• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Radio News - When There Was Radio News...

M

masterg

With no offense intended to the few who still practice the art of radio news, how about some thoughts on a time when just about every station from W-B/Scr on down to Hazleton, over to Bloomsburg, and out to Honesdale, had at least one body in their news department. I've noticed a thread over on Bealsies blog that is starting to "talk" radio news, and I'd love to see a good solid discussion here about the same.

Names? Jerry Heller - Ray Magwyre - John Bugby - Kitch Loftus - Kevin Jordan - Terry McNulty - Guy Randall. Just a scant handful there to hopefully get something going here. Thanks...
 
Now this is more like it! Man, some of these names were totally lost to me, now they're back. Rod Raeger's in Houston, been there for close to twenty years. Given name is Rod Rice, which he uses presently. When he got to WARM, Ron Allen had a habit of re-naming talent; Raeger was a play on (Alex)Reiger, the Judd Hirsch character on Taxi, which was big at the time.
 
Jack Doniger, (WARM) Ed Hughes, (WSCR) David Kush, Madeline Fitzgerald (WBAX), Bill Graham, Joe Gries, Bud Brown, (WBRE NewsRadio), Liz Hibbard, Dale Mickloczyk, John Kelly, Jim Gibson, David Yonki (WVIA FM), Roger Heydt, David Kush, Tom McHugh and Ed Karpovitch (WVIA FM's The Day Begins At Midnight), Rick Shannon (WPTS), Joe Middleton (WILK, WARM, and WPTS), David DeCosmo (WILK, WMJW FM) Hoyt Kaiser (WGBI AM) and Bill Longworth, Junior, (WEJL AM).
WARM had news live at :55 until the Jerry Heller era began, then it was on the hour and half hour,
WILK had news on the hour and bottom, and
WBAX did a twenty/twenty news thing in the mid 70s.
It was not unheard of for news departments to have a reporter at the both courthouses. And how about using those rubber clips unscrewing the phone to send your story in. Those were the days.
Yonkstur
 
Replying to myself, yikes.
Affiliates were WILK/ABC News.
WSCR/NBC, WBRE/NBC. WBAX/Mutual.
WGBI AM/CBS, WEJL AM/ABC News,
WARM, none until the late 70s. But WARM and then WVIA FM used UPI news cuts, "Pye Chamberlin reporting from Capitol Hill".This was circa 1965 to 1978.
yonkstur
 
How about Phil Cummings? I believe he was with WGBI. Then WEJL.

EN
 
Yes, and he was the morning news guy on WGBI FM, 101 when they went rock/top 40. His sign off line was "have a nice day lady."
The GBI guys always did double duty on WDAU TV too.
Yonkstur
 
Kathryn Barrons,

SIGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yonkstur
 
WRKC/ABC Information

Yes that's right. I have a tape somewhere of one of my shows where I hit the news leader on the hour and the ABC Newsman (circa 1974) for Radio Information was Charles Gibson, he, recently of Good Morning America and now the ABC Evening News.

Yonkstur
 
I'd totally forgotten WARM's Live at Fifty-Five news, which was really such a signature of the station. Why they dropped it, I have no idea, but it apparently never hurt them at all. How about the WARM "ticker?" For those who don't remember, WARM had this continuous loop cart of teletype sounds that automatically started when the news mic was keyed. (God, there are probably more than a few on this board who don't even remember how a teletype sounded!) The only control the jock had over the "ticker" was gain; you could turn it up or down. Some guys liked it pounding, others hated it period. Which, for some reason, reminds of me how much processing WARM's signal had. With limiters and compression, you could run most anything wide open and it sounded fine. Then there was the re-verb. The best way to describe WARM's processing might be this - the first time I heard an aircheck of myself I thought, "Who the hell is that? That can't be me."
 
In WBRE's all-news days, they had the teletype effect, too. Right thru the splice on the cart. They should have used a much longer cart so you didn't hear it quite so many times.
 
WILK actually had two "live" AP teletypes in the news air studio (mid to late 70's). One was a p-wire, and the other was a radio wire. It was the only radio news outfit to have a p-wire. I think that was the R.J. Morgan newspaper influence. When you heard the hammers hit the platen, it was for real. When you heard the bells go nuts, it was a real rush. Been there; miss that.
 
ColorRadio said:
WILK actually had two "live" AP teletypes in the news air studio (mid to late 70's). One was a p-wire, and the other was a radio wire. It was the only radio news outfit to have a p-wire. I think that was the R.J. Morgan newspaper influence. When you heard the hammers hit the platen, it was for real. When you heard the bells go nuts, it was a real rush. Been there; miss that.
Click to expand...

By the time I got to WARM, they were running the newer, quieter, and smaller electronic printers. But those old monsters used to make such a racket that I actually worked in one news room where they'd had plywood cabinets built to surround them and dampen the sound. Yeah, how 'bout those bells? They were indeed a rush. Did you ever come across a weather wire? I worked one station that had a wire that was strictly dedicated to weather. And let's not forget those big boxes of that yellow foolscap paper, and changing ribbons, and jammed paper, and jammed ribbons. And who could forget clearing the wire early in the AM after it'd been running non-stop for up to twelve hours for daytimers. Good old days? Maybe, maybe not...
 
"Ah, I see your fingers are all purple. Been changing the UPI ribbon, eh?"
 
I do remember changing the ribbons. No matter how you held the new ribbon in the celophane, you always got the purple ink on your fingers. No amount of soap and hot water would remove it. Yes, there were the all too often paper jams. But, the best challenge was to "splice" a new box of paper to the tail of a box which was about to run out. I got fairly good at that, as I disliked theading new paper through a model 15. It seemed that these problems happened when there was no news person on duty.

Yes, they were good days; golden days. Days which will live on forever in the memories of those who were fortunate to experience them. I have memories and great stories of radio's heyday which I and proud to relate to anyone willing to listen. Today's radio reminds me too much of my iPod on shuffle. No personality with the ecxeption of the drive times. Otherwise, nothing more than many varieties of verbal diarrhea. Sorry, but that's from someone who was taught that communication came first; everything else was secondary.
 
Knew one newsie, a female, who learned to change ribbons using rubber gloves, big, old, yellow rubber gloves. Tried it once, NG. Somehow, she had it nailed. Splicing in a new box of paper was a talent unto itself - I never had the patience, I'd just rip out the last remaiining fold or two, turn off the machine(and I can still see the switch) and run the new paper into the roller. It was coin toss as to whether you missed anything or not, but you knew full well you likely did not. And if you did, you could always call AP and ask for a refeed, they were generally happy to oblige, and would always re-slug it with a re-feed for WWWW. Was the guy's name Dick Lawyer who was AP's rep for NE PA? AP's repair guy I can see to this day, mustache, balding, really nice guy.
 
I cannot remember the name of the guy who repaired the machines at WILK. For some reason John Whalen rings a bell (no pun). He had a full head of hair, ruddy complexion, large metallic framed glasses, and unique fingers. The fingers had rather long nails, and a purple nail bed. I thought the purple was the result of his occupation. I later learned he had a medical condition (possibly heart) which caused the discoloration. He was not much of a conversationalist. John Whalen; the bell is ringing louder. Anyone know his name?
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom