50 Years Ago Tuesday: A Night in American Political and Network News History

https://youtu.be/xTeW-wkin6A

This is another interesting week in the transition of life for baby-boomers.

Jerry Mathers (The Beaver) turns 70 June 3, 2018

Already, we’ve shared that today, June 3, is the 70th birthday of Jerry Mathers, an icon of the TV Generation. In our TV minds, The Beav is still between 8 and 14 years old, depending on the rerun we watch. I commented to a friend today, I wonder if Beaver at 70 would be able to get out of that big bowl of soup on a billboard in the legendary “In the Soup” episode.

Tuesday is the 50th anniversary of a dark day in the spring of ’68 and American history. Within the span of five days in April 1968, Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek a second full term as president. That was on a Sunday night. The following Thursday, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis. June 5, 1968, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy won the California Primary. Moments after leaving the ballroom where he delivered his victory speech, he was shot and later died at the hands of Sirhan Sirhan.

Robert and Ethel Kennedy moments before his California Primary acceptance speech June 5, 1968

My colleague Stu Shostak shared with us footage from YouTube of ABC News’ live coverage of the California Primary returns, the victory speech and then the awful news of the shooting (Kennedy died approximately 28 hours later).

This was a different era in politics. Most states in the late 1960s still did not hold primaries to select delegates for the national conventions. In 1968, Sen. Eugene McCarthy stunned the country by finishing within two percentage points of President Johnson in the opener, the New Hampshire Primary. That opened Kennedy’s eyes to a vulnerability in the incumbent. Shortly thereafter, he announced his candidacy and entered the remaining primaries.

Two things led to Johnson’s withdrawal in a Sunday night address to the nation that ostensibly was to announce a new strategy in Vietnam. One was the strong performance of McCarthy and Kennedy’s entry into the race. Second was Walter Cronkite’s series of reports from the battlefront on the CBS Evening News. On the final evening, the Friday before Johnson’s address, Cronkite delivered a rare personal commentary. By that point, Cronkite had overtaken Chet Huntley and David Brinkley as the top-rated anchor in network news. In his perspective, Cronkite suggested that the best the United States could hope for in Vietnam was a negotiated truce. A number of books and other published accounts quoted Johnson as saying to his wife Lady Bird and his close associates, “If I’ve lost Walter Cronkite, I’ve lost the country.”

Two nights later, in a dramatic addendum that was not included in advance copies of the speech to the media, Johnson uttered his famous lines, “I shall not seek, nor will not accept another term as your President.” CBS News correspondent Harry Reasoner, anchor of the late-night CBS Sunday News, reflected first on the stunning news of Johnson’s departure from the campaign instead of the Vietnam strategy.

RFK’s California Primary acceptance speech June 5, 1968

Kennedy, largely on name value, overtook McCarthy in the primaries where both were entered. McCarthy won in Oregon where Kennedy had not campaigned. The X factor was Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

In 1960, Humphrey badly wanted the Presidency but ran out of money after several primary losses to John F. Kennedy. Humphrey accepted the number two slot with Johnson in 1964. With Johnson out of the way, Humphrey opted to enter the race in 1968; however, Johnson’s late decision was past the deadline for Humphrey to enter any remaining primaries.

ABC News covers RFK’s victory speech for the California Primary June 5, 1968.  Note that ABC was still in black-and-white for remote live coverage.

Humphrey was forced to go the traditional route of negotiating with Democratic Party bosses such as Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. CBS News estimated that even with Kennedy’s victory in the California Primary, Humphrey would enter the Democratic National Convention with approximately 1,200 of the needed 1,340 delegates for the nomination. Kennedy would have slightly more than 1,000. The battle between the two to cross the finish line may have been one of the most epic in American political history. We could have seen a brokered convention or perhaps a delegate vote that went beyond the first ballot (something I have not seen in my lifetime).

Howard K. Smith of ABC News reports on the shooting of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy

This historical ABC News coverage takes you back to that fateful night in 1968. I was about to enter my sophomore year of high school. This was the first week of summer vacation from school. As a young political junkie, I sat up after midnight to hear Kennedy’s victory speech for the California Primary, then went to bed. I awoke the next morning to around-the-clock news coverage of the shooting and perpetual analysis of whether Kennedy would survive.

We will never know to the degree this changed political history. Even if you are not a fan of politics, I encourage you to watch this as a snapshot of history.

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 (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)

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.