Some Final Thoughts

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.