Journalism

The Eye Opening Story Assignment

~ Donald J. Lund

I loved being a newspaper guy.

It was vastly different than radio.  I found it fascinating that I could report the same exact news story on both media outlets and yet, all feedback was from the written word, never from a broadcast.  It was about 50-50 with sports, but somehow, if it was news, it had to be written down to be official.

Of course times are changing, with print newspapers disappearing from the earth at a frightening pace.  I was lucky in my time there since so many people actually read what I wrote.

I earned my first death threat from writing about a college football coach who pushed the boundaries of NCAA rules.  It was pretty funny overall, but not for the guy who worshipped the coach.  The unhappy reader first wrote me a letter and told me he was going to kill me.  And then he followed up with a phone call.

At that point, I offered that death threats over the phone are probably a bad idea, since calls were put into phone records.  There was a moment of silence and then, an “Oh. I’m sorry.  You just really shouldn’t have written that stuff about a coach that I love, who did a really good job as a coach.”

He then provided his name, and apologized again.  I explained why I wrote what I wrote, he grudgingly agreed the coach pushed the rules around, and requested I try not to be so mean in the future.  I agreed.

Another time, a guy walked in wanting to throw punches based on how I criticized the umpires at a baseball tournament.  I stood by my words, as did the managing editor.

I had two really good managing editors, who alway backed me up.  Even when I made mistakes or pushed the existing boundaries of journalism at the time.  The best journalism is presenting facts and allowing your audience to make their own conclusions.  My opinion made it in every now and then beyond opinion columns or op/ed pieces.

My first managing editor taught me all I know of proper journalism.  He needs to teach a great number of sitting journalists out there these days who don’t seem to observe any of the objective rules or ideals of reporting.  That aside, he also gave me an assignment I hated.  At least I thought I did.

The paper was doing a special section on weddings.  One of those things that is build as a special place to sell specific ads.  To me, it had zero journalistic value.  I had pictures of horrible things to take with my camera.  Fires, car accidents, vandalism and maybe a ribbon cutting or two for a new business.

I had no time for fluff pieces for a giant advertising section!

The editorial staff even came up with a standing joke for a lot of out work, that we were not writers, we were in fact, “ad surrounders” – all our stuff was to fill in around the furniture sale ad in the corner.

My short straw draw for the wedding issue was to find a couple that had been married for 50 plus years and find out more about them.  How had they done it?

Ooh boy.  Heavy stuff.

Of course I was exceptionally wrong.  It turns out, this is the stuff of journalism.  Real stories about real people.  They were awesome.  They were kind.  They allowed me into their home, offered me a beverage and then they opened their beautiful souls and told me their story of life and love.

I can admit it now.  I cried a little.

They showed me pictures of the town, and how they met.  They told me of love and loss along the way and that it wasn’t easy, yet they didn’t think it was supposed to be.  They learned how to listen to each other and be there for each other, and how they now couldn’t imagine living life any other way.

I learned history of the city I was covering for the news.  My community.  I learned about how they enjoyed the community and the people in it.  If I was completely tuned in, I would have taken some of their advice sooner.  But the real journalist in me thought he had it all figure out.

The interview with them became the centerpiece for the wedding section, and the gracious couple thanked me.  And I thanked them.  I find myself still being grateful for that day.  A day learning about why it was I was writing things down in the first place.  To take my experience learning about humans and sharing it with the world.

Best assignment I ever had.

Don’t Touch That Dial!

~ Donald J. Lund ~ 1 Comment

Video didn’t kill this radio star, but if we have time we’ll cover that on the other side after we hit the top of the hour.

My employment resume represents a fascinating series of uniquely different jobs, but the most fun I’ve ever had with my clothes on, was working in radio.

I’ve always loved radio.  When one grows up without a lot of money in a world with only 3-4 television stations, radio gets to be your friend.  As a sports fan, who loved news and music, the battery operated AM radio was a constant companion in my youth.  From music and wacky disc jockeys by day to Denver Bears’ baseball by night, I got a lot of mileage out of my little hand held radios.

When we first moved to Wyoming, my Marine Corps and defense contracting career to that point wasn’t a big sell in the little town.  Since I had coached little league football and basketball, I used those skills to grab a part time job at the recreation center.  It was a fun place to get to know folks in my new community.

One day I found myself shopping for new tunes at a music shop and noticed the place was had the local radio stations piped in through the speakers in the store. I was the only customer in the place and I started to complain out loud to the only other soul in the place, the local merchant running the store. “Hey, how come they don’t have any sports on this station?  It needs some sports.”

“Well they do need someone up there to help them with sports, my Dad used to run the place, and I know the current general manager there.  Do you want a job?”

I nearly fell over.  What are the odds that the only person I ever needed to meet to work in radio was the dude behind the counter at the CD/Record shop?  That local merchant is my friend to this day, and yes, the reference is specific, inside humor that only he, and maybe three other humans will laugh at.

Of course I hadn’t worked in radio before, they insisted all I needed to know for the moment was sports.  Easy enough. I talked to the station manager, he said because I knew more about sports than him, I got the job.

Love or hate Howard Stern, the biographical movie Private Parts about his life had a couple funny moments for me.  In particular, his first radio gig when his voice is way up high, and he is all excited to spin a Ramones’ record — that was me.

My first hour of radio was hideous.  I made a recording of it and then destroyed it.  I destroyed it a lot.  On the tape I cringed as I heard a high pitched, quiet, whiney voiced dork talk about sports with way too much dead air in between painstakingly boring analysis.  But KEVA Sports Saturday was born, and I got paid to talk about what I wanted on the air.  The pay was not great, but it did add up and help my micro family.

I got better at it. I did play-by-play for football, basketball and legion baseball. I hosted coaches shows.  I did voice actor bits for the commercials, I spent hours on sound effects and intro music, being creative is always fun.

The station had a great news guy when I got there, but he left for a shot at working in the Las Vegas radio market, so I ended up being the news guy too.  My wife reminded me of my slogan I ran all the time in competition with the local newspaper, “When you hear it, it’s news, when you read it, it’s history.”

Radio does have that real time advantage over print, so I bragged about that a lot.  Because at the end of the day, we needed those advertising dollars to get paid and put on the cool local programs.  I recall my ambitious plan to make the station a local powerhouse, which included Wyoming Cowboys sports, Utah Jazz basketball, Denver Broncos football and the inaugural baseball season of the Colorado Rockies.  Some official looking guy flew in from Boston, representing station ownership and he said I could only do all of that if I could finance it.

Thus, I had to learn how to sell air.  And I did.  I compiled an advertising campaign, wrote up my own contracts specific to sports programming, printed flyers and hit the streets.  Selling is one of the most difficult jobs on the planet to me, and selling air time is even harder.  However, a couple months later, I had thirty sponsors in all, paying for various parts of the sports package.  And since I thanked them a bunch on the radio, and they listened, most would sign up again.

I got media passes to cover pro and college sports.  Well, I had to assemble a picture identification myself, we didn’t have a big staff.  Many of those sports adventures rate blogs all their own.  Stay tuned.

Eventually I did everything from those sales, to the commercials and my sports show hosted players from every major and minor sport in the region.  I had the Steve Martin from the movie The Jerk moment when my name showed up in print in the Denver Broncos Media Guide, “I’m somebody, I’m somebody, I’m finally somebody!”

I was a disc jockey, ad man, sales, news, sports, live radio remotes from sports bars and furniture stores, play-by-play, copy writer, cable TV television specials,  I got to do it all in small market radio in Evanston, Wyoming.  Rock and Roll Midnight shows on Fridays, morning shows, selling tractor parts on the radio station classified ad programs, hanging out with Denver Broncos.  I do mean I got to do it all.  I did serious stuff as well, interviewing governors and U.S. Senators too.

Of course, the newspaper got sick of me trash talking them, so they hired me. The weird media reversal as it is usually newspaper guys who morph into broadcasting and not the other way around.  But I could always write.

I started with a sports column and then was hired full time to be the sports editor of The Uinta County Herald.  Writing up sports events I broadcast on the radio meant I got paid twice for the same work.  That was nice.  It was also a lot of hours to cover both jobs, nearly 80-hours a week at the peak of the two jobs.

We hired a great nanny to watch the boys, but I missed those toddlers. Ultimately, the newspaper wanted me exclusive and that hurt a bit.  I got to sneak onto a few radio broadcasts my last year in Wyoming, just not enough.  Print journalism was paying better at the time, and my micro family needed the funds.

The old radio days are more glorious with each passing moment.  The adrenaline  that accompanies the big red light bulb turning on to indicate you are live and on the air is a great rush, every time.  And just when you think you are all alone in that phone booth of plexiglass and plywood, you decide to give away a couple tickets to something and the phone lights up like a dead fir tree on Christmas morning.

“Fifteen minutes after the hour, we’ve got a cold twenty-eight degrees to go with our blue skies this morning — more great music, news and sports coming at you, right after this break on Variety 1240, K-E-V-A!”