emailed the same release. The anchor reported, “Police are searching for the whereabouts of 14-year-old ____________.”

Were police not searching for the girl? That is absolutely the first time I have ever heard a reporter state that officers were “searching for the whereabouts.”

I continue to cringe when I hear a reporter say, “Some 30,000 people marched in protest today.” I scream at my TV screen: “Which 30,000 people?”

More than 40 years ago, my major professor at the University of Georgia, the late Bill Martin, confronted “60 Minutes” commentator James J. Kilpatrick at a seminar about the inexplicable use of the word “some.” I’m paraphrasing but Kilpatrick said, in effect, “I don’t really know why we do it. I think we think it sounds good, so we do it.”

Here’s another irritant. I nearly come unglued if I watch morning television and the anchors switch to a reporter for a live segment on a murder, shooting or some other tragedy. The reporter in the field will, without fail, say: “Good morning, Jan and Richard.” Good morning?? When you are about to report on death or violence? Could we all agree to drop the happy greeting on the scene of disaster?

As for clichés, sportscasters are the absolute worst and I was one for 25 years. Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic, whose “Mike and Mike in the Morning” will soon end on ESPN2 after 18 years, are arguably the worst practitioners.

I wish I had $10 for every time either one has said “throw him under the bus” when a coach blames a player for a loss. I perhaps could retire before 2021.

As for another, I am convinced Golic invented the term “it is what it is,” an absolutely meaningless phrase he uses to describe something otherwise inexplicable.

When a team attempts to rebound after an off year, count on Mike or Mike to say, “They’re coming in with a chip on their shoulders.”

Once Greenberg or Golic establish a phrase enough times, count on the rest of the sports talk fraternity to adopt the same clichés ad nauseum.

News is not off the hook. During my first year in television news, I cannot count the number of times reporters would lead off stories depicting commemorative dates or events with, “It’s that time of year again.” I vowed never to use those six words in a news story. I never have.

I tell my student reporters if any of them send me a script that ends with “only time will tell,” that script will be sent right back until they come up with something original. That happened to me in the tenth grade when my English teacher Hazel Mancil returned a paper to me which ended with that very phrase.

I am also a curmudgeon about sentences that begin with the word “there,” such as “There are new tax proposals on the table from City Council.” I go back to one of the great English professors in history, Dr. Marvin Evans. He would toss back any paper that had sentences beginning with the word “there,” except in a direct quote. “There” is an existential. “There” is never a subject of a sentence, but always requires a verb.

Recently, I was watching a midday newscast on NewsON from the Southwest. A reporter actually said, “Police used firearms to shoot the suspect.” I had no idea an alternative form of ballistics had been developed.

Next time a hurricane begins making its way up the Florida coast, count how many times meteorologists or anchors will say, “Hurricane Otto is really packing a punch.” I never knew punches were packed. They are usually thrown in boxing matches or pier six brawls. I’d like to ask such people, “Did Otto pack his punch in American Tourister luggage (does that still exist?).

Thank goodness most news producers sent emails to their reporters last week after the O.J. Simpson parole hearing. The journalists were told not to say, “The Juice is loose.” Note that I said “most” news producers. Before the hearing, I saw this graphic on a local newscast: “Will the Juice get loose?”

In a few other choice examples of tired TV terms (and these are offered by interviewees as well as reporters), try these:

• At the end of the day
• It has a lot of moving parts
• There, you see it (a favorite of sportscasters when a graphic appears)
• Gave chase (to whom was the chase presented?)
• Using -gate at the end of a term to depict every major scandal. Forty-five years ago, Watergate sent us on this long path. Most producers or young reporters have no idea that Watergate is an apartment complex.

Here is one more for your consideration. I would like to send a year’s supply of sour milk to the person who decided the proper way to begin a response to a question is with the word “so.” I see this happening largely when younger people are interviewed on midday newscasts. I am also seeing this creep into reporters’ answers to anchor questions during a remote. So help me, in scanning newscasts last week, I saw an anchor ask, “When do you expect the next briefing from the police?” Said the reporter: “Soooooo, we think that will probably happen in the next hour and a half to two hours.”

Every once in a while, though, phrases can be a bit original and creative. The one depicted in the accompanying picture was developed for a story involving a robbery in Jackson, Tn.  Police ultimately discovered the culprit hiding in an abandoned home.  The official police report indicated that the man charged showed officers where he had hidden the $432 taken from a convenience store—-in a toilet.

A rather inventive graphic headline writer offered the phrase:  Johnny Cash? Robbery Money Found in Toilet.

When I saw that, I was reminded of the year Tennessee Ernie Ford hosted the Country Music Association Awards. He said, “When I was young, I dated a girl who was so dumb she thought Johnny Cash was money you found in the commode.”

Television news and sports often rely far too much on worn out clichés. Despite this cry from the wildnerness, those stale phrases will continue.

During the 40-plus years since I joined the television news fraternity, I have read many interviews with news directors who are newly-hired. At least six of them included the quote, “We’re going to tighten up on the writing.” Did that mean the writing was loose?  Was a rope to be used to make the writing improve?

Sooooooo, such is life in the TV newsroom.  Time for me to retire to my rocking chair in front of the Ralston Hotel in Columbus, Ga.  I will take one “Johnny Cash?” graphic for 100 “only time will tell” endings—-any time.

Yes, Depression Happens in the TV Newsroom, Too: We Have to Stamp Out Stigma (Part 4 of 4)

Ken Barlow is a meteorologist in Minneapolis-St. Paul on KSTP.  I have never met him.  Though he doesn’t know it, he is a hero to me.

Five years ago, Amy Carlson Gustafson detailed the day when Ken was emceeing activities concurrent to a walk for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).  Here is just a snippet of what Gustafson wrote in the Twin Cities Pioneer Press:

“He knew the time was right to share his own battle with mental illness. He believed these folks — many holding ‘End Stigma’ signs — could understand what the popular KSTP-TV meteorologist was going through.

“When I was standing up there, I was thinking, these people came here to end the stigma of mental illness, and I’m up here living one — I’m afraid of this stigma,” Barlow said during an interview in a Minneapolis coffee shop near KSTP. “I thought as I was on that stage two weeks ago, I’m not going to do this anymore, I’m not going to be ashamed. Two million people have this in the country, and millions of others deal with depression and other forms of mental illness. I’m not alone.”

Ken Barlow was 50 at the time.  Five years earlier, he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.  He would be the first to tell you that depression, which is not one size fits all, does not necessarily mean one is bipolar.  In fact, a small percentage of those who have depression have the dramatic mood swings that are classified as bipolar.

Ken is a hero to me because he has a large, captive audience in Minneapolis-St. Paul.  For him to reveal his struggles with depression in front of 4,000 people at that walk took a major step of faith and courage.

I shared in a previous installment of this series how I don’t feel my similar public revelation is significantly courageous because my father, who battled depression for his final 42 years, paved the way for me.  He began speaking out about his emotional illness in the 1990’s at a time when the stigma still loomed larger than today.

This blog series is not intended in any way to suggest that everyone who goes into journalism, especially the highly-intense world of television news, will experience depression or a related mental illness.

Despite its challenges and mentally-draining demands, a huge majority of those in a TV newsroom will never contract depression.  

What this series is designed to do is to open the eyes of corporate and local managements who often are too obsessed with the bottom line that emotional illness can and probably already has struck in your newsroom and you may not even know it.

Telling my own story in Part 3 is a call to any journalist who has experienced the lows of depression that it’s okay.  You don’t have to be afraid of it.  You don’t have to avoid seeking help for an illness that requires treatment in the same manner as dealing with the flu or pneumonia.  You don’t have to be reluctant to take medication to help you become whole again, even if you are on the meds for an extended period.   You are also not alone.  If you have a supervisor who even dares suggest you are not mentally tough if you have depression, then that person is speaking out of utter ignorance.  You have people who are speaking up in order to break down the remaining stigmas attached to depression.  I and the Ken Barlows of the world have your back.

Let’s examine a few things about the work and demands of journalists that make people who pursue that career vulnerable to emotional illness:

Constant Exposure to Death and Destruction

Reporters who are on a regular crime beat are going to face scene after scene of bad things happening to good and bad people.  At times, this can be gruesome.  Repeated exposure to the ugly side of life cannot help but affect one’s emotions unless one is inhuman.  Forty years ago, covering four of the seven murders of a serial killer in Columbus, Ga., had its effect on me.  After a few weeks of what became an eight-month saga, one began to shudder every time a police monitor would sound.  If a reporter does not have a personal diversion or hobby, constant witnessing and detailing murders, weather-related tragedies, or physical abuse can make one vulnerable to depression.

Time and Deadline Demands

We felt these in the 1970’s when local news was, at most, one hour in the early evening and 30 minutes in a huge number of cities.  Scrambling to deliver reports live, having to change and adapt lineups at the eleventh hour or even during newscasts, battling one’s competition for story breaks, and now having to do two and three hours of afternoon and early evening news in markets that realistically do not generate that much original news (and in many instances with no extra personnel to handle news expansions) is not how much of the rest of the world functions.  We either know that or soon realize it when we enter the profession.  Speed and deadlines are part of the job.  Yet, often the end result is a difficulty in winding down at the end of the day (or evening) because of the whirlwind on which one constantly is.  I visited with a journalist recently from a station that doubled its news time but only added one producer to handle the load.  Over lunch, I noticed the person’s hand literally shaking.  Nerves had built to that point because of stress and overwork.  None of these represent a path to strong emotional health.

Newsroom Conflicts

Conflicts are not unique to newsrooms.  One will find them in any profession.  However, because of the deadline pressures and—at times—ego battles over story assignments, story placement, or personalities, those conflicts can erupt into stress-inducing disputes that are rarely healthy.  Sometimes, they become loud and public. Trust me, I’ve seen many of them over the years.  When I was a news director, I periodically had to mediate them or break them up.  Regardless of your line of work, conflict environments often create apprehension or anxiety about going to your office.   Ongoing and unresolved conflicts are definite toll-takers.

Erratic Sleep Patterns

Again, this is one of these intangibles that go with the territory.  Sleep deprivation is one catalyst for depression.  For many news anchors and news personnel who work the late shift, namely the traditional 10 or 11 o’clock broadcasts, a challenge is to wind down after the news.  When I anchored at 11, I rarely could drop off to sleep before 1 a.m.  Too much cranks in the mind for too long during the day and night to immediately relax.  If anchors—male or female—have children, an early wakeup may offer the only opportunity to have any meaningful time with their families.  That often means abbreviated sleep.

Add to that the irregular sleep schedules for people who work the morning shifts.  When local television found a profit center before sunrise and gradually eased early morning news back to 4 a.m. starts, that meant producers and editors for the early morning began entering for their shifts as the late news team departed.  That means unnatural, erratic sleep hours that often are inconsistent.  

As Dr. Joanne Stephenson says, “Lack of sleep, inconsistent sleep, or unconventional sleeping schedules can play havoc with your emotional health.”

Inconsiderate or Abusive Bosses

Sure, they’re everywhere in any profession.  This is not to besmirch many good news directors who are fair and considerate with their staffs.  However, take a poll and you will know doubt find the most significant cause of turnover on news staffs is the cantankerous boss who appears to have a doctoral degree from the University of Unpleasantness.  If one has such a boss, the wear and tear on your emotions can mount.

The Superman Complex

If you will recall in Part 3, that’s what I was described as having when I tried to make up the deficit of personnel I had in Jackson by doing the work of the people I did not have, in addition to my own job.  Another type of Superman Complex is addiction to the newsroom.  At least one or two in every shop, especially single people, seem to be perpetually in the building.  Often, that is at the expense of any degree of personal life.  They become so consumed by work that they have no diversions.  Keep that up long enough and even a young, energetic reporter can be worn down.

Insecurity

I well remember my former co-anchor Kathy Pepino telling me, “This is the most insecure business you can be in, but most people are in it because they love it.”  Yet, insecurity is increasingly surfacing with media chain consolidations.  Look at the number of general managers already being replaced by the Nexstar-Media General merger.  Never have I seen as many news practitioners, including many competent veterans who have invested in communities, accept buyouts or take retirements as in the past 18 months.  In many instances, these have nothing to do with the abilities of the journalists.  Their parent companies simply want to pay less money.  When one is in the midst of an “am I going to be next?” environment, enter insecurity.  If that hangs on for an extended period, you are a candidate for a mood swing.

Relationship or Marriage Stresses

At the 1984 RTNDA convention in San Antonio, I attended a session on television news stresses on marriages.  The late Dr. Joyce Brothers was a member of the panel.  So was a veteran news director who had become a general manager.  His marriage ultimately broke up because of his intense focus as a news manager.  In the audience were a few wives of active news directors.  One of them stood and poured out her heart to Dr. Brothers about her husband:  “What do I do when I’ve been home all day, the kids have been acting up, we have a plumbing problem and one of the kids has come down with bronchitis?  He comes home, I want to have his attention and he wants me to tell it all to him in a minute and a half.”  The room roared, in no small part because some of the news directors in that seminar suddenly saw themselves in the woman’s description.

A special person is necessary to be a journalist’s spouse.  Not only is the reporter, anchor, producer or videographer on call 24/7 for breaking news stories, the requests to emcee events or participate in charity activities or judge competitions mount—all in the name of community service and promoting the station’s brand.  When too many of those demands pile up, spouses or significant others can feel alone or abandoned.  Cracks in the ointment of a relationship are personal.  One’s emotional health can be in serious jeopardy.

Alcohol or Drugs

In a previous part of this series, I detailed what appeared to be frequent ill effects from alcohol excesses affecting a few members of my staff.  As it is, alcohol is a depressant.  Yet, I worked with people whose after hours passion was to hit a bar.  A few turned to drugs.  A combination of the two can be lethal.  We have sadly seen a string of on-air journalists show up on TV Spy or TV Newser, as well as their local newspapers, arrested on DUI charges.  In addition to career jeopardy and personal embarrassment, habitual drug or alcohol abuse can lead to self-induced depression.

Professional Danger and Risks

We are indeed living in an age where broadcast journalists are more at risk than in previous decades.  The murder on live morning television of Alison Parker and Adam Ward of WDBJ in Roanoke, Va., was a wake up call for the entire profession.  Yet, I am not certain that we still don’t have some corporate managements operating with the idea “that can’t happen here.”  Meteorologist Patrick Crawford was shot on the parking lot of KCEN in Waco-Temple.  San Diego sportscaster Kyle Kraska was shot several times outside his home.  All of these were in 2015.

You cannot stop doing your job.  However, every journalist who goes out on a live shot has to be far more aware of his or her surroundings.  With some, that can lead to at least mild anxiety.  The relationship between anxiety and depression is closer than that of third cousins.

The laundry list could go on.  These are ten of the most significant elements that can be a trigger for depression for journalists.  Realistically, if one experiences up to four of these on a consistent basis, he or she could be a candidate for emotional struggles.

Twenty-six years ago when I had my first bout with depression, the only time this was discussed within a television newsroom was when a reporter was assigned a multi-part series (remember those?) on the subject.  People on news staffs who had the symptoms suffered in silence.  Gabriel Arana quoted a 16-year-old study that estimated up to 20 percent of journalists suffer from some form of depression during their careers.

Fortunately, the industry is doing a better job of responding to the problem.  A majority of employers in television news are now providing insurance coverage that includes visits for psychological counseling.  That was not true when I was still in the profession.  Since this blog series first appeared, I have been contacted by two journalists who told me their companies do not offer such coverage.

During the Orlando nightclub massacre last summer, at least two stations (and possibly others) brought in mental health counselors who were available for reporters and videographers who faced trauma or difficulty decompressing.  I have been told since then that stations in larger metropolitan markets exercise the same practice.  That is not necessarily true in the bottom 100 markets.

More news directors today are recognizing the need to provide reasonable down time for staff members when catastrophic coverage is required.  You can be a marathon man or woman but you have to realize a diminishing return mentally and emotionally once you go past 12 hours.  A fresh team is far more valuable than an exhausted one.

So what do I suggest are additional resources the industry should consider to help deal with potential emotional struggles that can lead to depression or related illnesses?   Consider these:

Keeping a certified psychologist on retainer

When a potential catastrophic event such as a hurricane, tornado, earthquake or mass violence breaks out, have an agreement where a counselor can come to the station to help the staff debrief and decompress.  In some instances, psychology faculty members from local universities could be utilized for little cost.  Some actually may offer themselves for community service that could be highly valuable support at tenure time.

Saturday seminars with a psychologist

Once and possibly twice a year, schedule a 60-to-120 minute session for the staff with a psychologist for a session of group therapy.  Sure, you’ll have your naysayers who scoff at it but they’ve probably been vaccinated with lemon juice.  No pressure and none of the kind of story analysis as employed when the news consultant comes for a visit.  I will wager a newsroom will function better mentally and emotionally with an opportunity to open up about tough days on the job with a counselor.  The staff will likely have a better road map to better cope with day-to-day challenges.

Making certain insurance coverage includes mental health visits

My university and many others offer five free visits to Pathways for counseling.  Some television stations offer similar plans but not all.  If employees know they can go in privacy for help, valuable preventive maintenance can be performed.  

Requiring managers, including news directors, to have training for mental health issues

If the research is true and 20 percent of journalists suffer from depression, the likelihood is that at least a few staff members will experience it.  At the very least, they could experience some form of post-traumatic stress disorder if they have to cover violent crimes or catastrophic events.  Sensitivity was once considered a sign of weakness in the rough-and-tumble mental toughness world of television news.  In today’s culture, insensitivity or a callous attitude toward depression is a black mark on anyone in management in any profession.

In developing this blog series, the idea was not to suggest I have all the answers.  Far from it.  All I can do is reflect my own experience with an emotional illness that usually requires medication, counseling and patience in order to recover.  One does not need a PhD to determine that the highly-charged, multiple deadline-driven, stress-induced culture of television news makes its practitioners at least vulnerable for depression at some point.

My personal mission is twofold:  to be a catalyst to stamp out the stigma of depression and to help save lives.  The only way we can achieve those is to have an open dialogue.  Ken Barlow was willing to speak up and tell his story.  I can guarantee that because he is a popular public figure, his impact in being transparent has resulted in more people than he knows seeking help.  

I may no longer be a daily practitioner of journalism in a television station.  Regardless, I still care deeply about the profession and its journalists.  As a broadcast educator who has experienced the lows of depression both in and out of the industry, I am sending young people into the field.  I still encounter younger producers and reporters in person and online who seek career advice.  I tell them all to try to enjoy the journey, despite its pitfalls and struggles.

I close with a personal note to any journalist, either broadcast, print or digital.  You are in a rewarding and honorable but stressful profession.  Those stresses, if not managed well, can lead to symptoms of emotional illness or depression.  I hope you never face it.  However, if you are diagnosed, immediately seek help.  If you are prescribed medication, take it and take it all until your doctor says you can cycle off.  Remember, some people have to take medication for the rest of their lives to combat heart ailments.  What’s the difference?  Your heart and your emotions have a reasonably strong connection.  Finally, be patient with yourself.  Recovering from depression is no quick fix.  Listen to your counselor and follow his or her direction.  God gave us psychologists and psychiatrists as well as medical doctors because all are necessary to treat the whole person.  Don’t run from depression because you fear stigma from people who do not understand the illness.  Stigma usually results from ignorance.  You only have one you.

As I tell every group I address:  you can’t get well if you don’t get help.

Yes, Depression Happens in the TV Newsroom, Too (Part 3: My Own Story)

Ten years ago, sharing this story would have been difficult.  Today, opening up about my personal bouts with depression over the past 26 years is essential. We don’t have a data base of exact…

Source: Yes, Depression Happens in the TV Newsroom, Too (Part 3: My Own Story)

Yes, Depression Happens in the TV Newsroom, Too (Part 2 of 4)

Depression is often referred to as “the silent illness.”  The symptoms are often more difficult to spot than a change in a wart or mole.  One does not usually have a noticeable cough or respiratory ailment.  A torn heart or emotion is not as easy to diagnose as a torn ligament.

Depression is also a silent illness because of the reluctance for victims to admit they have it, or to risk the stigma—though significantly less traumatic and inconsiderate than 40 years ago—of telling friends or family members they need help.

When one’s profession is television news, image is at least occasionally deceiving.  The demand is to be thorough, authoritative and convincing to an often incisively-critical audience.  The image with viewers is cultivated over months and years of familiarity, often no more than 90 seconds per night for reporters.

Viewers often have inflated views of the salaries of local television anchors and reporters (and let us not eschew those producers, videographers, assignment editors and production assistants who keep the daily machine going).  The on-air faces and voices are not supposed to have down days, sadness, or the blues.  After all—they’re all on TV!

Yet, depression strikes often as the Biblical reference 0f “a thief in the night.” Not until late in his life did we learn of how depression affected a journalistic icon, Mike Wallace.

After a career largely in entertainment until “The Mike Wallace Interview” on ABC and “Nightbeat” on local New York television in the late 1950s transformed him into a relentless, grilling interviewer, Wallace became the signature image of “60 Minutes” from its launch in 1968 on CBS.

Corporate executives and politicians enjoyed seeing Wallace headed their way as much as coastal vacationers and residents thrill to see Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel walking down a beach before an approaching hurricane.

The image of Mike Wallace was one of the ruggedly handsome, mentally-tough, unflappable journalist who never had a softball question in his preparatory notes.

In January 2002, Wallace publicly detailed his own personal struggle with depression in a story for Guideposts.  Eighteen years earlier, Wallace became the lead correspondent for a CBS News documentary, “The Uncounted Enemy:  A Vietnam Deception.”  The controversial report explored long-suspicioned details of commanders during the Vietnam conflict underestimating the size and strength of the Viet Cong.  

Many of the pointed allegations in the documentary were targeted at General William Westmoreland, who commanded U.S. forces in Southeast Asia from 1964 to 1968.

Westmoreland, at first, was highly critical of the broadcast.  Pressure after a TV Guide review of “The Uncounted Enemy” led to an internal ombudsman investigation that suggested CBS News producers did not follow prescribed network journalism procedures in all instances during the documentary.  

Wallace, himself, was not personally infected by the internal review.  However, he was well aware that as the face and voice of “The Uncounted Enemy,” his reputation could be potentially tarnished.

Gen. Westmoreland filed a $120 million libel suit against CBS and Wallace that went to trial.

“I felt I was on trial for my life,” Wallace told Dr. Jeffrey Borenstein in a 2009 interview.  The veteran correspondent listened to people he had never met and did not know attacking his integrity.  He confessed to being publicly humiliated.

The legal experience, Wallace said, led to his first major bout with depression.  

He detailed the progression in the Guideposts story:

Day after day, I sat trapped in room 318 at the courthouse, hearing people I didn’t even know attack the work I’d done…The truth, I was to learn from Dr. Marvin Kaplan, the psychiatrist I started seeing, was something I’d never imagined. My defenses were pretty much broken down by then. I told him about the trial; about the doubts that plagued me; about not being able to eat, sleep or enjoy the things I used to. “You feel as you do, Mr. Wallace, because you are experiencing clinical depression,” Dr. Kaplan explained.

Eventually, the depression sank to a depth that Wallace took sleeping pills in a suicide attempt.  Taken to a hospital, doctors pumped his stomach and revived him.

Immediately, he was sent for psychiatric treatment, though the official line from CBS News was that Wallace was “hospitalized for exhaustion.”

Extensive talk therapy and carefully-regulated antidepressants restored his emotional health, though he still experienced less severe bouts with depression in his later years.

Westmoreland dropped his lawsuit in 1985 after gaining negotiated admissions from CBS News about the lack of attention to network news guidelines.

Still, the entire experience had taken its toll on Wallace, who eventually returned to his 60 Minutes assignments.

That is but one experience of the pressures and risks of journalism that can lead to depression.  

The daily grind and constant exposure to death, critical injuries and the destructive side of life create a vulnerability to emotional illnesses and disorders for reporters as well as videographers.

Dr. Rony Berger, who directs the Israel Trauma Center for Victims of Terror and War has written extensively about the emotional challenges for journalists.

“They are at risk for developing symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which include flashbacks, nightmares, avoidance behaviors, anxiety and stagnation responses, nervousness, sleep disturbances and excessive physical tension,” Berger writes.

Berger also suggests that depression and exhaustion are potential long-term effects for repeated exposure to traumatic journalism experiences.  “Continuous work in pressured situations can lead to burnout, which is expressed by emotional and physical fatigue, a feeling of being overburdened and helpless, cynical behavior and callousness towards others and the self, outbursts of anger and a general lack of satisfaction,” Berger writes.

In a research project for the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia Journalism School, Dr. River Smith, Dr. Elena Newman and Dr. Susan Drevo collaborated on an examination of the effects of trauma and stress on journalists.

“Journalists frequently bear witness to human suffering whether covering mass disasters or individual atrocities; however, little is known regarding the impact of such exposure on the well-being of journalists,” they wrote.  “Researchers in the field of traumatic stress are only beginning to examine the toll this line of work may have on the health of journalists.”  (See details of report)

The Smith-Newman-Drevo project strongly recommends news organizations to do more to provide emotional and psychological support for their staffs.

“This may include educating journalists about the psychological risks involved in their line of work, decreasing the frequency and intensity of exposure to traumatic news assignments, and providing appropriate resources for coping with the emotional toll of these assignments,” the report concludes.  “Aiding connectedness to social networks within and outside of the organization may also be of benefit. As the news room culture shifts towards increasing organizational support and decreasing organizational stressors the likely result is reduced risk of harm.”

Those are the examples of a journalistic legend’s experience with depression and the academic and psychological studies.  Now, for the practicalities.

After I posted the first segment of this blog on journalism and depression, I received a number of emails from reporters and anchors from around the nation, particularly in smaller to medium markets.

Interestingly, the ratio of responses were 4-to-1 female to male.  One young woman said she had been a reporter for more than a year but was having difficulty adjusting to the amount of violent crime she was covering.

“I covered four murders in my first six months and several other crime situations that resulted in near-death,” she wrote.  “I knew that would be part of it when I became a reporter, but I didn’t count on staying awake at night trying to put some of these situations out of my mind, especially when children were affected.”

That’s a perfectly normal reaction, but with some news executives who have a traditional mentality, it’s either get with the program and accept this is part of the drill, or get out.

Another medium market reporter wrote to me:  “I’ve been dealing with some of the kinds of depression you wrote about.  Unfortunately, my company does not have visits for counseling in our insurance plan and I can’t afford it on my salary.”  

I made some alternative suggestions, but that very email pointed out a genuine issue that some news organizations still do not have as a priority.  Our own Dr. Joanne Stephenson at Union University explains it this way:

Depression is no different from a broken leg or an abscessed tooth.  It just happens to be your emotions rather than a bone.  What people fail to recognize is that emotional illness can be brought on by a physical breakdown, such as exhaustion or lack of sleep because of trauma from repeated exposure to violent or negative situations.  If you had a broken arm or a broken leg, you wouldn’t try to set it yourself.  Neither can you repair what causes depression without help.

On the positive side, my former boss Dave Richardson told me when he was news director at WTLV in Jacksonville, staff members did have insurance coverage that took care of up to five visits for counseling.  In the period since my first segment, I have learned that this is the norm in a majority—but far from all—-local news organizations.

A friend who anchors in the Orlando market told me when the mass nightclub shooting erupted that took the lives of 49 people last summer, station management was quick to consider the emotional well-being of the news staff.

“Our management brought in mental health counselors to help our people cope with the tragedy,” she said.  “Many of these were experienced reporters but they had never seen anything like this.  None of us had.  Some of our people had to have time to decompress.”

Talk therapy helped a number of these journalists get through the constant barrage of followup reporting that continued incessantly for more than a week.  The psychologists were also on call for emergency situations.

Earlier in this blogpost, I referred to the Dart Center.  Through its work, Columbia provides targeted counseling services for journalists.  Among the programs is peer group talk therapy.

In a blog entitled Stress Points, the group sessions followed Brian Kelly, a Canadian videographer:

Since it is a common attitude in the journalism culture to “just get over it,” learning how to talk empathically to fellow journalists was very important. He recognized that despite the different age groups of people participating, his peers had different levels of experience with trauma, different responses to trauma, and a fundamental openness to talk about it with empathy and respect for each other.

Kelly saw that he was not alone in his post-journalistic emotional reactions and was helped to see that others in his profession had similar experiences after dealing with violent and crisis situations.

As I see it, an operative phrase is that prevailing attitude in the journalism culture to “just get over it.”  That is not unlike the view of many in the outside world in confronting depression with friends or family members.  “Just snap out of it” is arguably the most frequently-offered cliche by mostly well-meaning people who have no understanding of what causes depression.

One proposal I raised in Part 1 of this series was for station management to bring in professional counselors at least twice, if not four times, per year for news staffers.  Group talk therapy sessions potentially could ease some of the emotional strain reporters face (as well as assignment editors and producers who are often in the daily enslavement to the phone and the police radio, which can take an equal toll).  With the symbiotic relationship between emotional and physical illness, such sessions could serve to save companies money from reduced stress-related employee absences.

In my personal experiences with depression, which may well have begun in a mild fashion in the mid-1980s, I experienced the culture that if one succumbed to emotional illness, one is not mentally tough.  That may be a Nick Saban view or a baby boomer male-dominated perception of depression but Saban—contrary to popular belief in Alabama—is not a god and baby boomer males did not always get it right.

Just as we are learning more about the impact of concussions on college and pro football players, we are learning more about the impact of stress, exhaustion and repeated exposure to traumatic situations on emotional illness.

Journalists are in that line of fire every day.  For every story on bicycle safety in an evening news lineup, another reporter will likely be detailing a tragedy.

In the current week of this blogpost, reporters in Tennessee have been confronted with unexpected tragedies.  In Chattanooga, the news staffs are still dealing with a school bus accident that left multiple children dead and others injured.  My friend David Carroll, long-time anchor at WRCB, has some personal reflections on his blog.  In Jackson, Tn., reporters had to cover a Thanksgiving Day stabbing at—of all places—Pathways.  The victim, a female medical professional, died.  On a day when most cities Jackson’s size focus on soup kitchens reaching out to the needy and long lines for Thundering Thursday afternoon Christmas shopping, a woman who worked at a place dedicated to healing depression and emotional illness, was murdered.

If you don’t think occurrences like that at a season of year when we are supposed to focus on peace, goodwill and giving don’t sting journalists, you are sorely mistaken.

Should their assignments carry them to exposure and followups to similar stories day after day, an emotional toll is taken.

Perhaps my friend Carroll expresses it best in the first paragraph of his blog:

My heart is hurting. We’re still trying to recover from the terrorist attack of July 16, 2015.  Five of our finest servicemen were gunned down just sixteen months ago in our backyard, near one of our busiest highways.  Let’s face it, we still haven’t made sense of that horrible act.  We will always honor their service, and their courage.  And now this. A school bus accident that has claimed the lives of six children. But as any teacher will tell you, they’re not just children.  “They’re my babies,” they will say.

Victims and the families they leave behind hurt.  Trust me, journalists do, too.

Part 3:  My own personal battles with depression and how I began the road back.

Active or Retired: We All Feel the Pain of Roanoke

AllIn my years as an active daily broadcast journalist, I was physically threatened three times.  One of those threats came from a man who made infamous history this summer—-Louisiana theater shooter Rusty Houser, who erupted at me via phone after he called a bizarre news conference in Columbus, Ga., 36 years ago.

In the ’70s, deranged or disturbed people were not randomly shooting innocent victims.  Yet, one learns early in a journalism career that the celebrity factor that accompanies appearing regularly on local television does carry with it a degree of vulnerability to danger.

A friend and colleague, Dave Stanton, was left with a crippling injury in the summer of 1977 when an out-of-control protester drove a car through a crowd marching about agricultural concerns in President Carter’s hometown of Plains, Ga.  Dave and CBS correspondent Betsy Aaron were the most seriously hurt.  Had the car swerved a few feet to the right, either or both of them could have been killed.

The moment I was alerted via email Wednesday of the senseless and brutal killing of reporter Allison Parker and videographer Adam Ward by former WDBJ employee Vester Flanagan, I realized several things:

—-In an earlier era, I probably encountered at least four and possibly a half-dozen situations of newsroom employee dismissals that led to inflamed emotions.  Had we been living in a period where random acts of violence had been more prevalent, we could have seen a similar incident.

—-All of us, whether active or retired in the journalism profession, share in the pain of the newsroom of WDBJ.   We didn’t work with Allison or Adam, but we have all worked with people like them who were young, vibrant, energetic and hard-working.  They had such promise for a huge future.  Had any of us seen colleagues like Allison or Adam suddenly snuffed out by a despicable act, our emotions would be overflowing with grief.

—-My former general manager Bob Lee is a retired GM of WDBJ.  No doubt he is feeling a sense of concern as if he were still the man at the helm.

However, the most vivid emotion I had Wednesday morning was of a news team who knew, worked with and loved these young victims.  The people left behind faced the near-insurmountable task of having to “go on with the show” while their hearts were breaking.

If you are not in television news—-and most people are not—-picture yourself having to be the one who delivers the news of a loved one’s death to a friend or a fellow family member.  Imagine working as part of an office staff in any profession and suddenly learning that a co-worker has been abruptly cut down in the prime of life.  In Jackson, Tn., where I live, a local bank staff faced that tragedy last spring when a gunman entered their building and shot and killed a former girlfriend who worked there.

If violent tragedy happens in a bank, a church, or an investment trading business—-and we have seen those occurrences in all of these locations in recent years, the victims and the staffs become the news.

What happened at WDBJ, the victims and the staff are not just the news.  Emotions of grief are no different to broadcasters or journalists than with anyone else in any walk of life.  I have no doubt that the WDBJ news staff had moments Wednesday and today in which they wished they could put up an on-air sign at news time that reads CLOSED IN THE MEMORY OF OUR FRIENDS ALLISON AND ADAM.

You don’t have that luxury in TV news.  Those grief-stricken people had to tell the most difficult story of their careers, the story of how their colleagues are no longer there to cover their next story, to participate in community public service events, or to see how far their careers would take them.

I have watched online today the courageous faces of WDBJ journalists fighting back tears, some successfully and some not.  I saw the outstretched hands of three anchors clinging to each other for support.  When anchor Kim McBroom said, “We’re going to try to get through this,” any of us who have ever worked in a newsroom were sending out collective hands of support.

As we have learned from social media posts, Allison and Adam also had personal relationships with people within the newsroom that will never have a chance to see a future or perhaps even a long life together.

I remarked today to a lifelong friend and former colleague Phil Scoggins of WRBL in Columbus a phrase that has become a cliche:  “We’re living in a different day.”  I added, “There but for the grace of God, it could have been any of us at any time.”

As a believer and a man of faith, I have prayed for the families and closest friends of Allison and Adam and their many co-workers who will have to press on despite cups running over with grief and having to deal with the inexplicable.  A large fraternity and sorority of fellow journalists they don’t even know are doing the same.

At some point in the future, circumstances will be right for people to once again laugh and relax in the WDBJ newsroom.  Right now, they don’t know when or what will trigger a return to normal.

Normal is something that will happen on the outside.  Inwardly, for a circle of colleagues who only try to tell stories about what happens in their Virginia community, normal will never be the same.

Depression: Yes, It Happens in the Newsroom Part I

In the summer of 2014, Robin Williams took his own life.  In the days that followed, we learned that a contributing factor was depression.

That set off the usual mad dash of journalists across the nation scrambling to find every local psychologist or psychiatrist to bring perspective on emotional illness.

That helped.  For three, possibly four weeks, we had a whirlwind of national and local conversation on the subject many still want to keep in the closet.  When that ended, television news put the topic back in the storage cabinet for a while.

Full disclosure:  I have had a serious bout with clinical depression not once but three times.  The first time happened in 1991 when I was a television news director—-not in a megamarket but in Jackson, Tn.  The second time was in 2010 while supervising a daily student cable newscast as professor of broadcast journalism at Union University.  In each instance, I needed at least six months before I resumed feeling like me.  Bout three was in 2014, a few months after the death of my father.  I spent 100 days in my hometown of Waycross, Ga., in 2013 looking after both of my parents during his ordeal.

I don’t make my experience the icebreaker of conversations with people I have never previously met.  Likewise, I do not run from an open dialogue about an illness suffered by nearly a tenth of Americans.  Those of us who have encountered depression not only can but must talk about it in an effort to help others who have it and don’t understand it.

When one is in a higher-profile profession such as television news, your on-air face and personality are what viewers see.  Their stereotyped vision of a communicator who visits in their home virtually every night filters out the reality that television newscasters are real people, too.  Journalists have bills to pay, experience challenges at home, lose loved ones and are exposed firsthand to the same types of negative news viewers often detest.

Psychological studies tell us younger people are increasingly vulnerable to depression, particularly in high-demand, high-stress professions.  Here are a few other key facts:

—-Women are more likely to have depression than men.

—-Vulnerability to depression increases with age, according to WebMD.com.

—-Mayo Clinic tells us one in five will experience some form of the disorder by the time they are 25.

Small-to-medium market news departments are populated heavily by men and women in the 22-28 age bracket.  Most of them are full of idealistic career goals, competitive fuel and boundless energy.

Still, look at the numbers: one in five young adults are likely to have experienced some form of depression by the age of 25.  Television news is a profession that can play right into the vulnerabilities.

In the mid-1980s, I flew back from the Radio-Television News Directors Association with a colleague from a much larger neighboring market.  He attended one of the same seminars as did I on stresses the newsroom brings to one’s personal life.  That session included a whirlwind, throw-on-the-dartboard exchange about depression.  Thirty years ago, the subject of emotional illness was largely compartmentalized.

“That was an interesting session,” my colleague said, “but in my newsroom or in television news in general, there’s just no room for someone with depression or any kind of emotional illness.”

I said, “Would it interest you that my father has battled depression off and on for 14 years—and he’s a minister?  I submit to you that the demands of administering a church, satisfying the sometimes fickle nature of a congregation and being on call around-the-clock in times of illness, death, or church members’ crises is every bit as stressful as running a TV newsroom.”

My friend admitted he had never pondered that contrast but I am fairly certain he didn’t buy into it.  I wonder what he thinks today.

My colleague at Union University, Dr. Joanne Stephenson, offers a weekly “Dr. Joanne” segment on our daily cable newscast “Jackson 24/7” produced by journalism students.  Dr. Joanne was a huge catalyst for my recovery from depression five years ago.  She says the newsroom can be a breeding ground for depression even in well-adjusted people.

“You have all the ingredients:  multiple deadlines, uneven schedules, frequently on call, competitive pressures, lack of sleep, difficult bosses, and repeated exposure to tragedy,” Dr. Joanne says.  “Even the best of us would struggle to maintain a balance in our lives to avoid tipping the scales toward depression.”

I am typically not a fan of The Huffington Post, but that online service offered a solid five-part series in May, “A Mental Health Epidemic in the Newsroom.”

Dr. Elana Newman of the University of Tulsa discussed journalistic stresses in the opening segment of that series.  “Almost all journalists are exposed to traumatic-stress experiences,” Dr. Newman said.  She included reporters who are among the first on the scene for automobile accidents, shootings, train derailments or other occurrences that potentially lead to critical injuries or death.

Here is another revealing irony by Gabriel Arana, who authored The HuffPost story:  “Journalists are notoriously reluctant to divulge information about themselves.”  Arana quoted from three different research studies that indicated:

—-85 percent of journalists encounter some form of work-related trauma

—-Up to 20 percent of journalists experience depression

—-Instances of nightmares, flashbacks, insomnia and anxiety occur frequently enough in journalists to take a toll.

Both of my bouts with clinical depression were largely triggered by exhaustion.  Read the textbooks about a typical Type A personality and fill in the blank with my name.  I inherited an intense work drive gene from my father.  I have a tendency to go at a pace that, candidly, is unrealistic for one individual.

In each instance, I saw the warning signs of a breakdown but was mired in that mistaken belief that I could “work myself” out of it.  I could not—-and paid the price.

I will detail more about the first bout in a later vignette.  In 2010, depression came on from a monster amount of overwork in supervising a five-a-week student newscast that can only replicate, not duplicate, the actual TV newsroom.  I failed to remind myself that I have students only for four hours a week, not 40.  Typically, they are carrying academic loads that include four other courses, all of which have a variety of demands.  Exhaustion set in and so did depression.

At the end of a noon broadcast in March 2010, Dr. Joanne waited until the students all left, looked me in the eye and said, “This……..is an intervention.”  I knew that had to happen.  I just did not know when.  Thankfully, Dr. Joanne was in the studio for an interview segment that day and pulled the trigger.  I asked how she knew I was in depression.  “I could see it in your eyes,” she said.  “You’ve been headed down this path for more than a month.”

I am an example of what happens when a journalism supervisor or administrator does what an old colleague at WRBL in Columbus, Ga., H.K. Johnston, once observed:  “Burnin’ the candle at both ends and runnin’ outta wick.”

Yet, the rank-and-file, those young, fresh out of college or three-to-six-year veteran reporters, producers and videographers are the ones on the firing line every day.  They are the ones who receive the 3 a.m. calls to cover an overnight fire or shooting.  They are the ones regularly exposed to crime or other tragedy.  They are the ones who have to find their niche in a competitive environment of egos and career-climbers.  They are the ones who encounter bosses who are sometimes under such stress to deliver ratings and performance that they neglect to get to know or understand their employees as people.

Managements of every television station in America ought to be paying attention.  The scenario I outlined in the previous paragraph and those earlier research statistics suggest the odds are at least one to three people in their newsrooms could be dealing with at least short-term depression or trauma disorders.

Before I left daily television news in the 1990s, not one station I worked for offered a specifically designated reference for counseling from a psychologist or a psychiatrist.  Some stations provided insurance that covered emotional illness; some didn’t.

Arana detailed the story of John McCusker, a New Orleans photojournalist who lost his home in Hurricane Katrina but continued to cover the destruction day after day.  The grind and exposure to the disaster took its toll.  McCusker was diagnosed with a serious case of post-traumatic stress disorder.  As in many cases with journalists and the vast non-news public, he was reluctant to admit he was ill.

“I didn’t feel I could show weakness because there were so many brave people showing strength around me,” McCusker told Arana in the HuffPost. “There is an element of not wanting to be vulnerable, wanting to project strength.”

One of my own observations about the television news industry is its parallel to my perceptions of those in college and pro football.  So much emphasis is perpetuated on being mentally tough that admitting to depression or any form of emotional illness is unfortunately regarded as a sign of weakness.

“There’s this notion you’ve got to be tough,” McCusker told Arana. “You’re a human being — don’t forget that. No one’s expecting you to be anything more or less than that.”

Dr. Joanne frequently debunks the weakness theory or the fear factor of admitting a need for help because of a still-existing stigma attached to depression.

“You wouldn’t try to do your own surgery on a broken leg.  You wouldn’t try to deal with an abscessed tooth yourself,” she says.  “We’ve got to get over this ridiculous notion that depression or any other emotional illness is any different than a physical illness.  Depression is often caused by things related to physical illness.”

One of the issues is a failure of broadcast managements, as well as some in other fields, to recognize the emotional toll television news takes on even the strongest staff members.

Only two of the stations for which I worked over the years offered a membership at a YMCA (in the era before fitness centers began to emerge on every corner).  At least in those instances, opportunities were available for physical exercise that is a strong antidote to stress.

Never was a local psychologist contracted for an in-house seminar to aid staffs on other countermeasures to reduce tension and stress that lead to depression.  Such a move may actually save companies money in employee illnesses and absences.

In my succeeding vignettes, I will share more of my own journey with depression during my years as a broadcast journalist and a journalism professor.  I will also approach depression from the perspective of young broadcasters, from mistakes managements make in recognizing warning signs of and possible interventions for emotional illness, and proposals to the entire industry on how to deal with a real illness that affects more people in television than anyone cares to admit.

Robin Williams died from the extreme ravages of emotional depression.  We talked about mental illness for a short while because he was Robin Williams.

We should not need the death of an international celebrity to have an intelligent, sensitive and open dialogue about emotional illness—-including its potential impact on television newsrooms.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

Coping with Tragedy: Yes, Viewers, Newscasters Do Have a Heart

I have never set foot in Missoula, Montana, though people have told me the country is beautiful there.

I had a loose connection with Missoula 35 years ago.  The company that purchased WTVM in Columbus, Ga., where I was an anchor and reporter, was headquartered in Missoula.  The new owners did not enter the building wearing cowboy hats.  One had a distinct accent when he talked about “how we do things in Muntenna.”

Other than its geography, life in Missoula may be comparable to that in Jackson, Tn., where I have lived for the past 25 years.  Both cities have populations of slightly fewer than 70,000.  Both are located along fairly large rivers.   Health care and education provide the largest sources of employment in each town.

One significant difference between the two is in violent crime:  two years ago, Missoula had one murder.  Jackson had 11.  Rare is the night when Missoula television news leads with a homicide.

The evening of May 6, one of those rare evenings developed.  Only not of the ilk imagined in the worst nightmares of anyone working in the newsroom at KTMF.

For those who have never worked in a television newsroom, the police monitor is the equivalent of a living person.  Reporters, producers and videographers commit numerical crime investigation codes to memory.  Assignment editors, arguably the most stressed individuals in any news operation, often have one ear peeled to the monitor while dispatching crews to a scene.

Two weeks ago on a Wednesday evening, if events unfolded as they typically do, a call ensued on the police radio at KTMF.  The street address was 314 Brooks Street.

Missoula is currently the 165^th largest television market in America.  Only 45 markets are smaller.  Cities the size of Missoula have a touch of Mayberry.  People tend to know more people.  A trip to a Walmart takes less than 15 minutes.  Television newscasters are not just local celebrities.  They become members of the family.   The average Joe and Mabel feels comfortable approaching an anchor or reporter by first name in Albertsons or Safeway.

In a television market the size of Missoula, the newsroom is frequently populated by young journalists in their first jobs, all hoping to climb a ladder they hope will take them to the big-time or at least the medium-time.  Some members of the anchor team are people who have chosen to make their homes in a smaller city because their spouses and children have a comfort with the landscape.

When journalists are in their twenties, few have dealt with death.  The percentages of them who have lost a parent or immediate family member are small.  In Missoula, since murders are so infrequent, deaths reported on KTMF usually involve prominent citizens or past political leaders who pass from natural causes or bouts with cancer.

I was not in the newsroom at KTMF on May 6.  However, I have little doubt more than one voice was hushed if the words “314 Brooks Street” rang a bell.

That was the address of KTMF news director Kalee Scolatti.  Kalee was the exception to the rule of most people her age in television news.  In reading news accounts in the last two weeks, I learned that Kalee was a graduate with honors of the University of Montana in 2005.  She went to work for one of the local television stations after graduation.  Stories tell of her work in production that eventually segued into the newsroom and culminated in the role as KTMF’s chief news officer.

Kalee pursued a career track that I often tell my students at Union University is an admirable one.  She stayed home.  I told a group recently, “You don’t have to go to New York or Chicago to be a success in broadcast news.  Wherever your journey takes you, you may find the town that becomes home for you and it may be a smaller town.  You won’t make as much money as you will in a larger market, but as long as you work hard and you’re happy, you can be an equal servant to your community in Panama City as one is in Philadelphia.”

No news directors, no anchors, no producers, no journalists worth their credentials ever harbor a desire to become the story.  Some viewers don’t like us because we often have to report unpleasant occurrences.  Some hold grudges because an investigative light is often cast on political or other community leaders involved in wrongdoing.  Those alleged perpetrators have friends.  Friends are often loyal even when their pals are guilty of malfeasance.

Even still, in the Missoulas, the Jacksons, the Dothans or the Macons of the world, viewers tend to look on television newscasters as people they would love to ask over for supper.  Carol Goldsmith of WYFF in Greenville, S.C., is one such news anchor.  Former WYFF producer Michelle Baker once told me, “Women love Carol because they know she is a mother and she connects with other moms.”

Kalee Scolatti was a mother of three.   In reading some painful narratives during recent days, we learned that Kalee was having a troubled personal life.  Her husband was no longer in the home.  Yet, no one could have foreseen the events of May 6.

In the last decade, news reports on domestic violence have become a standard.  They were even before the sordid stories unfolding from the National Football League last year.  Some cities were slow to answer the bell because small towns are supposed to be immune from such things.  Yet, in 2015, one might suspect even Mayberry might house a couple of domestic abusers.

Last fall, my students—-whose daily newscast Jackson 24/7 is a staple of local cable—-engaged in a week-long emphasis on domestic violence in West Tennessee.  They learned as much as they reported and interviewed.  They learned domestic abuse cuts across every racial and cultural boundary, every age bracket, and every occupation.  Sometimes, the results end in tragedy.

In February 2014, those same students were forced to deal with an incident that will forever remain with them.  Some of them were barely 20 or 21.

Union University does not have the enrollment of The University of Montana.  Union is a private Southern Baptist institution, not a state school.  For more than a century, students have referred to “the Union bubble,” an imaginary shield that they sometimes mistakenly believe shields them from the real world beyond campus.

Violent crime does not happen at Union University.  At least it did not until the morning of February 12, 2014.  A music major with a healthy set of friends was found dead of a bullet wound in her car on the parking lot of a building across from the main Union campus.  Olivia Greenlee was to have graduated the following May.  She was engaged to marry fellow Union student Charlie Pittman last August 9.

Three days after Olivia’s body was found, Pittman was charged with her first degree murder.  He has pleaded innocent.  A judge has given him a final deadline of June 8 to change that plea.  If Pittman maintains innocence, his trial is scheduled to begin September 27.

Paigh Lytle and Kelsey Graeter were the anchor team for the noon edition of Jackson 24-7 the morning after Greenlee was found dead.  As was the case with many Union students, Paigh and Kelsey knew one or both of the two young people involved in the tragedy.

At the time, investigators still had not ruled Greenlee’s death a homicide.  Outgoing Union president David Dockery agreed to appear with Paigh and Kelsey on that noon newscast.  When he met me in the hall before entering the studio, I knew from the expression on his face that Union was about encounter a first and not one that would be included in the school’s future public relations materials.

Paigh and Kelsey appeared shaken but asked the difficult questions of Dockery.  To his credit, he answered every one of them, most of them without the typical p.r. spin one might expect of someone in his position.

When the broadcast was over, Paigh and Kelsey were both emotionally over-wrought.  Both had to leave to compose themselves.  When they returned, we had a discussion about a painful lesson they had just learned.  If you pursue journalism for a career, at some point you will likely have to report a story that challenges everything that is within you because you are acquainted with or are friends with the central figure or figures involved.  One simply does not expect that to happen as a junior in college.  Regardless of where Paigh or Kelsey or their Jackson 24-7 colleagues ultimately land, their world was forever changed.  The Union bubble had burst.

The culture in any young television newsroom is often comparable to that of people in any profession who have to work as a team.  Because most of the reporters are under 30, they have an emotional sense of invincibility.  Regardless of the menu of any given day’s news, some espirit de corps is required to deliver the nightly output.  Some days, people like the news director; other days, people would like to wish the news director into a cornfield, a la the classic Billy Mumy episode of Twilight Zone.

I was not in the newsroom at KTMF or one of those in the news car that drove to 314 Brooks Street May 6.  I do know that the sense of detachment that occurs from covering many tragedies all too quickly evaporated.  Once word spread via phone or texts to others in the newsroom and those who were already home for the evening, the culture of KTMF was forever changed.

Kalee Scolatti and a family friend, Anthony Dupras, were dead.  As we learned from police reports in the days that followed, Kalee’s estranged husband entered the home.  At some point, she called Dupras, whom she had frequently referred to as a brother.  Investigators say the evidence indicated when Dupras arrived, Nicholas Scolatti took out a handgun and shot Kalee, Dupras and himself.  Nick Scolatti died two days later.  The Scolattis left behind three daughters.  Dupras had two sons.

How the anchors of KTMF managed to deliver the news to Missoula that night I will never know.  Active news directors aren’t supposed to die, much less become the victims of an alleged murder.

We live in a vastly different world than the one in which I became a rookie reporter in the mid-1970s.  Seven years ago, Anne Pressly—a reporter-anchor for KATV in Little Rock—was sexually assaulted and brutally murdered in her apartment.  Last December, Patrick Crawford—a morning weathercaster at KCEN in Waco, Tx., was shot three times on the station parking lot.  He survived.  In February, San Diego sportscaster Kyle Kraska was shot ten times through the back window of his car.  A month later, Kraska miraculously returned to his job at KFMB CBS 8.

Within a day and a half, the story of Kalee Scolatti’s untimely death was in The New York Daily News, The Los Angeles Times, and the U.K.’s The Daily Mail and The Guardian.  Missoula rarely is the locale of news outside of Montana.

Often, viewers mistakenly are of the opinion that broadcast journalists have no heart and no soul.  They are moreso of that mind of network newscasters, but the adversarial relationships occasionally filter down to the local level.  As one of my former students and long-time WBBJ anchor Keli McAlister told a gathering at Union last year, “There’s no textbook that prepares you for the first time you take a phone call from an angry viewer.”

Having been on the working journalist side and in an administrative role for 19 years, I am acutely aware of the emotions of a newsroom.  People on a news staff have bills to pay, have to deal with frozen pipes and stopped-up toilets, have worries about children, struggle to determine how to finance college for those same kids, battle illnesses, experience depression (a subject for an upcoming blog entry) and deal with deaths in the family.

When a fellow staff member, whether the boss or a peer, not only dies but is apparently murdered, one does not simply put on the game face and report the facts.  Once I read the story of Kalee’s death, I knew hearts were breaking in the KTMF newsroom.  Those hearts would not mend in a matter of days.

Union is a Christian university.  We believe in God.  We believe in prayer.  I told my students of the tragedy in Missoula.  I asked them all to pray for everyone in the KTMF newsroom, as well as the families affected by the tragedy.  They did.  As I told them, “You want to be where they are soon.  Just as we experienced with the sad story of Olivia and Charlie last year, those people are hurting.  They don’t know you but they need to know others are thinking of them.”

I knew no one on the KTMF staff, but I reached out via e-mail to the first anchor on the station website, Angela Marshall.  I shared the story of what we experienced 15 months earlier and the emotional stress for Paigh and Kelsey.  Here is an excerpt of my communication:

 “Unfortunately, times come when you have to tell unpleasant stories to a waiting audience even if your heart is breaking inside. I know many questions will continue to be asked that end up with that one-word question “why?” in the next days and weeks concerning Kalee’s death. 

         The answers may not come to the emotions of your team as quickly as the answers will for police investigators.  You can’t just turn off the pain and the grief inside, all the while having to maintain a sense of professionalism to your audience.

        Just know that one who has sat in your seats for many years and has been teaching a sense of journalistic and personal values to college students for 23 years is thinking of all of you and has you in my prayers.  My students likewise offered a prayer for your entire news team after our broadcast today.”

A few hours later, I heard from David Winter, Angela’s co-anchor:

“I left the business for about 20 years and recently rejoined the Fourth Estate,” he wrote.  “Having reported last in San Francisco before leaving the business, I was exposed to a lot of crime reporting.  Now that I have “retired” to Montana… and for the most part to the anchor desk… it was unusual circumstances that led me to be the one on the scene when I learned my friend and news director had been killed.”

David offered me something to pass along to my students.  “As painful as this story was to report… EVERY tragedy that we cover is just as painful for the people on whom we are reporting,” he wrote.  “Disassociation with the stories and the people we cover is often used as a defense-mechanism to protect our own feelings.  But too much disassociation can lead to callousness, and a disservice to our stories, their subjects, our viewers, and perhaps most importantly to ourselves and our personal relationships.”

How right he is.  An occasional rogue reporter views tragedy as a stepping stone to the next big job.  Most I know, thankfully, have a breaking point because they do have a heart for the people who are victims of murders, fires, or domestic violence.  That’s not a loss of objectivity.  That’s being a human being.

As I write this, KTMF’s online page now offers stories on an upcoming school bond vote in Missoula, students in Bozeman who are building wheelchairs for children in Mexico, and a clinic which serves people who cannot afford proper dental care.  The world and Missoula have had to move forward.

Yet, still on the “Most Popular” bar is a link to Remembering Kalee Scolatti.  A video remains with a montage of the good memories of Kalee and what she meant to her station, her colleagues and her friends.

Eventually, Remembering Kalee Scolatti will disappear from that website.  Yet, the memories of Kalee will never go away from the hearts and minds of the people who work for KTMF.  After the night of May 6, the lives of those who make television and report news every night to Missoula and its neighboring cities and counties will indeed never be the same.

The Sweeps: Calling All Psychologists

When you are a wide-eyed college journalism senior, as I was in 1976, you have three things in your sights:  1) finishing all-night final projects; 2) making certain not to sleep through any of your finals; and 3) landing a job, preferably in your chosen field.

Nearly 40 years ago, college communications textbooks contained nothing about The Sweeps.

Most of us thought sweeps were guys who did what Dick Van Dyke’s character Bert did in “Mary Poppins.”  Sweeps were also four-game victory strings on a weekend homestand for the New York Yankees.

My first experience with The Sweeps in a television newsroom made me realize the concept of continuing education was a novel one.

October 30, reporters, anchors, producers, videographers, news directors and general managers in local stations from Glendive to Atlanta entered into a quarterly 28-day ritual.  Those four weeks test the patience of the most adjusted of humans.  At times, people yell and throw things.  Other times, people yell and want to throw other people.  In tense moments, people yell and actually do throw other people.

In extreme cases, the collective result of that month can mean the difference in one’s employment.  If things turn sour, some of the aforementioned practitioners could end up as the equivalent of what is about to happen to Brady Hoke at The University of Michigan.

Such is the journey known as The Sweeps.

THE SWEEPS:  A BRIEF PRIMER

The origin of “the sweeps” dates to the 1950s when two ratings service companies, Nielsen and Arbitron—-one of which has vanished from the practice, engaged in a “sweep” of local television markets for four weeks four times a year to determine the viewing habits of an often-fickle public.

Television sweeps have more flaws than faces with pockmarks.  The whole concept is remarkably silly but persists because the advertising community and broadcast managers continue to agree to it, or spin the argument that they cannot develop anything better.

For an industry on which the flow of advertising dollars and the job status of thousands of people ride, sending a paper booklet called a diary to a few hundred homes and accepting the validity of hand-written records of program-watching is mind-boggling.

WHEN THE SWEEPS GO ASTRAY

More than 30 years ago, my managers at WSAV in Savannah, Ga., actually traveled to Florida to physically view the diaries.  This was shortly after the February 1983 sweep in which ABC carried the blockbuster miniseries “The Winds of War” and CBS aired the two-and-a-half hour finale of “M*A*S*H.”

WSAV had not received the anticipated boost in ratings from the ABC multi-night drama.  Management was more than curious as to why.

At the time, Nielsen awarded credit for viewership on the basis of the call letters registered on the diary.  On more than a scattered few of the booklets, a viewer listed “The Winds of War” but credit was given to the CBS affiliate because that diary-keeper wrote WTOC as the station he or she was watching.

Management suggested, in a paraphrased emotion, “We’ve got a bunch of idiots filling out these things.”  Yeah?  After further review, the painful reality could have rested in the failure to market the station call letters successfully to viewers.

The system, to be honest, has been refined in the last 20 years.  The largest markets in America are electronically sampled on a daily basis.  Yet, the continued emphasis on a quartet of four-week sampling is still ridiculous.

With bluetooth and sensor technology, the television industry has the capability to measure the viewing patterns of virtually every human in front of a screen in the United States every second of every day.  Perhaps that will eventually happen, but the gut feeling (something not exercised in the broadcast industry often these days) is in the year 2050, television managers, advertisers and ratings service companies will continue to put their eggs in November, February, May and July.

THE SWEEPS:  MY FIRST EXPERIENCE

My maiden voyage with The Sweeps was with a practice that is now a dinosaur in television news departments.  My first news director, Dick McMichael, at WRBL in Columbus, called me in to instruct me in “how to do a five-part series….it’s a proven winner in television.  You’ve gotta do one for February.”

Only the people who were interviewed in “Growing Up Is Hard to Do” remember it.  Not even I remember much about it and I am one of those blessed with a memory many others wish was not one of my personal gifts.  The concept was to profile teenagers both as individuals and in a group as to the struggles of growing up in the rough-and-tumble world of the 1970s.

What Dick wanted was for me to find the dregs of teen life for at least one or two parts of that five-episode monument.  The term “gang” did not have the context it does today.  They were not an active element in Columbus, Ga., in the day.  When you tell high school principals or guidance counselors what you’re doing with a project such as this and ask, “Don’t give me your straight-A students,” they comply.  They give you their A-minus students.

When the rating “book,” as the ratings report is called, for The Sweeps in February was delivered, I discovered something interesting. The week in which “Growing Up Is Hard to Do” aired, “TV3 Eyewitness News” actually scored one rating point higher than the previous seven-day period.  Definitely the reason was because of my wonderful reporting.  None of the other news stories in Columbus during those five evenings had as much impact as my visits with high school kids.

WHEN “THE WHAMMY” INTERCEDES DURING THE SWEEPS

To all of you who are current producers, reporters, anchors or administrators in television news—-if you think you have it rough during The Sweeps, I sincerely hope the following mini-chapter will lighten your load and your mood.  Feel free to laugh, cry, commiserate or send sympathy cards.

The most ridiculous and insipid sweeps “stunt” (another glossary term for a gimmick you would not try at any other time of year or wish on your grumpy uncle at a family reunion) in which I was ever involved nearly forced me to voluntarily leave the profession.

The man responsible is one whom I have never forgiven and never intend to see, speak to, or associate with for whatever days I have remaining on Earth.  His name, which I unabashedly reveal, is Ed Bewley.  Ed was indeed the epitome of The Whammy, the old animated character that cost you whatever bankroll you had amassed on the CBS game show “Press Your Luck.”

I had been spirited away from WRBL to the enemy trooops—-the ABC station WTVM a few blocks up the street on Wynnton Road.

While still at WRBL, I had my first encounter with The Whammy—-my moniker for news consultants.  Telcom Associates, one of the lesser-grade advisory groups, was hired to modernize the look of WRBL News, redo the set, give us a new and exciting name (“Eyewitness News,” what a renaissance title) and make us look more hip (something that was next to impossible to do in a station where “the WRBL image” was more institutional than the Supreme Court).

Dick sent us a memo that read, in short, “Telcom is not coming in with a broom.  They’re here to help.”  I wanted to ask, “But, Dick, if they’re basically going to tell us what to do during The Sweeps, how can they do that without a broom?”  Dick would not have appreciated my brand of humor (he does now, as I thoroughly enjoy lunches with him on my return visits to Columbus).

Five-part series, you say?  Yes, that went the way of the prime time entertainment miniseries.  No one would do “Roots” today.  The five-parter gave way to the three-parter, then the two-night series, then the one night special report touted by promos such as:  “Is glass in the food of your child’s school cafeteria?  An I-Team special report at 11.”

WTVM employed what was considered the crown jewel of consultants—Frank N. Magid and Associates.  I had read the mini-biography of Mr. Magid and why he started his business to tell TV news departments what to do.  I never did learn the first name of his partner Associates.

Occasionally, some of Mr. Magid’s Associates decided they could do what he did better than he did.  So, they proceeded to break away from the exciting city of Marion, Iowa, and start their own news advisory firms.

Ed Bewley formed “Ed Bewley Consults,” which sounded like “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” or “The Bee Says,” that talking toy with a string Mattel released in the 1960s.

Ed Bewley Consults begat The Media Associates which begat Audience Research and Development, known today by people who speak such languages as “AR&D,” or by people really in the know as “ARD.”

HEADED FOR THE PROMISED LAND:  “ON LOCATION”

In January 1978, Ed crafted an idea that had to come from a government agency.  Only official Washington could have developed such an inefficient, complex idea that was destined for failure.

The four members of our anchor team—-news director Kathy Pepino, the world’s most dangerous weathercaster Mitzi Oxford, and our sports director were called in for a motivational session about this monster project that was going to propel us to the Promised Land in the February sweeps.  We were leading the ratings at 11 o’clock but in the Eastern time zone, early evening was where the premium advertising revenue tree was harvested.  We trailed by a full 10 rating points at 7 p.m., where we went head to head with WRBL.

This transformational event in Columbus television history bore the exciting name of “On Location.”  Not even Kathy exhibited unbridled enthusiasm when she introduced the project to us.

The game plan:  WTVM would rent a large Winnebago.  For six weeks, Kathy, Mitzi, the sports director and I were to prowl the hinterlands, shoring up the audience base of 15 rural counties in West Georgia and East Alabama surrounding Columbus.  We would be literally “on location” from Monday through Thursday every week from January 15 until February 28.  The assignment, should we decide to accept it, was a combination gladhanding, backslapping excursion combined with story gathering in each town.

To navigate all of this, we would have to leave each morning between 7:30 and 8 a.m. and not arrive back in Columbus until 4 p.m.  Oh yes, we were still expected to do the 7 and 11 p.m. news every night.  After all, this was The Sweeps.

Do the math.  Four days of each week, we would be pulling 16-hour shifts plus a regular eight-hour day on Fridays.  Unless Jethro Bodine is calculating, that adds up to 70-hour work weeks for six consecutive weeks.  Perfectly normal in the television news business.

This all may sound like a glorious opportunity to engage our audience, a term which was yet to be invented.  However, I challenge you to look at those dates again:  January 15 through February 28.  Mind you, Columbus, Ga., does not have the same first-of-the-year weather as Toronto or Anchorage but neither is it South Florida.  The temperatures in midwinter can still test one’s stamina.

My internal reaction, which I did not immediately express aloud, was Georgia winters had a history of being both cold and wet.

Mitzi, one of the most delightful people you will ever meet, was rarely as diplomatic as was I.  She asked without hesitation:  “Kathy, why aren’t we doing this in April and May when it’s warm, people are out doing things and you have so many community events?  We’re all going to get sick.”

Ms. Oxford, a year younger than I, had no idea how clairvoyant she was.  Or perhaps she did.

THE GRAND VISION

Ed’s original vision was for us to speak at civic clubs, community organizations, or schools, visit industries, and do interviews with the local radio personalities.  In addition, we were expected to develop two or three stories in each town and air them on the same night in which we visited.  Mind you, this was in the days before live trucks in a city the size of Columbus.  Promos would tout, “Action 9 News….ON LOCATION in Eufaula….tonight at 7!,” in the grand scheme of Ed’s big picture.

Common sense, not often a prevailing trait among local television executives or News Whammies, finally surfaced.  WTVM only had one video editing station.  We had four other reporters who would be toiling away at the station scrambling to commandeer time to edit the real news in Columbus and other cities where the Winnebago was not invading.  Some editors were fast.  Others were akin to the horse that trails the rear in the Kentucky Derby.

“Kathy, there is absolutely no way we can come back at 4 or 4:30, knock our people out of turn in the edit bay and air these stories on the same night.  We only have one down day every week and we’re going to be exhausted,” I semi-boldly pleaded.

Seeing another opening, Mitzi added, “Explain to me how I am going to have time to find my soundbites, edit a story and prepare my weather for 7 o’clock.”  Oh yes, this was in an era where another gimmick had Mitzi doing the weather outside, rain or shine, on a patio set behind the WTVM garage.

Kathy conceded the logistics required a sensible compromise.  “Ed said we have to do this and Lynn agreed to it, so we’re going to have to do it….but I have another meeting about this and I will bring all of this up.”

Lynn, by the way, was our general manager Lynn Avery.  Three years earlier, Lynn had upset the applecart both inside the station and in many parts of the city.  He fired the station’s long-time anchor Al Fleming.  Soon exiting were veteran weathercaster Penny Leigh and sports director Jim Koger in favor of a youth movement.

Our team was actually Act II of Lynn’s plan.  Fleming’s first successor Tony Windsor left for Jacksonville, Fla.  Penny’s replacement Rich Baumann departed for private business.  A heavyweight personality, sports director Gary Hogan, found greener pastures in Little Rock.

How the second configuration came to be is for another blogpost.  Kathy later confided to me over a greasy supper at Captain D’s next door to WTVM that she did not like the entire idea of “On Location,” but Ed had convinced Lynn that “if we execute it right, we’ll be number one.”  Kathy was inwardly nervous.  This was her first shot at being a news director.  If the Winnebago project failed, she could easily become the fall lady.  So could the rest of us.

THE SWEEPS:  SIX WEEKS OF SHEER EXHAUSTION

Kathy negotiated a compromise.  We would be given a one-week lead time to edit our stories from each city.  In each of our goodwill stops, we would reinforce to viewers the specific night the pieces would air.

The other key piece to the puzzle:  I would have to drive the van.  Mind you, this was not a small crankout camper.  This was a full-fledged motor home of the ilk as a grand prize in the showcase of “The Price Is Right.”  I had never remotely driven anything larger than a 1967 Chrysler Newport Custom.

When that Winnebago was delivered to the station parking lot, I gasped.  When I managed to drag myself to Lynn Avery’s office to ask why I would be the chauffeur, he didn’t mince words.  “Ray’s had a couple of accidents and I don’t trust him with it,” he said.

Ray?  That was our sports director, Ray Bewley.  If the last name sounds familiar, he was the younger brother of the architect of “On Location.”  Ray was and still is one of the most easygoing, affable guys you will ever meet.  In my view, he was the 180-degree opposite of his brother.  If a fire was moving down a hall, Ray would just walk past it and say, “That’s not so bad.”  I always thought Ed spoke like a research project.  I used to joke that Ed probably wouldn’t decide which foot to put on the floor first in the morning if he didn’t consult a focus group.

One other tidbit:  because I was the driver, I was mandated to travel all 24 days of the project.  To provide some respite for the others, Thursdays were designated as a day of rotation.  One Thursday, only Kathy and I would go.  The next Thursday, Ray and I would tag team.  The following Thursday, the woman who could have been one of my relatives, Mitzi, and I would grace the tour stop.

I was given a list of battleground cities that were key to our ratings performance.  My additional assignment was to spend my mornings at home lining up the personal appearances.  I logged more than 40 phone calls but somehow, we had bookings everywhere from Auburn to Opelika to Cuthbert to Americus to Plains to Hatchechubbee.

I deliberately made our final stop Callaway Gardens, the tourism showplace in Pine Mountain, Ga.  I figured whether “On Location” was a gamechanger or a bust, the four of us were entitled to one day in a spectacular locale.

Here’s something else about driving a huge Winnebago in the winter.  Those things take forever to heat.  The dealer from whom the station leased the motor home told me I would need an hour to warm the vehicle for comfort.  That meant if we were leaving out of Columbus at 8 a.m., I had to be in the parking lot at seven to fire the engine.

Remember what I feared about the weather?  Sure enough, that first morning the temperature was 34 degrees at departure time and the skies were anything but blue.  We encountered the first of 16 days of rain during the six-week excursion.  On none of those days of what seemed to be ceaseless showers did the temperature reach 50 for a high.

January 15, 1978, the four of us and production photographer Steve Curry felt like the passengers on the S.S. Minnow.  If memory serves me correct, we were so giddy toward the end of “On Location,” we actually sang the opening theme from “Gilligan’s Island” as we headed out of the city limits of Columbus.

Our first stop was Auburn, a 45-minute drive from WTVM.  The next morning, we hit neighboring city Opelika.  The newspaper which serves the two cities is The Opelika-Auburn News.  However, you were told immediately that the two cities had their own identity.  Opelika was Opelika.  Auburn was Auburn.  “We are NOT Opelika-Auburn,” declared the Auburn Chamber of Commerce director.

In Opelika, we encountered our first indication that this would not all be goodwill.  Our host was a rather imposing man, Henry Stern.  Kathy and Mitzi were retrieving their purses to leave the Winnebago.  “Come, come!” Henry shouted.  “Industry is waiting!”  About a half-hour later, Henry gave us a laundry list of items about which we were not to discuss before a civic club.  That kind of instruction smacks of censorship to any journalist.  We all agreed outside of Henry’s view that we would not adhere to any of his restrictions.  Mitzi looked at me and said, “How did you get us hooked up with this guy?  Are you sure his name isn’t Stern Henry?”

In Americus, only seven miles from the boyhood home of President Jimmy Carter, the four of us were asked to participate in a panel discussion at the local high school.  We soon discovered this was an unexpected trap.  This was not just a student audience.  A group of parents appeared and they were hotter than a July afternoon at the news media.

Less than a year earlier, my former station, WRBL, did a controversial report on a young teacher who was accused of physically abusing a child in her class.  The parents called the reporter, Jack Kendrick—a good friend and colleague who had moved on to Mobile.  They produced pictures which revealed raw spots on the child from where she was allegedly excessively spanked.  The teacher and her attorney refused to talk.  Almost everyone clammed up until the principal finally agreed to speak a week later to WRBL in the interest of presenting a balancing side to the story.

The teacher was, by all accounts, loved in the community.  She had the full support of the principal and the superintendent.  In the subsequent trial, she was exonerated by a jury.  Yet, the experience left her so shaken she left Americus.

Mind you, this was not WTVM’s story.  The station did cover the trial.  Nonetheless, people in Americus—a town of 14,000—were hot at anything remotely resembling a reporter.  So, we absorbed the punishment for a rival’s journalism.  We never received a thank you note from our friends at WRBL.

Three weeks into “On Location,” we had our first casualty.  Mitzi, worn down from marathon days and nights, coughed her way through an 11:15 weathercast.  The next day, she was diagnosed with pleurisy.  She was on the disabled list for four days.

The next week, Kathy was stricken with quasi-pneumonia.  Her doctor said she didn’t have it but may as well have.  Kathy went on the Missing in Action list for three days.

During Week 5, I was in the middle of the Monday night 7 o’clock broadcast.  Suddenly, my mouth moved and only a whisper came out.  I sounded more like Redd Foxx pitching to a reporter’s package.  I handed the copy to Kathy and told her I had the clammiest feeling.  If she would finish the stories in that block, perhaps I would have enough for the second segment.  That was wishful thinking that would not be fulfilled.  By 7:30, I knew I was running a temperature.  The reading was 102.3.  I was out from 11 and for the next two days.

Lynn was becoming increasingly irritable that his anchor team was dropping like flies during The Sweeps.  This is the same man who once came down to the newsroom when one of our team members developed laryngitis and was incapacitated.  He stuck his face right in front of Mitzi and shouted, “I’ve never missed a day of work or a day of school in my life and I don’t expect any of you to.  Do you understand that?”  Mitzi calmly responded, “Yes, Lynn.”  He wasn’t through.  “I said, ‘Do you UNDERSTAND THAT?'” For a moment I thought he was impersonating Frank Sutton’s Sergeant Carter on “Gomer Pyle, USMC.”  Mitzi, answering as if she was a platoon member, yelled, “YES, LYNN!”

One of the funnier moments came in the final week.  On the previous Thursday, Ray and I were the twosome in Eufaula, Ala.  He said, “Well, you know, I’m the only trouper out of all of us.  I haven’t missed a day.”  Four nights later, Ray reported the happy news that he had a temperature of 102.  We did not see him until Wednesday.

THE VERDICT OF “ON LOCATION” DURING THE SWEEPS

We managed to air all of our stories one week after we visited each town.  Some of us came in early on Friday to edit, though we craved sleep.  Occasionally, we would drop in on a weekend afternoon and piece them together.

If you want to have a real gauge on whether what you are presenting in a newscast is compelling, ask your production crew.  They are not focused as journalists.  They have a critical job to do but they watch a news broadcast far more as a conventional viewer does.

My barometers at WTVM were our two top directors, Spencer Cleaveland and Ron Luker.  Three weeks into “On Location,” Spencer called me off after an 11 o’clock newscast and asked, “Why are y’all doing this?”  I asked what he meant.  “I mean all of these soft, warm and fuzzy stories in all of these towns,” Spencer said.  “This looks like PM Magazine, not news.”  A couple of days later, Ron echoed Spencer’s evaluation.  “Steve, I like what you bring to the table with us,” Ron said, “but this is all fluff.  It’s like things we’d do on the morning show.  They may think this is going to bring up the ratings…..but I don’t know.”

That was a red flag to me.  Those two guys were equals as team members, even though they didn’t work in the newsroom.  I confided in our producer and my good friend Cliff Windham.  If anyone was a rah-rah cheerleader, it was Cliff.  He just did not sense a groundswell of enthusiasm for “On Location.”

After six weeks, 1,800 miles on the road and four casualties, “On Location” was mercifully over.  Only in the final two days did the temperature ever rise above 55 degrees.  Mitzi did research and determined January and February 1978 were the coldest of those two months in 12 years.  We kept scratching our heads as to why we could not have postponed this to the spring.  Ed’s argument was because February has the largest number of television viewers.  He was right about that.  Had he looked into the eyes of the worn out anchor team, perhaps he would have realized something different.

The Book, in those days, arrived at each television station exactly three weeks after the final night of The Sweeps.  The Book resembled a small magazine but it was like a detailed version of the report card we all received every six or nine weeks when we were in school.

The optimist in me naively wanted to believe “On Location” would turn the tide at 7 o’clock.  If it did, it would likely mean I would be taken seriously as a lead anchor at the perilously young age of 23.  The realist in me kept hearing the voices of Spencer and Ron.  People in my church kept telling me how much they enjoyed the features.  They all knew me.  They were not the gauge of the community at large.

On a Thursday at 12 noon, I received a call from Cliff.  He was not prone to call me unless we had an emergency situation.  “Steve, The Book is in,” Cliff said, almost milking drama except his voice—unless he was pulling a surprise—did not suggest victory.  “From what I am told, we did our worst ever at six o’clock since the Action 9 News format has been in place.”

Two hours later, I was in Kathy’s office.  She showed me the results.  We had fallen from 10 points behind to 12 points down at seven.  We still had a slim lead at 11 but that was not what Lynn spent thousands of dollars to achieve.

No one was fired but word filtered down that blame was being assigned.  Kathy told us Ed expressed to Lynn that the execution of the project was all wrong.  Mind you, a news consultant has never accepted responsibility, to my knowledge, of failure.  Either the talent is wrong, the presentation is wrong, or the execution is wrong.  Anything to get another contract.

Within a few months, however, change came.  Kathy lost the news director stripes but continued as the lead co-anchor for another year.  Ray, perhaps sensing a tidal wave at hand, transitioned to a role as marketing director for Callaway Gardens.  Mitzi, who rang the bell with viewers, continued on weather but we soon moved her out of that outdoor environment after she was nearly struck by lightning when a vicious thunderstorm erupted a minute before one of her forecasts.

I was ushered in and told I was not mature enough to compete in the lead role as anchor.  The station wanted me to continue as a reporter, which I did for the next four years.  In retrospect, I do not disagree with the assessment.  I was going against two veteran heavyweights twice my age in a city with an older demographic population that valued experience.  Even though I had lived in Columbus in my childhood years, I did not have the professional experience, nor the connection with enough of the community to be a genuine competitor.  Five to seven years later, maybe.  Not at 23.

THE SWEEPS:  EPILOG

The Winnebago went back to the dealership the day after “On Location” was finished.  We finally returned to a traditional sleep schedule and revived our energy levels.  Mitzi came in to the edit suite—actually a converted closet—a week later and said something that allowed me to find a slim silver lining out of what was a physically and emotionally debilitating experience that did not end well.

“You know, I know we’re all exhausted and we don’t want to see another motorhome any time soon,” she said, “but if there’s one thing I enjoyed, it was being around you. You’re a good guy.”  I had only worked with my colleagues barely seven months.  When I came to work at WTVM, they only knew me as that Sunday night anchor on the other station.  When you travel for six weeks to a cornucopia of small towns and spend 72 hours a week with them, you either come away with relationships torn to shreds or you bond.  Thankfully, we bonded.

I have maintained a lifelong friendship with Kathy and Mitzi.  In the 36 years since “On Location,” I have only seen Ray at an Action 9 News reunion we staged in 1998 but he was the same affable guy he always was.

Four decades later, I still look at “On Location” for what it was—a gimmick.  It was one of the excesses that leads to justifiable criticism of television news.

In my opinion—and at age 60, I feel robust and uninhibited in expressing it—it was also a distraction.  We were removed from the function of reporting genuine news that made a difference in all of those communities.  Instead, we aired a travelogue.  We shook many hands and made hundreds of brief acquaintances but did that result in throngs of people making WTVM their appointment station for news?  In a word, no.

The real rainbow appeared two years later.  With a change in general managers and a commitment to serious journalism that challenged the establishment and some of the excesses, including some government corruption, in Columbus, viewers began slowly migrating to us.  After a calculated error in management by WRBL in 1980, WTVM toppled the long-dominant leader in the market.

The Sweeps are an anachronistic animal that creates pressure on TV news departments to artificially hype stories and presentations they do not necessarily offer in non-sweeps months.  Yeah, yeah, you can go to MediaPost.com or Broadcasting and Cable and read the pontificating thoughts of news and station executives who will defend to the death the value of The Sweeps.  So be it.  The same arguments will continue to be made years after I and the current generation of journalists are gone.

However, if you are employed in a television news department and are feeling added stress during the month of November, just remember this:  you don’t have to drive a Winnebago through backroads and barren country highways at 7 a.m. in the morning in the midst of frigid temperatures.  You don’t have to smile and wave at people who begin to look alike over six weeks.  More than likely, you won’t contract pleurisy or pneumonia.  You probably have to deal with The Whammy but it wasn’t the same Whammy we experienced 36 years ago.

The Whammy?  Oh, he was finally shown the door the following year.  Kathy’s successor managed that in a him-or-me showdown.  I suppose he was out of gimmicks to execute his grand vision for Columbus television news.  I went my way.  He went his.  We are both better off for it.

If The Sweeps get to you in your newsroom, don’t worry.  The Old TV News Coach will be glad to refer you to a good psychologist in your town.