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January 23, 2007
I don't remember what kept me home from school on Jan. 22, 1987, nor do I remember what I was watching on TV that morning --- probably some garbage. What was on at 11 a.m. weekday mornings besides "The Price is Right"? Maybe I was watching "Price is Right," but I doubt it, because I had to be watching NBC.
Because I saw it.
R. Budd Dwyer's suicide.
And as far as I know, WPXI-TV (then as now, an NBC affiliate) was the only station in Pittsburgh to show the video, and they only showed it at noon.
Anyway, I didn't notice any news organizations marking the anniversary yesterday until I saw an item in last night's Daily News under "this date in history." In fact, Google News turns up only two stories in the entire state --- and one is a blog entry from the editor of the Delaware County Times, the other is a TV listing about a panel discussion on PCN featuring KDKA radio's Tony Romeo and Dennis Barbagello, former Harrisburg correspondent for the
I don't think I have to repeat the particulars, but just in case, Budd Dwyer was the state treasurer. In 1986, a federal jury in Williamsport convicted Dwyer and the head of the state Republican Party of 11 counts of bribery for accepting $300,000 kickbacks from a California computer company that was awarded a state contract. (I'm not reciting this from memory --- I looked it up in the New York Times archive.)
Dwyer was supposed to be sentenced on the morning of Jan. 22, 1987, and he called a press conference in his office at the state capital. Reporters arrived assuming that he intended to announce his resignation.
Instead, Dwyer, "red-faced and sweating" (again quoting the Times) got in front of the crowd and for a half hour, "protested that he was innocent and criticized some people who had been connected with his conviction, and included news organizations that had reported it."
And then he picked up a manila envelope and reached inside.
I can see it like it was yesterday, and although I know the clips are available on the Internet (go look 'em up for yourself --- I'm not linking to them) I don't need to see it again. I've never watched it again. Once was enough.
I don't even know why I watched. I can't remember who Channel 11 was using to anchor the noon news then --- maybe Ron Jaye? --- but I can clearly remember them warning viewers that the footage was graphic, and that we should consider sending children out of the room.
Well, I was home alone, and I was not about to send myself out of the room.
You actually didn't see much blood. You didn't see much of anything. He put the gun in his mouth (very awkwardly --- as we found out later, it was a .357 Magnum) with one hand, and waved several people away with the other hand. Some yelled, "No, Budd, don't do it."
There was a loud noise, and then Dwyer jerked up in the air and fell down. I seem to remember the camera panning down to him lying on the floor, but I can't be sure. I remember calling my mother at work, but I seem to remember being more surprised than horrified.
What was served by showing Dwyer's suicide on TV? I don't know. I couldn't answer that question then, and I can't now. By Williams, then the news operations manager of WPXI said it was "an historic event" about an "important man," but the station didn't show the video at 6 p.m. It didn't become less historic six hours later, and yet they didn't show it.
Personally, I can't see any journalistic value in it, but then again I was told by several editors that I have an "attitude problem" and that I was a poor journalist.
I know that when the jokes began circulating at school on Monday ("Have you seen the new Budd Dwyer commemorative coin?" someone would say, and hand you a metal washer) I didn't find them very funny.
I could imagine being Budd Dwyer's son; it wasn't bad enough that your dad had been convicted of a crime. Now, all he'd be remembered for was being "the guy who shot himself on TV." (Take a look at Dwyer's Wikipedia entry if you don't believe me. The first sentence? He was "a former Pennsylvania politician who, on the morning of January 22, 1987, committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth with a handgun during a televised press conference.")
So, maybe I learned a little something by watching after all. Maybe I learned something that day about other people's feelings, and trying to be sensitive to them --- especially the family members of people who have done horrible things. That didn't always serve me well as a reporter, either.
I wonder what would have happened to Budd Dwyer if he hadn't killed himself. Would someone have pardoned him? Would he have been paroled? He might have even rehabilitated himself. Former state Attorney General Ernie Preate has. He did 14 months in federal prison for mail fraud, but now he's remarried, has a young child, and is practicing law again and campaigning for sentencing reform.
Maybe that's another lesson --- that situations are rarely as dire as they seem, and that you can survive a public humiliation and move on.
It's a shame that I only learned those lessons after another man lost his life, in compatible color and "videotaped in front of a live audience," 20 years ago yesterday.
When I was a kid, and most Pirate games were on KDKA-TV (much to the consternation of the CBS Television Network), my grandfather used to watch the telecast while listening to the radio play-by-play on 1020.
Pap was an inveterate early-riser, so more often than not, he'd switch off the TV before the game had ended, and head to bed with his little Westinghouse Escort transistor radio (with a built-in flashlight and wind-up clock).
All these years later, and I'm still a Pirate fan (though more and more disgruntled every year), and I'm still listening to the games on KDKA.
Or I was, until yesterday. A little thread that connected me to my grandfather --- and generations of Pittsburghers to their parents and grandparents --- has been snapped. The Pirates are gone from KDKA.
"Only business," says the Pirates' front office. "Only business," says KDKA management. Basically, Clear Channel offered more money to the Pirates --- and the Pirates twisted the knife a little on the way out the door by taking a shot at KDKA's "old" demographics.
I know several radio professionals who think KDKA should have moved heaven, Earth and three Gateway Center buildings to keep the Pirates. I'm not sure I agree.
If I were a CBS Radio executive (everyone is glad there's absolutely no chance of that happening), I would be hard-pressed to justify writing a very, very large check to the Pirates in order to have their crummy baseball team wreck my schedule for 162 days per year.
What if the Pirates were in contention? What if they were even having a .500 season? Yeah, maybe. It would certainly be worth a lot of money to keep the Steelers on my station --- even during a bad year or two (or three) --- because the Rooneys never seem to have a lousy football team for very long.
But the Pirates? West Virginia's Nutting family, which controls the Pirates' pursestrings, shows no evidence that they want to turn their team into a competitive organization. The Pirates stunk last year. They stunk this year. Protests from the usual suspects aside, they will likely stink next year, too.
If past experience is any indication, the extra sheckles that Clear Channel is paying to place the Pirates on WPGB-FM (104.7) will go into the Nuttings' pockets --- not into putting a better team on the field.
The sheckles add up in more than one way for the Pirates, by the way. KDKA's big signal at night meant that a lot of displaced Pittsburghers could listen to Pirates games for free. Without that 50,000-watt nighttime AM wave, they'll be forced to sign up for Major League Baseball's Internet service, and pay for what they previously got for nothing.
Way to shake down your fans for a few more bucks, Pirates.
As for demographics, I wouldn't doubt that KDKA's listening age is trending toward "deceased," but that particular blade cuts both ways --- the demographics of baseball fandom are pretty lousy, too.
(A.C. Nielsen says the average age of baseball viewers is about 51, while the average football viewer is 44. The average baseball fan at home also makes less money than the average football fan --- a lot less. If the Pirates don't need KDKA's listeners, then KDKA doesn't need the Pirates' old, poor fans. Nyah, nyah.)
The question is: Will KDKA seize this opportunity to finally give the station the thorough remodeling that everyone seems to agree that it needs? Or, will they fill the time like they fill the weekends --- with Rob Pratte and infomercials?
That's for CBS to figure out, I suppose. Presumably, they've got all the money they saved from not buying the Pirates' rights, and they can spend it on talent and programming. (No laughing, please.)
I don't fault WPGB for grabbing the Pirates. I applaud 'em. Having the Penguins, the Steelers and the Bucs together on Clear Channel's Pittsburgh radio stations makes a powerful advertising package to offer to companies trying to reach male listeners. It's not Clear Channel's job to preserve someone else's traditions.
Ah, tradition. Pirate management has been kicking tradition --- and long-suffering fans --- in the slats for the last 14 years. The move off of KDKA is no different. Bob Prince? Nellie King? Jim Woods? Paul Long? Who they?
As for Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, Honus Wagner, and Bill Mazeroski, those are names the Pirates trot out when they want to sell some licensed merchandise. If the Nuttings view the Pirates as some kind of a public trust, they've got a funny way of showing it.
If he were alive today, I'm not even sure my grandfather --- whose life spanned all but one of the seven World Series in which the Pirates played --- would still bother listening to this team.
Besides, that old Westinghouse radio only got AM.
Remember KDKA? The station on 1020, where everyone's radio dial was rusted? The station whose competitors said could broadcast a test tone and still get a 10 share by virtue of its 50,000-watt signal? The station that, when they said it was news, then, by cracky, it was news?
Soon, I fear, Rick Sebak will be able to include it in a roundup of "Things That Aren't There Any More."
The decline of a once-great radio station is accelerating, and I'm not sure that things can be fixed without massive changes that I doubt CBS Radio wants to make.
The latest evidence? This week's firings of two of the more interesting lights at the 1020 spot on your dial, Mike Pintek and Mike Romigh. Romigh was the lone left-wing voice heard daily in KD Country, which apparently means that "Someplace Special" no longer includes Democrats. If KD thinks they're going to effectively fight WPGB-FM (104.7) by trying to run further to the right, I have a deed to a farkleberry farm they might like to purchase. Why would listeners tune in the inferior sound of AM when they can get similar content on a nice clear FM signal? Wasn't that battle fought decisively in the '70s? KD also canned one of the few young radio newscasters in Pittsburgh, Kyle Anthony. Way to appeal to a younger demographic.
(Paul Alexander, host of the evening sports show, was also dumped. This is no criticism of Alexander's work, but one wonders why --- with two full-time sports stations in Pittsburgh --- KDKA was still doing sports talk at night.)
And yet they kept the excruciating "Doctor Knowledge" program, which is the radio equivalent of Sominex; and recently expanded the time slot of Fred Honsberger, who, sad to say, is becoming a parody of a right-wing talk show host.
"Poor ratings" are being blamed, privately, as the reason Pintek, Romigh and Alexander were forced to walk the plank. KDKA-TV reporter Marty Griffin, who used to have a show on KRLD in Dallas, is taking Pintek's slot. But why fault those fellows when the rest of the lineup is struggling as well?
Take the morning show with Larry Richert, Shelley Duffy and John Shumway, which is afflicted with too many sweepers and program elements and bumpers and produced reports. It's an endless audio train wreck. Bang! Here's "Money Talk." Crash! Here's Jerome Bettis. Pow! Here's a newsmaker interview. Whoops, no time for that, now we've got to get to traffic and weather together! And hey! Here's a promo for the KDKA-TV News! But first, these commercials!
One Pittsburgh radio vet I know says the KD morning show is like Jell-o that won't set, and yet the powers-that-be keep dumping more canned fruit into it, hoping it will congeal. You've got three talented people there, folks. Can't you back off for a while and let them breathe?
On overnights, Gary Dickson, a good and talented man, is drowning in a sea of Geritol poured out by little old blue-haired ladies who are still wondering where Perry Marshall went. If there's anyone under the age of 55 listening to KD overnights, it's because they live next to the transmitter and get KDKA on their electric ranges. Or maybe they're gluttons for punishment.
John McIntire, love him or hate him, has one of the few shows on KD that shows any spark of creativity ... and it's on one day a week, and was pre-empted most of the summer and fall for broadcasts of the terrible, awful, miserable, wretched Pittsburgh Pirates. Talk about your audience killers; broadcasting the Bucs as they drop meaningless September games on the West Coast isn't a recipe for ratings magic.
The ads for KDKA used to say "Sounds One ... Sounds Wonderful." It sounds woebegone these days, and I'm not talking about Garrison Keillor. The mix of shows and talent isn't the only thing that's flopping. KDKA, which used to have a big, brassy air presence to match its 50,000-watt signal, is starting to sound like a small-town daytimer. I'm regularly hearing dead air on KDKA for the first time in my memory. One night I heard sweeper after sweeper play, uninterrupted, for about a minute before someone reacted.
The technical glitches and the train-wreck programs seem to me to be symptoms of a larger problem: Namely, that no one in charge is listening, or worse yet, that they are listening, and don't care.
Actually, I suspect the people in charge in Pittsburgh are listening, and do care, but they aren't allowed to spend the money necessary to make the station competitive.
I'm just a barely-educated listener who dabbles in the fringes of radio. I don't have the answers, and I don't even know what the questions are. But from a listener's standpoint, I know that 1020 seems to be adrift. Someone had better come up with an identity for KDKA, and fast. I suspect moving the talk show hosts around isn't going to cut it.
I have one suggestion --- and my friends at KQV, if I have any left, are going to hate it. CBS should invest the money to take KDKA all-news, all the time, a la its sister stations, KYW in Philadelphia, WINS in New York, and WBBM in Chicago. KYW and WBBM are perennially Number 1 or Number 2 in their markets; WINS doesn't quite that well, but New York's a much more populous and fragmented market, about four times the size of Philly and twice that of Chicago.
If Pittsburghers know KDKA radio for anything these days, it's for breaking news coverage and as the "voice of record" for information (including those dreaded school closings). Why not capitalize on that? Plus, there would be synergy between KDKA radio, Channel 2's newsroom, and their "newspaper exchange partner," the Post-Gazette, which would make all of the bean-counters happy.
Since Pittsburgh's not a 24-hour news town like New York, you'd have to plug in some talk from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., but get rid of the shows aimed at the geriatric set. Make the overnight show "quirky" and off-the-wall, like the shows that Art Bell and Long John Nebel used to do. Bring in the wacky guests, the psychics and crackpots and comedians and politicians and amateur musicians. McIntire would be perfect for a show like that. (Whether he wants to stay up all night is another matter, of course.)
KDKA has been coasting on its heritage for at least a decade, constantly reminding people that it signed on in 1920, and talking about the legendary names that have graced its broadcast booths over the past 85 years. But to today's 25 to 44-year-olds, AM radio is old-fashioned enough without reminding them that KDKA was on the air before their grandparents were born. To them, names like Bob Prince, Ed and Wendy King, Rege Cordic, Art Pallan and all of the rest of the stars in the KDKA galaxy might as well be words painted on the walls of caves. Few people love radio heritage more than I do, but "heritage" is not enough to make people tune in (unless, maybe, you're actually broadcasting nostalgic programs).
KDKA's top-of-the-hour IDs proclaim it to be "America's greatest radio station." "Great" implies something that's "much above the average." KDKA, on its best days, sounds thoroughly average. In a market with plenty of average stations, it's going to take something besides "more of the same" to make KDKA "great" again.