Classic TV News

Fan reflection     Links    TV News Musicians    Tributes

I'm a big pop culture fan with a fondness for video from the late 50s, 60s or 70s. I love seeing how things looked at the time, what people were wearing, what cities looked like, the cars driven, hairstyles, etc. Maybe it's because I grew up in that era. 

One of my most favorite era video sources is early TV...old black and white TV shows and news programs. Not so much the situation comedies you see often enough on TV Land, but the rare stuff you don't see everyday. Give me any TV news website that has black and white video or stills and I'm there.

 I'm not sure exactly how I found it. I think I remember my mother having channel 7 (WABC-TV in New York) news on the TV one evening watching a news story showing someone driving very fast around a plantation or farm of some sort.  I sat in the living room with my folks and watched the rest of the news. As the show went on, I noticed something was very different about this program.  The "Eyewitness News team" reporters and anchors were laughing and smiling during some parts of the program. One anchor often cracked a few puns for transitions between stories. Always being drawn to things off the beaten path, I thought, this is kinda interesting. Certainly not your basic boring old, depressing news program. Even the feature stories were different. The reporters actually got involved in the lighter fare, trying out roles, doing stunts, often giving you a glimpse of their personalities in the course of reporting the story.  Some even had tag lines ("now listen to this!") or identifiable roles (resident gourmet). In effect, they were building community with the audience. If you watched often enough, after a while it seemed almost as if you "knew" them, as perhaps a family friend or acquaintance. Whatever it was, the formula worked. I found myself caring about what was going on the world    

After a while, I became a regular viewer. And my "fan-dom" started to kick in. I centered a big part of my life around Eyewitness News. I didn't want to go anywhere or do anything at the time the news was on. Though it was a struggle to watch it much of the time. The problem with channel 7 is that we would go through periods of having problems with pulling in a clear signal from southern Connecticut.  This was before the days of cable television and satellite dishes. If the wind blew your TV antenna around in the right direction, you were fine.  If not, you would get all kinds of interference, mostly from what I referred to then as the "evil" local station in New Haven whose signal would overwhelm channel 7's.  On at least one occasion I sent my dad to the roof to spin the antenna around. I used to bug him about getting one of those rotors in which you would turn a dial indoors and rotate the antenna around to clear the interference.  He never did give in to that request. I also did look at some of the other TV news stations around. I thought of many of them as competition that never quite measured up to the Eyewitness News time, but I also liked WNBC-TV and remember the beginning of "NewsCenter 4".

This was also the time I began to develop the fine art of fan letter writing. Because I was 18 or 19 years old back then, and noticed a couple of these news folks were either attractive or someone I can otherwise relate to, I started writing notes. Lots of them. I admit, I had a crush on one or two of them. These days, writing so many notes to a news person would be viewed much differently, but all I knew then was I was just a kid trying to focus my feelings and pin down my message. As I explained in my audiobook "Treasures In the Tip Jar: the Fine Art of Fan Support", it took 30 years to figure out what I was really trying to do. Long after the fact, I realized that a couple of people caught my eye because I noticed they had talents beyond telling us what was going on in the world or the weather. What I really wanted to do was point out these gifts and encourage them. I didn't know then that I might have been planting the seeds for being the encourager to creative people that I am today. The nice thing is, some of them wrote back. One particularly gracious, long sufferer of my epics even encouraged my writing. It was enough for me to switch my college major from something totally wrong for me to journalism. Had I paid more attention to the advice therein and less of the fact that somebody actually wrote me back, I might have had earlier success with my writing. But all things in their time, I guess. Thus, 30 years later, I do owe some people a thank you...and an apology.

Links

TV news archives have become a great pop culture media item, reflecting the times and the eras gone by. Many stations recently held on-air celebrations marking 50 year milestones. Sadly, not many of the TV station websites out there have a sense of history reflected on their pages. Thus, it's been up to fans to put together sites centering on the glory days of the 60's and 70's.

A couple of the best you'll see out there are Carl Abraham's tribute sites for WNEP and WDAU (Scranton/Wilkes Barre, PA).

Some newer finds: I've also learned of the "video vault" on the site for NBC-10 WCAU-Philadelphia. This includes some clips from the 1950's and a lost JFK remembrance in Philadelphia from 11/24/63.

 The KABC fan site also has an excellent history of the "Eyewitness News team." But you must have a look at this British-based site TV Ark-the Television Museum. Under the news link, you will find treasures from Channel 7 Eyewitness News and many other stations around the country and the world!

I still enjoy keeping up with local TV news and who's doing what. NewsBlues.com provides some of that scoop and also has a page with links to local TV fan websites (you'll need a subscription to access that site's page).

Whenever I am back in New York, I must make a pilgrimage to my favorite place of all, The Paley Center for Media  (formerly the Museum of TV and Radio).

Here is another great site I just found: nashvilletv.org . An excellent archive of clips, print ads, even old TV Guide pages covering the Nashville area. 

And now, YouTube has lots of old TV news clips, including some from my beloved Channel 7 Eyewitness News in New York...even the old hilarious promos! 

TV News Musicians

It being that I am a passionate music and TV news fan, any occasion for the two to meet perks my ears.

There are a few folks who have been or who are in local TV news who also are involved in music. Here are the ones that I know of:

- Diana Pierce, KARE-11 news co-anchor is also a Christian artist who has a couple of CDs out, "Good News" and "Be A Light".
- Mike Lewis, news anchor at WNEP-TV, is a singer/songwriter who recently released a CD to benefit the local Boys and Girls Club.
- Roberto Tirado, who was a weatherman for WTNH in New Haven and in the New York markets, is also an accomplished singer who released a CD "Prisoner of Love" (I've been trying to track down a copy).
- John Tesh is now of course an internationally renowned musician, but back in the 70s I remember him as a heartthrob at WCBS-TV channel 2 news in New York!

If I can get copies of any of the above CDs, I'll write brief rundowns of them here. (Anyone who is familiar with any of my other site pages will note that I am not a critic, so they wouldn't quite be "reviews").

Know of any more good archive local TV news tribute sites, or news personalities who are also musicians or recording artists? E mail me and let me know!

Bill Beutel 1930 - 2006

I was very saddened to hear of the passing of Bill Beutel. As you may have noticed on this page, the WABC Channel 7 Eyewitness News team played a big part in my life growing up in Southern Connecticut in the 70s. A journalist with heart and integrity, Bill was the perfect cool, elegant foil to the acerbic, dry witted Roger Grimsby. During my years as an Eyewitness News fan, I compiled a scrapbook of pictures, newspaper articles and print ads having to do with the Eyewitness News team and its reporters. Eventually, I decided to give the scrapbook to Bill Beutel and sent it to him. He sent me a lovely, gracious note thanking me for the scrapbook. I recall that his note said it brought back "some great memories...and maybe a tear or two." 

Go rest high, Bill. You were a class act.

Joel Siegel 1943- 2007

More sad news for Channel 7 Eyewitness News fans. Joel Siegel fought a very tough fight with cancer over the past few years...news has come that he has passed away. I remember when Joel Siegel joined the Eyewitness News team in the mid-70s. He wasn't yet a movie critic, but instead a feature reporter. Funny, insightful and charismatic, he was the finest and most gifted storyteller in broadcast journalism in my opinion.  I became quite the fan of his and wrote him a couple of notes of encouragement. In 1977 I received a picture postcard from Joel with a cute note, "roses are red, violets are blue, thank you, thank you (OK, so the meter is off, but the thought is right)". 

As the Chris Rice song says, "..And with your final heartbeat, kiss the world goodbye, Then go in peace, and laugh on glory's side."  Rest in peace, Joel. You will be missed. 

See the 7 Online.com website for news and tributes. 

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