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Another reason Atlanta Radio should thank Elmo.

S

secondchoice

I was reading about Aubrey Morris and it said that Aubrey was Atlanta’s first Radio newsman in 1957 and before that WSB had no local news dept. I know that the Cox was a newspaper company first and I can understand not letting WSB not “submarine” the paper’s monopoly of local news. My question is: Where were the other local stations? There had to be another station (WGST or was WPLO on the air then?) in Atlanta that could have done local news. I know there were big national radio network newscasts at the time but the FCC use to require some local content “news”. Most of the early TV newscasters started in radio so there were radio reporters. Chattanooga has Luther who was a news correspondent during World War Two. He is still on the WDEF 92.3 which has to be some kind of record. I use to work with Dick Witty (WLW 700am newscaster during this time (1950’s and 1960’s) and they had local news at that time not just rip and read. Is the late start in local news is why Atlanta has no all news operation? I know there is someone on the board that knows Atlanta Radio History and can come up with a reason. I was living in Dover Del. where my father was stationed in the Air Force at the time and very young at the time so I am clueless.
 
Yes, there were a few radio newsmen in that era. The amount of time per day spent on news was small. The wire services brought in a good amount of news from around the state. And a good "news director" could sound impressive.... but radio news was just trying to ramp-up in 1957. I don't consider that "the GLORY DAYS of local radio news. Maybe 1957 to 1967 was the golden bubble of local radio news effort.

(Everyone will have a different memory of this subject... depending on where you were working or living during that era.)
 
A glance at the radio schedule for April, 1944 shows several news broadcasts but nowhere is "local" news mentioned. Local news came into its own with the demise of the
radio network dramas. As stations had more air time to fill, they did so with music, local news, traffic and weather. NBC did not even start its "top of the hour" network newscasts until the late 1950's.
 
I don't know if they had a news director back before Aubrey, but they did do news. I worked with a lady, Annie Lee Small, who was the first female hired by WSB for air work. She mentioned on several occasions being on at the time of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. She was on the air that morning and Douglas Edwards was watching the news ticker and doing news for the station at that time. So they had Edwards doing news even if there was no "News Director" at the station.

As for WPLO, it was WAGA Radio in those days and I believe it was a CBS affiliate.
 
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