On my computer at work, I use to have a sticker with some words that have served me well over the past 22 years in television news: "Do not weep. Do not wax indignant. Understand." Those words were written by Dutch Philosopher Baruch Spinoza who wrote them more than 400 years ago. He also wrote this: “The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free."
These are changing times in which we live and if you are going to live in these times, you must be able to change. That is especially true for television. Diane Mermigas wrote on BNET earlier this month that if TV stations are going to survive, they are going to have to reinvent local news. Mermigas quite accurately points out that "local TV stations depend heavily on their news operations, which typically account for about half their revenues. As a result, they're also highly vulnerable to the death spiral that's overtaken newspapers as news migrates to the web."
The traditionally model of television is changing. I have talked about that many times in past blogs and my advice was this: embrace the change for it is not going to go away. People are reluctant to change and often fear change. There was once a time in this country when people said a 24-hour TV network that only does news would never be accepted. They said the same thing about a TV channel that ran weather 24-7. Yet, CNN and The Weather Channel are now the first place people turn when they need to know. John C. Maxwell, in his book Good Thinking For A Change, says this: "Changing your beliefs changes your expectations; changing your expectations changes your attitude, changing your attitude changes your behavior, changing your behavior changes your performance, and changing your performance changes your outcome."
KRBC is changing and is now going in a different direction and I won't be making the trip with them. Some might think I'd be sad about that, but I'm not.
Thirty-three years ago, I walked into the radio newsroom at KRBC and began doing something I love: the news. I have always loved doing the news and I am grateful to those I have worked for over the years for allowing me to do what I love. I guess I got "bitten by the bug" when I was a teenager delivering the Washington Post. But it was also stimulated by the places I where I grew up. I was living in Montgomery, Alabama when Rosa Parks refused to give-up her seat on a city bus, igniting the Civil Rights Movement in this country. I was in Washington, D.C. when Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his "I Have A Dream" speech. I lived the anxiety and fear of the Cuban Missile Crisis and stood on the freezing bridge leading into Arlington National Cemetery as the body of President Kennedy rolled by, carried on a horse-drawn casson. Surrounded by so-much history, how could I not love "the news"? It has been a dream come true: a dream born in the hallways at Walter Reed Army Medical Center one a Saturday morning. There to get a haircut, I got lost and found myself standing outside the hospital radio station. A teletype machine was sitting behind a large window, actively hammering out the news, one letter at a time. I was astounded by the realization that I was watching history being written as I stood there.
In 1987, KRBC radio got out of the news business and I moved over to TV.
You know, closing one chapter of your life and beginning another is a lot like those moments, when you are scurrying around as you head out the door, wondering if you have forgotten anything? So let me just say this: For the past 22 years, it has been my honor to come into your homes and to share with you the events of the day in our community. I hope I have been an objective voice, but admittedly, there have been some tremendous peaks and valleys that you were not allowed to see. I hope in that time, I have not overstayed my welcome or behaved in anyway other than as an invited guest.
It is time now for a change and my sincerest wish is for you to find happiness in your life and for KRBC to reach the heights to which I know it is capable of. They have some great ideas and some even greater days ahead of them.
In the film, "Apollo 13", there is that scene where the crippled space capsule is getting ready to begin its perilous re-entry and Tom Hank's turns to his crewmates and says, "Gentlemen, it has been an honor to fly with you."
It has been an honor for me.
Do not weep. Do not wax indignant. Understand.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Reflections on Patriot's Day
Well, here we are on Patriot’s Day, September 11, 2009; eight years after terrorists launched a series of attacks against free, peace-loving people and the very core of their beliefs. People ask me from time to time what was the greatest story I ever covered and invariably I tell them it was 9-11.
My most vivid memories of that date come from a 60-minute videotape I have locked away in my desk at work. It’s an old feed tape we use to use for collecting news stories, but on September 11th, 2001 I used it to grab every piece of video I could from the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Crash of Flight 93. On that tape are images of that day (many of which have not been seen since it happened), but what are most striking to me are the words spoken: the audio tracks. You can hear the shock and disbelief in the voices, but there is something else; a profound sadness for those who have just lost their lives.
I come from a generation of baby-boomers. We weren’t even born when Pearl Harbor was attacked. We didn’t gather around radios to be stirred into action by President Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech. In fact, I wondered what historians would remember about President Bush’s remarks to the nation on September 11, 2001. The strange thing is that most people can’t remember what he said. Here is part of his remarks from an address to a grief-stricken nation that night:
“Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. The victims were in airplanes or in their offices -- secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers. Moms and dads. Friends and neighbors. Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror.
The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness and a quiet, unyielding anger. These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed. Our country is strong. A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve. America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining.”
I don’t watch my tape very often. It’s like a home movie that contains some very tragic images. It brings me to tears sometimes. I reminds of things I don’t want to remember, but at the same time, don’t want to forget. TV crews covering the attacks turning the power of the media into tools of compassion as they splashed the photos and posters of those unaccounted for across the television screens of the world, firefighters racing to the scene - firefighters who did their duty and tried to save the lives of others while putting their own lives at risk, crowd filling the streets, waving flags in support – holding candles in makeshift memorials to the dead. At Buckingham Palace, the band played “The National Anthem” instead of “God Save the Queen” and the closing shot that night from the networks was of the Manhattan skyline with smoke still pouring from the scene as rain began to fall.
Not all the images were from Ground Zero. There is the story about passengers on a plane that was diverted to Labrador and how people who lived there fed them and gave them shelter after all the planes were ordered from the air.
In my closet at home, I have an old tattered American Flag: weathered and worn. I guess it is the closest thing to a family icon that I own. I have it stored in a box with a slip of paper explaining that the flag was put up immediately after September 11 and flew everyday until it became too worn to fly anymore. It’s also a reminder that there was a time in the days after September 11th when you couldn’t find an American Flag in this country. People bought nearly everyone they could and flew them.
So, here we are eight years later. It’s a funny thing, but the words that serve me best these days I remembered from my high school Civics class; written by another American Patriot more than 200 years ago. His name was Thomas Paine and this is what he wrote on December 23rd, 1776 in The Crisis:
“These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.”
I gave a copy of those words to a young man headed to Iraq a few years ago…to lift his spirits when times seemed their darkest, just as they had in the days after September 11th.
God bless America.
My most vivid memories of that date come from a 60-minute videotape I have locked away in my desk at work. It’s an old feed tape we use to use for collecting news stories, but on September 11th, 2001 I used it to grab every piece of video I could from the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Crash of Flight 93. On that tape are images of that day (many of which have not been seen since it happened), but what are most striking to me are the words spoken: the audio tracks. You can hear the shock and disbelief in the voices, but there is something else; a profound sadness for those who have just lost their lives.
I come from a generation of baby-boomers. We weren’t even born when Pearl Harbor was attacked. We didn’t gather around radios to be stirred into action by President Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech. In fact, I wondered what historians would remember about President Bush’s remarks to the nation on September 11, 2001. The strange thing is that most people can’t remember what he said. Here is part of his remarks from an address to a grief-stricken nation that night:
“Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. The victims were in airplanes or in their offices -- secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers. Moms and dads. Friends and neighbors. Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror.
The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness and a quiet, unyielding anger. These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed. Our country is strong. A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve. America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining.”
I don’t watch my tape very often. It’s like a home movie that contains some very tragic images. It brings me to tears sometimes. I reminds of things I don’t want to remember, but at the same time, don’t want to forget. TV crews covering the attacks turning the power of the media into tools of compassion as they splashed the photos and posters of those unaccounted for across the television screens of the world, firefighters racing to the scene - firefighters who did their duty and tried to save the lives of others while putting their own lives at risk, crowd filling the streets, waving flags in support – holding candles in makeshift memorials to the dead. At Buckingham Palace, the band played “The National Anthem” instead of “God Save the Queen” and the closing shot that night from the networks was of the Manhattan skyline with smoke still pouring from the scene as rain began to fall.
Not all the images were from Ground Zero. There is the story about passengers on a plane that was diverted to Labrador and how people who lived there fed them and gave them shelter after all the planes were ordered from the air.
In my closet at home, I have an old tattered American Flag: weathered and worn. I guess it is the closest thing to a family icon that I own. I have it stored in a box with a slip of paper explaining that the flag was put up immediately after September 11 and flew everyday until it became too worn to fly anymore. It’s also a reminder that there was a time in the days after September 11th when you couldn’t find an American Flag in this country. People bought nearly everyone they could and flew them.
So, here we are eight years later. It’s a funny thing, but the words that serve me best these days I remembered from my high school Civics class; written by another American Patriot more than 200 years ago. His name was Thomas Paine and this is what he wrote on December 23rd, 1776 in The Crisis:
“These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.”
I gave a copy of those words to a young man headed to Iraq a few years ago…to lift his spirits when times seemed their darkest, just as they had in the days after September 11th.
God bless America.
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