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Speaker 3: When your old career gives you lemons throwing some ice
mix in some vodka. Call it a podcast from the
Mac of All Trade Studio in Fairport and driven by
Victor Chrysler Dots. Gee Brahm, It's Billified, the Bill Moran Podcast.
Speaker 2: Well, hello and welcome.
Speaker 1: Thank you forgetting your pot on. Thanks for telling a friend.
That's how we spread the word about the pirate ship.
Danny is not feel tonight, but he had said to me, Hey,
I ran into somebody you know, and he said he
wouldn't mind coming on the pod, and that would be
Mark Grub.
Speaker 2: I go grooves.
Speaker 1: It's been forever since I've seen grooves. And two I
guess I should say two former media personalities in town, right,
I think that's fair.
Speaker 2: That's fair. Mark. Now, what are you at?
Speaker 1: Triple A Western New York and Central New York?
Speaker 4: YEP, Triple A Western and Central New York. And I
am a pr guy. Oh okay, I am all right.
Speaker 1: So you get out there, so you get to be
the pretty face that comes out and tell us list
the travel conditions, right, you know where to go, what
to do. By the way, triple A A great little
thing to have in your pocket.
Speaker 4: No doubt about it, especially this time he winter we've had.
You don't want to be stuck on the roadside.
Speaker 1: There's been when did winter show? I like it showed
up in January, all of a sudden, it just came.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting.
Speaker 4: I've talked to a couple of people about it that
I think this really has been a pretty normal winter
when you look at the stats.
Speaker 2: It is, but because the last couple of.
Speaker 4: Years have been so unusually mild, that suddenly we're like, whoa,
what's going on?
Speaker 2: What's happening here?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm I'm you know, we turned that calendar to March.
I'm ready to move on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too, you know, I am too.
Speaker 4: I don't mind if it comes in like a lion,
just go out like a lamb.
Speaker 1: So we've Mark is from originally from where in New Jersey, Westfield, Westfield,
Northern Jersey, Northern Jersey and about twenty miles outside Manhattan. Okay,
So and I grew up about ninety miles North in
New York City of New York City, in New York State.
So two people from downstate, you end up here and
you dis like it, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well that place grows on you, it does. When
I moved here, I literally knew no one.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The only people that I knew when I moved here
were the news director at channelten, Bill Seitzler, wild Bill
back in the day, and Rich Funky.
Speaker 2: Those are the two people I'd.
Speaker 4: Interviewed with when I flew up here at interview. This
was November of ninety nine.
Speaker 2: Okay, So when.
Speaker 4: I packed up a U haul, Yeah, came north from
West Virginia.
Speaker 2: That's where I was. You were in West Virginia, Bluefield.
Speaker 4: West Virginia, small TV station in Bluefield. Came up here
to become the weekend sports guy at Channel ten. Yes,
those were the only two people I knew.
Speaker 2: All right, So let's.
Speaker 1: Let's go back a little bit here. Because always wanted
to be on.
Speaker 4: TV, you know, I think I always wanted to be
involved in sports.
Speaker 1: Always want to be involved in sports. That Okay, what
did your mom and dad do?
Speaker 4: So my dad worked in Manhattan, He worked on the street.
Speaker 2: He was a mortgage broker, okay. And my mom was
a stay at home mom.
Speaker 1: Okay, and you lived in Jersey. You go big school,
I would assume that's a pretty populated area.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I went to a private day school. Okay.
Speaker 4: Yeah, my dad, you know, did well when I was
a kid. And you know, I went to public school
through sixth grade, and then seventh through.
Speaker 2: Twelfth I was at private day school. Yeah, or the Heartridge.
That's very Uh that's nice, isn't it. Yeah, it was great,
it was.
Speaker 1: And then you go, now during that time, any exposure
to TV or sports broadcasting or anything in that those high.
Speaker 2: School years, not really you know.
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously I was totally into it. I watched
sports religiously. I played sports religiously, but I you know,
that felt unattainable at that point in my life. It
was just something that was over there, he enjoyed. It
was hard to imagine myself participating in it. When I
got into college, I wrote for the school paper. I
went to Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, wrote for the
school paper there, became the sports editor, and at that
point I began to think, you know, you know, maybe
I'll be a sports writer. You know, you've got trying
to find a gig at a paper and do my thing.
Speaker 2: Did Trinity? What did you go to school for? So
it's liberal arts school.
Speaker 4: I didn't really have a plan going in like a
lot of people back in the day. It was more
about just kind of you know, you know, experiencing college
and trying to figure it out on the fly. You know,
I've got I've got one child in college. Now it's
just a different game in the sense that you know,
when you're sixteen, seventeen, eight years old, eighteen years old,
there's so much pressure to have it figured out at
their age now because college is such a huge investment.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, Yeah I do. You know, yeah, right,
you know what I'm saying. I do.
Speaker 4: But I didn't feel that pressure back then. I just
kind of went there. I enjoyed it obviously, you know,
I did the studying I had to do, but I
had a good time.
Speaker 2: I played on the soccer team there and that was
what was.
Speaker 1: What Division three D three. Yeah, but still that's a commitment.
That's a to be a student athlete that I don't
care at any level of the NCAA is a commitment.
That's a job, your training and all that, and so
you had to be pretty good man.
Speaker 2: That was okay, all right, well that overstated it. It
was good.
Speaker 1: It's interesting, though, because I want to veer off to
the college thing just just a little bit, sure, because
I love the liberal arts thing. And I'll tell you
a story that people have heard a million times in
the podcast and radio and everything. But I I think
the liberal arts and the knowledge for the sake of
knowledge is such a wonderful thing to have, and it's
great as you get older you kind of see the
benefit of that. You talk to my fifteen year old son,
my youngest by a lot, he'll tell you that, you know,
I don't care.
Speaker 2: I just get the homeward. Yeah, why to make me
do this?
Speaker 4: I agree with you. You know, I've talked to so
many aspiring journalists through the years. You know, people that
you know intern for me, or you know, you go
to classrooms and talk to students, and I told them,
you know, for me, I was a history major in college. Okay,
never took a communications class, yeah never, Yeah, But what
I did was I wrote. You know, an endless stream
of papers. Reading and writing is just drilled into me. Now,
I was a sports writer. I wrote for the school paper.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 4: And you know, so there was a journalistic component there.
Speaker 2: Well was the deal with the day school that you
went to.
Speaker 1: In terms of in terms of a lot of times
like uh, I put on my kids through a private
school too, the secondary school, and it was a lot
of the same thing, but his was more.
Speaker 2: Of a religious base. It was a Jesuit based school.
Speaker 1: So, but the reading and writing stuff sometimes is a
little more rigorous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would agree with that.
Speaker 1: In the in the private school. And then nothing please,
nothing against public school. I mean, I'm not knocking at all,
nor am I. I'm just saying that your public school
has to reach a mass amount here we can. It's
a finite. You know, you want to pay, and you're
you're buying a product almost you're buying a prep school.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: When I say I agree with you, I'm saying from
my experience. Yeah, I felt like when I got to
college that having uh you know, significant reading assignments and
having papers that were five ten pages long. Yeah, it
was not a new experience. You know, I'd been there
and done it. The point that I would make about it,
and the thing that I think is so transferable about
those skills is that, you know, when you think of journalism,
whether it's you know, broadcast, radio, print, whatever it is,
you're talking about taking a large set of facts and
distilling them down and sharing them with an audience, you know, viewers, listeners, readers,
whatever it may be, in a way that's easily understood.
Speaker 2: And so I.
Speaker 4: Felt like, you know, that reading and writing and doing
all that research and then distilling that information into a
five page paper, ten page paper, whatever it was, was
just building that skill set, it was, and what I
ended up doing in television was just simply a just
a shorter version of it, you know, where you had
to drill down even deeper instead of a ten page paper.
It was you know, in the beginning, when it was sports,
it was you've watched a two hour basketball game, Give
me the four baskets that tell the story of this game.
It's the same skill set, it's just applied differently. And
I pivoted into news later in my career. Same thing
I always say, you know, you know, it's still an interview,
whether you're interviewing the head coach of the Bills or
the mayor of Rochester, right, you know, it's a function
of conducting the interview, having a sense of what the
right questions to ask are, listening to what they're saying,
and applying the appropriate follow ups.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to hear you say that because I went
to Fisher. I went for communications.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 1: I did the community college the two plus two, and
the reason was I was not a good student, but
I did well on some tests and things and got
in everywhere, with the caveat that I had to prove
to the college I.
Speaker 2: Could handle the workload.
Speaker 1: And my father knew I was voted most likely to
be found looking for a party in ten years in
my high school year of box. So my father said,
you will drink your way out and get one shot
on my dime. And I went to the community college
and I didn't want to be home because I was
the oldest and five years older than my sister and
eight years older than my brother. So I was working
all the time, and I we used the college radio station,
and I dropped off a tape at a local station
and they hired me, and so I got on and
then I got on their rock station, and that was
it was great. And then I went to Saint John
Fisher and they had a communication program, but I had
done a lot of the communications stuff that transferred from
the community college, so I had to take a lot
of the other courses, and you had to take philosophy
or religion. And I wound up in like a four
hundred level philosophy class after you know, the introductory levels
you go through. And I loved that. I loved that,
and I loved the history. I was a history minor,
and I so I was already on the radio when
I was a senior at Fisher, so that kind of
had a little bit.
Speaker 2: Of pizaze to it, right yep.
Speaker 1: So I get asked to come back and speak to
incoming freshmen, and this young lady says, if.
Speaker 4: You guy was voted most likely to be found, Yeah,
the party's way out.
Speaker 1: I got back to speak and this young girl says,
if you had to do it over again, major in communications,
And no one's really answering, no one's jumping up the answer,
and so they kind of go bill, And I said,
and I said, and this is just the worst thing
you could do at the college, at this college, for
this communication class. But I was like this cocky twenty
three year old kid. I didn't even I said, no,
I said, I would encourage people to you can learn
how to be far enough away from the microphone and
operate if you really want to, you'll learn that stuff.
But having something to say in the microphone is so
important to know why the Eastern Bloc of Europe is
the mess that it is and continues to be even
here in twenty twenty four, twenty five we're talking to
twenty twenty five, we're talking about Ukraine and right, so
I mean all this stuff that you have to have
some knowledge to be able to have to form the opinion,
and you need to be able to critically think.
Speaker 2: I was never invited back to speak again, but I
stand by that.
Speaker 1: Today I would have said it in a much prettier
way or a kinder way, or said, you know what,
the great thing about this college is it offers you
so many other things that will support you in your
communication dream.
Speaker 4: You came to it eventually there, Yes, I did it,
but it.
Speaker 2: Took me to fifty three years old to be able
to say that.
Speaker 1: But my point is, like I just feel like college
now is it's almost like a trade school in a
sense because you got to get the job right out
of there. What are you major and I wish it wasn't.
And yes, that does sound spoiled in privileged college was
that way, And I know people get mad when you
say that, but you know what, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I.
Speaker 2: Understand what you're saying. It's okay. I mean, it's okay
that it was.
Speaker 1: And by the way, there's plenty of people that should
you know, the trades are where you should be going anyway.
Speaker 2: We can have that conversation as well. But you're right.
Speaker 4: I mean, the thing that I noticed as a parent
going on college tours versus as the kid the student
is you know today it's all about they understand these
colleges that they have to deliver.
Speaker 2: An ROI yeah, you know, return on.
Speaker 4: They have to understand that they have to impress upon
you that in four years your child's going to walk
out and they're going to be able to walk into
what it is they want to do. And if they
cannot convince you it that's true, they feel they're going
to lose you in the process. And there was none
of that going on when I went to college, and
that was the first thing from my mind, and I
don't think my parents were really focused on it at all.
Speaker 2: Either.
Speaker 4: It was more about finding a fit in a place
where you felt comfortable, that offered the kinds of things
you were interested in, and then grow from there.
Speaker 2: And I would have to say, I al must feel
like that's better, don't you. Well?
Speaker 4: I enjoyed it, and I do think there's a lot
to be said for it. I guess the ultimate take
here is that there's no one path.
Speaker 2: There's nothing like.
Speaker 4: My wife has a master from Syracuse and communications.
Speaker 2: She went to New House.
Speaker 4: She was a top student there, and she understands things
about communications that I don't because I never studied it.
You know, everything that I know about is I learned
on the fly.
Speaker 2: While I was in college.
Speaker 4: My senior year, I did an internship at a TV station.
One of the guys on the soccer team had done
it easya. I mean that was the CELLA and I'm like,
I could use one of those.
Speaker 2: I'm in, Yeah, this will help the GPA, let's do it.
And I went in there.
Speaker 4: First day, I logged a Yukon Boston College basketball game.
It was like a four o'clock tip, six o'clock news
comes on, so the game ended right for the newscast.
Sports is going to come on at six twenty. It
was like five of six and the guy looks at me.
The sports anchor, Steve Savard was the guy wound up
becoming the voice of the Rams called their Super Bowl games. Really,
he was amazing, It is amazing, great great journalist. Went
and eventually pivoted to news as well, but he was
the weekend sports guy and at the time there this
is Channel thirty in Connecticut, and he said just what
I said earlier. He said, give me the four baskets
that tell the.
Speaker 2: Story of the game. And I was like wow.
Speaker 4: And so I looked at my notes and I was like, well,
you got to have this one because they built a
twelve point lead at the half. You got to have
this one because this is where Boston College kind of
rallied early in the second half. You have to have
this bucket because he was the leading scorer. He really
carried them down the stretch. And you got to have
this one because this is the dunk that punctuated the win.
And ten minutes later, those highlights were edited and he's
on the air talking about it verbatim the way I
explained it to him.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: And I walked out of that building that day, and
I said, I now know what I want to do
because I had, you know, prior to that, my experience
in journalism was going to a game, you know at
the college, say a basketball game, watching it, making my notes,
going back to my dorm room, writing out my article,
going to the office where the computers were for the
school paper, typing that into a computer, and then turning
it into newsprint.
Speaker 2: Now you can just talk about that way.
Speaker 4: It was a multi hour process that got boiled down
to literally about ten minutes. And I mean I was
just I was. I was floating on air walking out
of that place. They get like, wow, that guy like
he didn't question it, like what I told him, I
sold him on it. He did it, and I was like,
this is for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The immediacy of it immediately drew me in.
Speaker 2: So then I never looked back. Okay, so you graduate
from Trinity in what year? Ninety four? Ninety four? Okay,
same as me. So then what what's the path? How
do you so?
Speaker 4: What I My path was this that when I finished
at Trinity, I had done that internship, and that internship
ended as I was graduating, and I basically I said
to the sports director at the time, the guy that
was running that office was a guy named Beasley Reese,
the former Giant.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he's the hell yeah, he's the head of
the NFL. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So, uh he was, you know, he had pivoted from
playing to becoming a sports broadcaster. And he's and I'm like, look, uh,
you know, I want to keep this going. And he's like, well,
he's like, I can't make you any promises. There's there's
really nothing here for you. But if you're willing to
keep coming in, let's let's see where it leads over
the summer and goes from there. So I continued the internship.
I basically did it full time that summer for no pay.
Speaker 2: For no pay, nothing I want it.
Speaker 4: At the end of the summer, you know, it was
like I literally had to go to the news director
and I was like, you know, like I'm out of
time here, like we gotta you know, either I gotta
I gotta go, or you're going to hire me. And
he said, look, there's no money in the budget for you.
I'm you know, at the begging of these sports guys,
I'm going to bring you on as a part time
sports producer, you know, putting the shows together behind the scenes.
He said, the minute a piece of equipment in this
building breaks.
Speaker 2: You're gone because we don't have the money.
Speaker 4: There's no money to pay you. I'm paying you out
of money that doesn't exist. I want to and that's
how it started.
Speaker 1: I want to jump in just an interrupt you here
because I love the idea of you work for free.
Now I don't I don't want to condone. I'm not
going to say working for freeze, but sometimes you got
to do something for free, just to show you can do.
Speaker 4: It and to show them how passionate.
Speaker 1: You are and dedicated and that you show up. It
was a centerator.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was no one else doing that.
Speaker 2: I believe that.
Speaker 1: So I believe it too. So you go part time?
What else are you doing to like you work in
at a bar?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I was.
Speaker 4: I don't even remember what I was doing. I had
some kind of I think I worked at like a
gym or something, okay, picking up towels, yeah, just to
try to pay the bills. I ended up living with
like three or four other guys that were still in school.
Speaker 2: One of those guys was an intern for me. That's awesome.
Speaker 4: I mean again, I was he was like two years
younger than I was, you know, So I found a
place where I was like we were, you know, five
guys dividing rent.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it was like one hundred and twenty
five dollars a month. Perfect. I could make it work.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a little bit money left over for
some drinks after work, and life was good. That's all
I needed. You need, right and back then, just a
little bit of gas for the tank. You could afford
a tank of gas.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's so funny because you look at this is
early nineties when.
Speaker 1: You start thinking sometimes of the happiest times you had nothing.
Speaker 2: You had nothing. You had a lot of hope, right
for sure.
Speaker 1: You know, even when it's just you and your wife
at the beginning, you have hope. And that's great. So
where do you what happens from this station? This is
in Connecticut Arts Hartford CONNETRKET.
Speaker 4: This was the NBC affiliate there, Okay, channel thirty, Yeah,
sort of.
Speaker 2: The cliff notes version.
Speaker 4: Is I worked there for three years as a sports producer.
You did twelve months After about a year, I was
elevated to the main sports producer.
Speaker 2: You know, I'd done well, I'd kind of taken the
ball and run quick. It was great. Uh, And I.
Speaker 4: Worked with incredible sportscasters. I was lucky. I worked with
people that really were good at what they did.
Speaker 2: When you're ran in the shadow of New York City and.
Speaker 4: In Boston, Well Beasley was calling NFL games for see
at that point, you know, so there was you know,
he was doing the Olympics for them, So there was
a There was just a lot that I was getting
exposed to in that area. But the longer I did it,
the more there were to me. Two paths were emerging,
you know, like try to get to the network level
as a behind the scenes producer guy, or try and
take what everything I had learned and try to do
it myself. Yeah, obviously in my early twenties, I was
that was an easy choice for me. Me too, I thought,
if I fell on my face, then I'll go back
and try and get a network producer. But I'm going
to at least go for it. So I grinded it out.
I put resume tapes together. They were horrendous, you know,
they were just terrible.
Speaker 2: I had no idea. What do you have any anywhere?
I don't know, but you could ever show your kids
or something.
Speaker 4: I don't know if I have the resume tapes that
I sent out to get that first job, but I
definitely have the first sports cast that I did once
I was on.
Speaker 1: Those are brutally, yeah, but how they're brutal, but they're great,
Yes they are.
Speaker 2: It's been a long time since I've seen it, but
I can still see it.
Speaker 1: Sodlights is that where you went was at West Virginia,
So I went from.
Speaker 4: There to West Virginia. It's a lot of great stories
that we could leverage here. I'll tell you how I
got that gig. I mean, I was sending these tapes everywhere. Yeah,
I mean, and it was like sending him into thin air,
like nobody was looking at these tapes. No one was
ever going to hire me for these jobs.
Speaker 2: But I'm mailing them out and hoping against hope. I'll
tell you how I got my first on air job.
Speaker 4: So the guy who was the weekend guy who would
replace Steve Savard that I told you about was a
guy named Chris Wraggy. Chris came to Hartford as the
weekend sports guy was so good that he left the
weekend sports gig in Hartford to take a gig as
a correspondent on Entertainment Tonight. That's how talented this guy was.
So I mean, I really was surrounded by unbelievable role models,
guys that really kind of showed me where the standard was.
Not that I ever got where they were, but at
least what to shoot for. So Raggy leaves and they're
looking to fill his position, and so when they're bringing
guys in to audition for this role, one of these
guys comes up from West Virginia, guy named Kevin Nathan.
He's still there. He's still at that station all these
years later, over thirty years later.
Speaker 2: Great guy.
Speaker 4: But I saw I'm putting these shows together for his
sports cast, and he's like, he's not auditioning, like you know,
behind the scenes. They brought him in for a weekend
and he did the weekends worth the shows, and I'm
putting these sports casts together, and I poured everything I
had into those shows for him. I made them as
good as they could be, and he wound up getting
the job. And when he came back to start the job,
he's like, look, I can't thank you enough. You know,
you really help make this happen. You maybe believe it
could happen. You put incredible shows together, and we convinced
this news director that I was the guy to hire.
Speaker 1: What was the motivating factor for you to have that
kind of dedicated.
Speaker 4: Always that way, I learned a hard lesson. So when
Savard left and the people were coming in to audition
for his job, I was put off by it because
I felt like I should have got it on. Yeah,
and I didn't really lean into it. I was, you know,
I kind of just went through the motions. And when
Chris got hired and came there, it took a while
for we worked very closely together right off the bat,
and it took a while, you know, to to sort
of thaw through that fiction or friction rather because I was,
you know, I was jealous of it, and Chris was
only a couple of years older than me, So I
was jealous of it and I and I learned through
that experience that that that jealousy did not serve me well,
that it was that it was that it was to
my detriment, not to my benefit. So when the next
opportunity came around, I leaned into it and I did
everything I could for those candidates, whether they were whether
they're good or bad. I gave them everything I had
and I and you know, I would say that's something
that has stayed with me.
Speaker 2: So long story short.
Speaker 4: The guy, so Kevin Nathan comes up, takes the job
in Hartford, and this is how the business works. So
Kevin Nathan's got a buddy who's in Bluefield. He takes
Kevin Nathan's job in Huntington, West Virginia. So now they've
got an opening in tiny little Bluefield. Well guess who
sends her tape to blue Field? Yeah, guess what news
director gets a phone call from Kevin Nathan, Right, the
news director in Bluefield. I drive all the way down there,
I do an interview, I drive all the way back.
Speaker 2: He calls me. He says, you got the gig.
Speaker 4: I put my whole life into a nineteen ninety three
Toyta Central Drive for the hills of West Virginia.
Speaker 2: This is amazing.
Speaker 1: So I love the way that is and I love
the whole story of not putting your all into it,
being jealous and envious and then realizing that's not serving you.
Speaker 2: And boom, look what happened. So now you go down there?
Was that just for weekends? So I went.
Speaker 4: I started there as the weekend sports guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what do you do during the week.
Speaker 4: So like then you would be like a sports reporter. Okay,
So they it's a full time job, full time gig. Okay,
I gotcha. It didn't seem like full time money, but
it was a full time gig.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But you're a West Virginia where I'm thinking in myself,
and I think most people would think a little bit backwards. Certainly,
probably not.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what to expect.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I was in my mid twenties at
that point, like I said, already been in the business
for three years.
Speaker 2: I had a lot of experience about how to.
Speaker 4: Put sports cast together, but I had very little experience
actually going out in news gathering.
Speaker 2: And when you're down in the market like that, that's
you know, you got to go out.
Speaker 4: Most nights, I would have my entire sports cast inside
my camera, you know what I mean. Like I went
out and shot the entire sports cast. You come back,
you edit all those highlights together, and you throw it
on the air at eleven o'clock, like you've had your
feet up all night.
Speaker 2: Right right now.
Speaker 4: But I was driving around the hills of West Virginia
and Southern Virginia as well, is right on the border there.
And for me, yeah, I guess the way I approached it,
I wasn't really focused on what there was going on
around me when I got there. I was just totally
focused on the fact that I was getting this dream opportunity. Yeah,
you know, and I just took full advantage of it,
full advantage. And you know, it's like most things in life,
you know, I look back on it, and I was
there at a great time. You know, I could rattle off,
you know, a short list of athletes who I covered
in the time that I was there, and you're like,
that's unbelievable, Randy Moss, Yeah, Michael Vick. These are guys
that were literally from me to you, multiple conversations, you know,
field level for watching these guys perform, and you knew
even then that they were different and special, you know,
so and it was incredible, you know, it was just
it was such a great training ground when I finally
got to Rochester three years later. As I said, interviewed
November ninety nine, started here in December ninety nine, one
month before the Music City Miracle. So it was mostly
it was most it was mostly my fault.
Speaker 1: I forgot well were you Are you a Giant fan
or were you I grew up a Giant fan. Yeah,
I did too, and people get mad at me. They're like, well,
you switch your loyalty, and I go, yeah. But when
you're here and you cover the guys like I did
radio shows from camp, I got mad, you know, yelled
at by Mario Williams. I sat with the different players
all the way through. Doug Flutie. You talk to these guys,
you can't help but root for them. It's true, you
just can't.
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 4: I think you're you know, certainly, as a sports caster,
I try to be as ejective as possible. You know,
when they struggled, and there were many years there where
they struggled in my sports.
Speaker 2: Stay, I don't remember that.
Speaker 4: I was very you know, I you know, I was
as I was as clear as I could be about that.
I really didn't try to let my feelings enter the equation.
But yes, I mean, you know, the way I always
put it to people is, look, the better they do,
the better it is for you. You know, you want
to get to the playoffs, you want to have a
shot at the Super Bowl, you want to be there
for the parade. Of course, you want them to win,
you want them to do well. And you do get
to know some of them, you know, and when you do,
it becomes you know, now you're rooting from them because
you love the story. You think they're a great guy,
or they've been really good to you, and you know
they've helped you do your job better and all those
things factor in for sure.
Speaker 2: So you sent take are you still at West Virginia
And that's and you come.
Speaker 1: Came here from West Virginia, from West Virginia, So you
send a tape here and it's again weekends, yes, yes, yeah.
Speaker 4: And for me, you know, the way I looked at
it when I was there was it was sort of
like there it was like kind of college, you know,
like West Virginia, Virginia Tech, Marshall, Virginia to a lesser degree.
And here it was a chance to sort of take
that step from the college level to the pros with
the Bills. Sabers amhergs Triple A Baseball with the Red Wings.
In fact, that a lot of the kids that are
on the Red Wings when I moved here were guys
that I had covered in Bluefield because that back then
it was the Orioles rookie affiliate.
Speaker 2: Oh that's yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4: And you know, the time it took me to get
from there to here, it was the same amount of
time it took them to get from rookie ball to
Triple A.
Speaker 2: Wow. So they were playing rookie ball in West Virginia.
Speaker 4: Josh Towers was a guy okay, and he pitched in
the two thousand All Star Game at Frontier Field, and
he had a pretty good career in the majors. There's
a guy that was in Bluefield with me who was
in Rochester when.
Speaker 2: I got here, and guys ever made the connection. You did.
But it wasn't like, bro, we did it, you know, No,
you did it.
Speaker 4: I got into U haul and took some stuff up
here and I talked about it on TV.
Speaker 2: You did it? Yeah, But yeah, but that was cool.
That was wild.
Speaker 1: Sure, cool progression, right, And then you're you're at the
NBC affiliate here for how many years?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Almost nine I think was the number, Almost ten years.
Did you transition to news there? I did not? You
did not. Yeah, I took a year away. You took
a year away. What did you do?
Speaker 4: For the year I worked in financial services, oh for
about a year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: And you talk about like timing in life, that was
not good timing. It was like, oh nine, yeah, when
the world was falling off.
Speaker 2: Oh that was when they were painting the Golden turns. People.
Speaker 4: Yes, people were not exactly lining up to get money
advice from me, right so, But it was a great
learning experience, no regrets about it. Made some incredible friendships,
learned a ton help some people out along the way.
But recognize that for me, you know, the prudent move
with a young family was to get back into a
situation where I could accentuate my skill set. Yeah you know, yeah,
I think you know, the way I look back on
that experience, I think had I been like just starting
out in my early twenties, you know, I could try
to grind my way through that. But with a wife
and kids and a house and a mortgage and all that,
I just need. I needed to be in.
Speaker 2: More of a sure situation. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's and I And as I said, you know,
it was not a great time financially in this country.
Speaker 2: No, it was not.
Speaker 1: I even had a relative who was high up at
MB and a bank and said I'm out.
Speaker 2: I'm not doing this.
Speaker 1: I can see what the government's painting golden turds and
I'm not doing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's amazing.
Speaker 4: There was a small group of people that you know,
like the Big Short that movie.
Speaker 2: It's amazing either he said, he goes, this is this
is terrible.
Speaker 1: I don't want no part of it. And I and
laughed and laughed. With a parachute was you know, way
high up and certainly had worked his way up from
collections all the way up, you know, again a grinder,
smart guy, and then floated down and then floated down
with his parachute and once told me, I have enough
money to run for senator from the state of Delaware
and take money from no one, like I could finance
my whole campaign.
Speaker 2: So you know, that worked out.
Speaker 1: But he's like, you can't do this, you know, and
would say, we used to be able to profile lenders
by just looking at them. Yeah, you knew blue collar
guys were going to make their payments. These were hard
working guys, They were earnest guys.
Speaker 2: They knew it.
Speaker 1: They go this other stuff that they were starting to
do was just just bet. But you go and do
that for a year. How do you what happens to
bring you back? Because I do remember the CBS affiliate.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know I had a chance to come
back to Rochester and for me, you know, John Cutchko
actually was the guy that kind of helped make it happen.
Speaker 2: Yea.
Speaker 4: You know, he was like, hey, we've got some openings
and I've talked to the news director about you. You know,
this could be a great opportunity for you to get
your foot back in the door and you know, see
where it goes from there. And I saw it that way.
I saw it as an opportunity to get back in
and then kind of grow it from there and try
and get out of the anchor desk. I knew that
what I you know, one of the things that you
learn in that industry, television news, is that well, just
turn on the news.
Speaker 2: You'll see it for yourself.
Speaker 4: There's a lot more news people than there are sports people.
Oh yeah, yeah, there's more reporters, there's more anchors, there's
more shows. And the other thing is, you know when
sports you're always begging like, oh, there's a big game
tonight in Caledonia. Can we get some help getting some
highlights from it.
Speaker 2: In news, you never have to beg for that.
Speaker 4: You go where it is and they want you to
get it. So there was an element of sort of
if you can't beat them, join them. I ended up
doing bill, the two things I said I would never do.
I love mornings and news and here's the beauty of it.
I did it voluntarily. Nobody forced me into it. They
asked me if I wanted to do it, and I said,
you bet, I do because at that moment in my life,
it was absolutely the right move.
Speaker 2: So which is great, right, and you need to know that.
And things happen for a reason.
Speaker 4: It's I think the longer you go, the more you
realize that they do tend to happen for a reason.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Not always apparent in the moment.
Speaker 1: No, it's not. And I always think, like I always go,
you know how people go out? What a coincidence? I
don't think there are any coincidences, but that's.
Speaker 2: My weird head.
Speaker 1: However, I do remember what time did you have to
I want to say, get up, but I think you
were in and I'll say in makeup and I know
that sound may sound funny, but.
Speaker 2: You were on TV. Yeh know?
Speaker 1: You get a little shiny or whatever, like three am.
So you got up out of bed at three am.
Speaker 4: Yeah, at the studio prepping the show by four am.
And to your point, you know, by a quarter of
ten of five in the morning, make up on, bright
eyed and bushy tailed, ready.
Speaker 1: To go, and you went on at five five. Yeah,
And how many years did you do this?
Speaker 4: I did that for uh yeah, like about a little
over a decade.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: It is a wow. When I look back on it,
it's a wow. And I mean a wow in really
every sense of the word. I love sports. I'm a
sports guy at heart, always have been. But I learned
to appreciate news. I learned to appreciate not so much
the murder and mayhem elements of it, right, but the
incredible people in this community that are passionate about doing
different kinds of things, either on a business level or
a film topic level, that that I didn't know about
and otherwise would never have known about. Sure, I love sports,
but you know, there tends to be a groundhog day
component of It's football season, it's basketball season, it's baseball season.
Guess what, it's football season again. You know, you know,
there's an element of Ben there done that the names
in the face has changed and that keeps it fresh.
Speaker 2: But in news, it's constantly evolving.
Speaker 1: It is constantly evolving. And I like what you said
because I think I have found I don't watch a
whole lot of news anymore. And it's not out of
any other thing that I don't feel good when I
watched it.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I go.
Speaker 4: And it sounds like a lot of people well, which
is and I understand.
Speaker 1: But that's news, right, So sometimes I prefer to read
it than I do sometimes online because I can get it,
and I can you know, I'll summarize articles for myself
for the podcast and things. Sure, but it's it's a
tough grind because you know, we report. I mean the
old adage that if it leads it or if it bleeds,
excuse me, it leads was, you know, the way it
was in news for a long time. I think for
almost a century that was sort of the saying.
Speaker 4: Well, and the research consistently shows that when people are
surveyed about television news, they will tell you consistently that
that that negative news is a turnoff. Yes, you know,
the you know, the bleeds it leads type of news
stories are turnoff. Yet at the same time, those same
people will tell you those are the stories they're most interested.
Speaker 2: Right exactly.
Speaker 4: Yes, I think there's an element of like you know,
driving by the car wreck on the highway, you can't
help it, love look right, you know.
Speaker 1: But I like what you were saying in terms of
the people that were doing things and making a difference.
And sometimes you know you can't do it and it
wouldn't really be very interesting, but almost like the happy
news channel, you know what I'm saying, well, but in
a sense, but you need the contrast in life period
you do. But I think it's cool to see people
that are doing great things. I always thought that this
area owes a lot like it or not to George Eastman,
because Kodak brought brilliant minds here. Brilliant minds guys who
were PhDs. They could have invented things on their own,
but they had families and stuff and go, I need
a paycheck, a steady paycheck, so they got a research department.
I lived across from a guy who is I think
he had a doctor in flow, which sounds ridiculous, but
how ink flows. He would do experiments sometimes in his
oven because he was, you know, things were backing up
at work, whatever, and those brilliant minds, a lot of
them stay here. Kodak is what it is today. But
they had kids. And there are other businesses that many
people are not aware of because they're not really something
you would go into, but they do big business around
the country for sure.
Speaker 4: It would be the lighting or around the globe for
that or around the globe.
Speaker 1: And I often think, boy, those brilliant creative minds were
brought here because of Kodak.
Speaker 2: No question. And you know, I would sort of tie
a couple things together.
Speaker 4: You know, I talked in the beginning about like interviewing
with Bill Seizler and much funky, like literally knowing two
people in this town, not knowing really anything about this
community other than a handful of the nicknames of the
sports teams. And I really grew to love this place
for that reason. I mean, there are so many things
about this community that you don't find in communities this
size in other parts of the country. To find these
types of things like a philharmonic or you know those
you know, the off Broadway shows and some of the
things that were able to tract into this area, you know,
are things that you have to go to a much
larger metro to replicate. And once you get to a
larger metro like a New York City or a Philly
or DC or whatever, you bring it a whole host
of other issues in terms of traffic and getting a market. Yes, right,
we're here. You largely are able to move through all
that seamlessly, enjoy all the benefits.
Speaker 1: Was there ever a desire when you were in news?
And I'll bring this up because reminded me of something
with me to go to a bigger market.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, the reason I got rich. Funky told
me the reason I got the driving reason, the deciding
factor why he chose to hire me over the other
person that they were looking at, was because when he
asked both of us what our goals were, the other
person told him this is my goal. This is where
I want to be. And when he asked me the
same question, I told him I want to get to
New York City. Yeah, that's why I grew up. It's
the number one market, and I want to get into
a situation where, uh, when my parents turn on their
TV at night, it's me that they see.
Speaker 2: How cool would that? Yeah? Sure? Never got there. Okay,
that's the that's that's the of that story. Yeah, but
what is what that's what drove me. Yes, that's what
drove you. But that was my mindset because I.
Speaker 1: I remember even going to a major city interviewing and
the guy who I was supposed to have breakfast with saying,
we're going to have to do it tomorrow because I
was in town for a couple of days because traffic
was so bad. After an hour, he could still see
the on ramp in his rearview mirror and he goes,
I'm not going to get there. It was maybe the
worst or one of the worst days of traffic in
the history of that city. And it's one of those
things where you go maybe not, maybe I don't want
to do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, and I think.
Speaker 4: You know this, this is sort of the overarching theme
of kind of what we're talking about, is that you know,
as your as your life goes through different stages, your
priorities change. Yes, you know, it took me a while
to figure it out, but eventually I realized that the
goals that I had in my twenties were not the
goals that I have now. And there's nothing wrong with
those goals. There was nothing wrong with striving for those things,
but my priorities had shifted, and that and that the
pursuit of those goals were at the would would come
at the expense of the things that really mattered to me,
my family, Right, And once I really understood that, it became,
you know, much easier to reconcile what was or wasn't
being accomplished in my career, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yes, and I wonder too, like and I this isn't
where I want to go. But I will say the
media landscape as a whole is changing completely, and it's
partly because of things people can do independently, like this
podcast and so question. But what I'm seeing now is
the underpinnings the parts of media that people may not
be familiar with. The off air producer who's working for
is losing his.
Speaker 4: Gig, yeah, and some of that because you're getting into
scenarios where you can integrate different types of jobs into
one job.
Speaker 1: Look, when I left radio, I was on eighty stations
doing classic rock, talking like I'm sitting in Brian, Texas, Sacramento, California.
I remember having a friend go I'm on an Alaskan
cruise and I just heard your voice and it's crazy
and I think almost detrimental. I can only speak for radio.
I think radio people will tell you the time, Wow,
radio is dead. Podcast right, No, radio is not dead.
If radio served its local community, it would.
Speaker 2: Thrive, absolutely thrive. That was the point.
Speaker 1: But because of corporate And you can't say corporate's bad.
Somebody tried something, right. If we're not, if we're not failing,
we're not trying, you know what I mean, They're not
being lazy, they're trying, and they're trying to figure it out.
But it got so big, and it got boards of directors,
and now you got more people than answerholders and shareholders,
and so that becomes the problem for sure. And so
what you start to see as the mom and pop
thing come back, it happens to be the podcast now
or or or YouTube channels or whatever it is. And
I think that eventually things even out, they just do.
But I see that with media, and I gotta think
after a while, because television glamorous in most people's minds, right, glamorous,
it's a glamorous.
Speaker 2: It's a glamorous thing.
Speaker 1: But sometimes well it's sure, but at the same time,
it's you know, there's a tremendous amount of work, and
it's it's a grind and you gotta when you're out
trying in the hills of West Virginia to catch a
high school game, you know, and your racing back and
your car overheats or they're crappy van that they give
you whatever it is, the above, oh, the above, right. So,
but yet when you look back, you go, man, what
a trip.
Speaker 2: What a trip? Great memories?
Speaker 4: You know you will you tend to look back with
rose colored glasses, right stuff.
Speaker 2: Sure you do. Yeah, not that day that just seemed
to never end.
Speaker 4: Right, or that speeding ticket you got because you were
trying to get that extra game.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, I uh. I still think it kind of comes
back to what I said though. Through all of that, though,
those fundamental skills of reading and writing, yes, are consistent.
That's a through line with everything, right, And yes, it's changing, it's.
Speaker 2: Evolving, uh.
Speaker 4: And there are some ways where that's troublesome, but there's
there are other ways which it's amazing.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I think this is an example of it. There so
much opportunities being opened up to people and people who
have real ability and talent who might otherwise not have
gotten a foot in the door are finding a way in.
And I think you see that, uh with with podcasting.
I think you see it with acting, you see it
with people and you know, forms of journalism. I guess
I'll use that term where they're kind of making their
own version of it, right, you know, I guess what
I would say. I would be careful to say that
it doesn't necessarily replace or eliminate the need for accuracy
and journalism. No, it does not, know and the role
of legacy media, so to speak. Sure, but there's room,
there's space in the room for other voices, other perspectives,
and I think we're living in an age where that's evolving.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is real time.
Speaker 1: It is evolving in real time. And you bring up
an interesting thing because I think the debate of being first, right,
it was always breaking news or what was the old
County Central? When news breaks, we fix it, But who
was there first?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: The exclusive was a big deal. I would think it
was probably a bigger deal for TV than maybe it
was for radio, or radio would be more in the
form of an interview per se. And I remember sitting
somewhere they did a test and they go, Yeah, a
country station had Garth Brooks on at seven twenty and
this other station didn't get them until nine twenty.
Speaker 2: And it didn't matter. You're right.
Speaker 1: But in the but in the moment and in the mind, baby,
it was every one if we had them at seven
to twenty.
Speaker 4: But Bill, think about it, you know, it's you know,
I can remember there would be days where you'd get
you'd get that exclusive story, yeah at two in the afternoon,
and you'd be holding it until six to air it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Those days are gone, Yes, because when it happened to
two in the afternoon, everybody already knows about it. Yeah,
because but you better have it advanced off of that
point into a completely new direction by six o'clock because you,
me and everyone else we've already consumed the basics of it,
the it of that breaking story. What where can you
take the story now four hours later?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And I and there are still some people who may
not have heard about it, But you're right most people,
I mean, I say, all the time marked it were
people are walking around with a TV station in their pocket,
no question, they.
Speaker 2: Can go on live and get.
Speaker 1: Huge numbers potentially, Right, the abilities there to go viral
in a sense and have a story or any news
get out.
Speaker 4: Right, and you're seeing you know, I mean, I don't
know how deep in the weeds we want to go, sure,
but you know you're seeing a version of that play
out in terms of X with Elon Musk. You know,
that's that's really his whole point, that the legacy media
is dead, and that every one of everyone, everyone who
has you know, a smartphone and X load downloaded onto
it is a journalist.
Speaker 2: In theory. There is some truth to that.
Speaker 4: But again I do think that that while that there's
an element of truth there, you still have to there
still has to be a room in the conversation for
accuracy fact yes versus opinion, perspective vantage point even you
know where you see something from a different angle and
it looks different all of a sudden. So you may
have captured something one way and it may give a
certain view of an event, and now people are often
running with you and suddenly some you know, another view
of it comes in and it provides a whole different
understanding of that event.
Speaker 1: I beat the drum on this podcast of saying often
that's one perspective I'll try to find other things. When
I see something that's so egregious, right, I go, well,
what's going on? And where that came from for me
was a local news incident many years ago. You may
remember this. A mother and daughter get in a fight
in the driveway. Police show up and uh, it's a
It was a black woman, and I think it was
a white officer, and he.
Speaker 2: Is seen on tape kind of.
Speaker 1: Whacking her on the side of the head as she's
he's putting her in cuffs and people were going crazy.
Speaker 2: I do have a memory for this, and it was lovely.
Speaker 1: Warren was running for first term as mayor, and I
remember talking about this and a guy that many people
do not like, Adam McFadden and I went to college together.
And Adam goes, there's another angle of tape out there,
and he goes.
Speaker 2: You need to see it, and I get a hold
of it.
Speaker 1: And it's the young woman reaching back for either the
officer's gun and he's saying stop, or she's reaching for
his private It's hard to tell, honestly, the way it
was going, and as Adam said, could be either one
rig truthfully, and she was being somewhat aggressive and he
finally just kind of went a little slap upside the
head to get her to stop. And Adam is the
guy who said to me, you got to talk about
this because this is the other side. And it made
me say everything we see is, you know, from a
vantage point, and what we also, I think have to
really remember. And I don't mean this for necessarily the news,
but life in general. You know, we could have a
party in here and or something happened with you know,
for let's say those other two chairs are filled around
our table, and everybody's gonna have a different answer as
to what happened, similar but different, yes, And everyone's perspective
in this is it.
Speaker 2: Plays a lot.
Speaker 1: Our biases, our personal beliefs or things all play into that.
Speaker 2: And I think in your life experience and your life experience. Sure,
so it was so hard.
Speaker 1: So when we look back, and I'll hear things like, boy,
if we could go back to the days of Walter
Cronkite on the news, Yeah, it was a simpler time
because not everybody was jumping for the same story. And
by the way, you know, I didn't know what you
had for lunch, Yes, I didn't know. I didn't get
to see it up close and in detail. I actually saw,
you know, the some spin all on the fork. Still
I don't know you needed to know, but you know,
you know that's what I mean. And we know there's
so much information now comes so quickly, and I think
that it almost.
Speaker 2: There's no research.
Speaker 4: Well, I think there's a couple of things that play
into that.
Speaker 2: One.
Speaker 4: The news cycle moves so quickly sure that it doesn't
really allow for time to step back consider distill, because
you're already into the next element or to the next
great event. And that happens, you know, over my thirty
years in local television news, you know, that was the
kind of thing that went from happening over the course
of several days to happening over the course of hours,
where you can move in and out of two or
three different news cycles over the court from the start
of you know, from the start of a new shift
until the six o'clock news with the same story. Things
move so rapidly. Obviously, the rise of the internet, the
smartphone apps, you know, the accessibility of all of this stuff,
the ability to capture this stuff and share it with
the world, has played into that. And there's so many
positives there But one drawback, and maybe that's the right word,
is that things move so quickly that sometimes we aren't
able to put perspective on it.
Speaker 2: Away.
Speaker 4: It allows for greater understanding and a lot of times
just eliminates confusion or misinformation because you got the version,
the first version of it, and you've been swept into
the next big thing. You never really stayed around long
enough to get the context for what happened there and
maybe a deeper understanding of what that issue was about,
and you just the news cycle moves so quickly that
there almost isn't time in our lives or even space
in our minds to try to go back and figure
out what it was that we missed, because we're just
racing on to the.
Speaker 1: Next racing on to the next thing, and we see
so much stuff, even the nonsense. I'm joking about seeing
your lunch, not your lunch, but someone's lunch, right, You know,
we see a lot of nonsense, and we know things
almost I would say too much. I don't think I
learned beings are wired.
Speaker 2: I largely agree to take in.
Speaker 1: This much information. It's hard to process. I think there
are even health things. I think you may be able
to highlight ADHD a little bit with this sort of stuff.
Speaker 4: The research is being done about this in real time,
you know, and the books will be coming out about it,
and there will be courses of study in college as
we shoutinue to loop back in this conversation, where people
will make that their life's work. I mean, I still
feel like that we are still in the wild West
as it comes.
Speaker 2: To the man.
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree with you more. And I know we
could say it feels like it's been around for a
lifetime over twenty five years, right, let's say, or a generation.
I don't want to say a lifetime a generation, but yeah,
we are because because even that has changed, yes, and
the ability to stream, the ability to do all this.
So this information stuff is out there. If you want it,
you can you can get it, yes, And that's the
that that's almost too much, yes.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 4: I guess you know the wild West component of it,
you know, from a journalistic standpoint is that there's no playbook,
there are.
Speaker 2: No rules to stabia. Well yes, yeah, right, I carry you.
It has it does.
Speaker 4: But think about it from a journalistic standpoint, this is
one of the things that as time went on that
I became. I struggled with I guess is the fair
way to put it? I mean you mentioned kron Kite.
You know where the where the mindset there was middle
of the road.
Speaker 2: Right, You don't lean one way or the other. You
literal the road.
Speaker 4: You present the facts as you understand them, because because
you're understanding evolved sometimes you learn new information. But you
give the information the facts as you understand it, and
you let the viewer make their own listener decide.
Speaker 2: You're just the conduit for the information.
Speaker 4: So then you know this thing, you know, Facebook and
Twitter and Instagram, things like that come along, and now
you have journalists with their own page and they're building
their own brand, and they're telling you what they think.
Which it's America, it's a free country. You're allowed to
do that. But suddenly we've now without a rule book
or a playbook or an understanding of how this should work,
we've blurred the lines. So now you have a journalist
who's basically laid out on Twitter how they feel about
someone or something going and covering that for the news. Right, well,
how are we going to you know, where is the
neutrality there? Am I getting an unfiltered, unbiased view of
this event, whatever it may be. I struggled with that
as as time went on, because there was really no
one to kind of stand up and say, this is
how we should do it. This is the way to
separate those two things. Where you can have your page
and your interests, but you have to operate in a
way where when people turn on the TV to watch you,
they feel like they're getting again an unbiased version of
what you're telling them, that what you're telling them is authentic,
it's not filtered or skewed in any way based on
your belief I'm tricky.
Speaker 2: It's tough, oh got it, but it's it's But.
Speaker 4: I think this is something that you know, I think
almost immediately I began to see was an issue, and
it unequivocally is an issue as we speak.
Speaker 1: How did you handle social media for yourself when you
were on the.
Speaker 4: Yes, The answer is I tried to stay in.
Speaker 2: The middle of the row, in the middle of the road.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, like to me, my, my, uh, sort
of My line of where I felt like I could
tread into an opinion would be like.
Speaker 2: The bills are going to the playoffs, right, Like, if
you have a problem with that, then you got me,
you know, like, Okay, you win.
Speaker 4: I wasn't totally neutral to the end, you know, or uh,
you know, I don't know, you know, like some youngster
from Rochester wins the National spelling Bee.
Speaker 2: You know, way to go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I mean, if you have to, there's
got to be some things that we all can agree
is good news, or we can all agree is terrible news. Right,
But you know, outside of those extremes, I really tried
to live in a place where you know, I guess
the way I would think of it, like, you know,
it's the easy, easiest example that comes to mind, you know,
to me, if you're watching me on TV, I'd like
to think that you didn't know if I was a
Democrat or a Republican, right, And I think if you
felt like you knew, then that reflected more on me
than you. You know, that I wasn't doing my job
as well as I should have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like you trying to say that that neutral. It
is weird now because the information does come so fast.
Everybody has an opinion and they often think it's right.
And then there are things where that I scratched my
hat about almost as a joke, but it was a
real thing that happened, even on the podcast, with people
saying that a local school was getting so liberal and
people were so upset that they were allowing kids that
identified as furries or animals to use a litter box
in the in the bathroom. Yeah, and people are running
around Mark with this online and I had to say
to somebody, I go, hang on a second.
Speaker 2: We just went through a pandemic.
Speaker 1: Do you think and forgive my friends, Mark, but do
you think they're letting kids shit in a box in
an open air in a bathroom. There's no way, there's
no way, the health concerned, no way, there's not.
Speaker 2: A chance this is happening.
Speaker 4: But I think, to me, in that story is the
reality of the moment we're in guests that we are
so quick.
Speaker 2: To assume that's true, right and why? And there's no
sex and balances on that, But that.
Speaker 1: Would also be back to your own personal beliefs and
thinking we're going too far. Things are too liberal in
that person's mind. Who's eating that story up? And I go,
hang on a second. All I'm asking people to do
is think, Just try to pause and think, give a
little bit of a beat in between your knee jerk
reaction and maybe a thoughtful reaction to what's happening.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you even earlier today, I'm scrolling through my
my x feed.
Speaker 2: And see, to me, like the present iteration of this is.
Speaker 4: A I I'm watching a whale open up its mouth
and swallow a yacht with people on it, and like,
for like the first I don't know to three quarters
of a second, I'm like whoa, And then finally I'm
like no, like that's not real, it didn't happen. But
like there's that moment where you want to believe that,
like I'm seeing something that I've never seen before, and
then you're like, whoa, pump the brakes. But even as
I said, even in my mindset, you're so we so
want to go there. We want to believe that, and
that's what I think that again, regardless of what you
believe or don't believe that, I think collectively, if we
could just pump the brakes a little bit all this
stuff and just say, wait a minute before I leap
in and start sharing every last thought I have on something,
Let's make sure I fully understand it, make sure that
I understand how I think about it. That I'm considering
different viewpoints and then maybe put a toe in.
Speaker 1: The water exactly. And I think that's really really great advice.
Speaker 2: Person.
Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say, we do right, because
this is the thing, but you but it's also we've
seen people burned by doing the opposite, for sure.
Speaker 2: Burned.
Speaker 1: People have lost jobs, people have been fired, people have
lost friends, family members, don't speak to people because of
certain things. That and it does it even have to
be politics. That'll be the hot one that everybody will
jump to. Let it be anything, all of the above.
You're right, Let it be anything. Let it be somebody
got drunk and after seeing someone at the family funeral
and your emotions are all over the place. You're not
in a great state of mind, and you fire off
something at one o'clock in the morning after a couple
of cocktails and now all cut off. You're cut off
like no one, hey that Christmas is alone, right, It's
just it's these are the consequences of the time we
live in. And I do wonder in a way, as
we talk about sort of the pendulum of life, if
things will swing back a little bit to the more
of let's be let's try to bring some rationale into
the moment here and look at things. I'm not saying
that everything we're seeing is not as it is. Maybe
it is, but let's really kind of prove it before
we start swinging, because people are punching yeah and figuratively
and literally.
Speaker 4: Yes, and and it's amazing how quickly we can, you know,
dig our heels in and decide we're not moving off
that position, you know, in a moment's not in a
moment one misinterpreted message like yeah, you know, unwind you know,
decades of friendship.
Speaker 2: It is crazy. Do you miss the news at all?
Speaker 4: So I get that asked that question, I'm sure you do.
I mean, here's what I would say. Certainly, don't miss
the hours I described. Yes, I don't miss the murder
in the mayhem. You know, it's it's just troubling, it's sad,
it's awful. What I do miss are the people I
worked with, the relationships and the atmosphere of the newsroom.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, there was an energy. There's an energy
in there.
Speaker 4: And I think what I what I used to tell
students that I believe this is that people that find
themselves in that environment are naturally curious.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I think that's a good thing to be
in life.
Speaker 4: You know, intelligence, lack of intelligence, whatever, but you are
just naturally curious. You're inquisitive. You look at things and
you ask questions like why is that that way? What
if we turned it like this, would it be different?
Speaker 2: You know? You just your mind works that way.
Speaker 4: And I think when you're around other people that have
that kind of outlook on the world that it's it
can be a really interesting.
Speaker 2: Place to be.
Speaker 4: No two days were alike, right, And I think there's
a lot to be said for that. I think, you know,
I'm sure there are people that would think about their life, Oh,
it's the same old routine, you know, you know, living
for the weekend.
Speaker 2: You know, look, I get it some degree.
Speaker 4: I'm living for the weekend now and I'm happy about it.
But there was there was an energy in there that
I think is hard to replicate in most other work settings.
Speaker 1: Would you ever see yourself of being a teacher, and
I mean like at a college level or something for
these types of things, maybe even more for the writing aspect, Yeah,
I mean there are many people that worry about what's
going to happen in writing. Another thing that came up
in the podcast, and I do reference it every once
in a while because I think I had a very
different reaction to the person who put it forth is oh,
they're not even teaching cursive anymore, And I went, who cares?
And they're like, well, I go, yeah, but what does
that have impact on your life?
Speaker 2: There's so much the what is it? And I understand.
Speaker 1: Because I say, I know people with beautiful penmanship and
they are as dumb as could be. So don't tell
me that it's a sign of intelligence necessarily here. But
the ability to write, to care, you know thoughts, be
able to take thoughts, great ideas will never go out
of style. Nope, and communicating them effectively will never go
out of style.
Speaker 4: It's an essential skill. Yeah, I don't care what you do.
It's an essential saying. Yeah, I agree about a lawyer
delivering the closing arguments. You better be able to take
everything that was laid out over the course of that
two week trial and plant it into the mind of
those jurors exactly the way you want to.
Speaker 2: That is a skill.
Speaker 4: Yeah, It's not just about writing a story for television news.
That's a skill that can transfer into a number of
different kinds of careers.
Speaker 1: The thing that I noticed, as you said earlier, the
through line for you was writing right, and it was
taking what are the four best baskets that tell the
story or whatever that was. You have a passion for
that writing and stuff.
Speaker 2: I would you take that on? Would you do a book?
But I mean, would you take on teaching that to
someone at a collegiate level. I would be interested in
doing that. I would. I tell you that.
Speaker 4: My hesitation in it is not that part of it.
It's just that the world is solving so quickly in
terms of technology that I candidly sometimes I feel like
I'm just not.
Speaker 2: Up to qualified. Yeah, you know, I see that.
Speaker 4: Sometimes I think, you know, like even my own children,
I'm going to them to try and how does this work?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: I'm thinking, like, how do you stand in front of
a classroom when when the students are the ones who
have the answers?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: But you're right, I think I think there's something to
be said for my life experience in journalism set that
I think could bring something tangible to a classroom setting.
Speaker 2: I would enjoy that. I've always en sued great at it.
Speaker 4: I've enjoyed being in those settings in the past. Yeah,
it's just never really presented itself.
Speaker 2: The uh.
Speaker 1: I know the use of AI is certainly a concern
for many people in terms of let's just say writing, right,
you got your chat gput your claudes. And I'm only
touching on what I've experienced. But I think that they
you're never putting as I like to say that Genie
back in the bottle.
Speaker 2: It's not happening. So it's here.
Speaker 1: How do we use it as a tool for things?
And I remember talking to a report order from the
New York Times. He said, I use chatch ept sometimes
when I'm stuck. How can I say this better? What
turn of phrase? And it gives you something quickly. I've
had it where I go summarize this article for me
because I just don't have time to go through stuff
and boom, give me an angle to think about or something.
Speaker 2: And it does it.
Speaker 1: And I think if you but you have to use
it in addition to yeah, would be mine. It has
to be an ad Yeah, I think it has to
enhance AI plus whatever you your ingenuity?
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, And I think you know, so much of
writing is tied into language, expression and words and you know,
the right word can really help drive home the essence
of the thought. You know, I think that we all
find ourselves at different times in that process going I
can't quite put my I know where I want this
to go, I can't quite get my finger there. I'm
not I can't. I've not used a I don't really
have experience with it. But I could see where that
might illuminate choices where you could say, yeah, that is
what I'm trying to do. Let me incorporate that into
what I'm working on here.
Speaker 1: You don't want to lose even your own voice in that.
You know, you think of authors. You knew a Steinbeck,
and you knew a Hemingway, and you knew there there
were specific styles of writing. Even trying to think of
the who is the journalist who did leaving Las Vegas?
Speaker 2: And Hunter?
Speaker 1: I mean there was a style to this, right Hunter
ass time. They had style, and you knew what it
was when you started to read it, even if it
was under a pen name in a Rolling Stone article
like and everybody figures out who it is? There was
a little excitement to that's right, But there there was
something in that style that I hope doesn't go away.
Speaker 4: Either I was going to say, we are as a culture,
as a society better for that, Yes, for those for
that nuance and expression and voice, no question.
Speaker 2: Vonnegut I mean has its place. Sure it does.
Speaker 4: If we're wrapping up notes on you know, somebody's course
of medical treatment, you know, we don't need to decide,
you know, like we don't need to argue over the
authenticity of who are you know, authored these notes? But
in terms of culture and expression, and you know, again,
you think about some of the things in Rochester, the
cultural things that we have here that make this such
a unique place to live. You wouldn't want that lost
through AI enhanced, Yes, but not lost, not replaced, right,
we'd be I think would be the lesser for it.
You're right, we're not going backwards. This is the new reality.
And much like the Internet itself, I think we're in
a period of the wild West, right, you know where
I think even school districts and I don't want to
speak out of turn, I'm not an educator, but you know,
are wrestling with how do how do we incorporate this
tool into the learning process of our students, because it's
going to be part of their adult lives.
Speaker 1: I can tell you that, yes, that's a great point.
But I also do know that they now have technology
where they can watch in real time as a student
puts together an essay to and I've seen a thing
where they go, don't be like this guy, and it's
a three hundred and fifty word essay.
Speaker 2: It's done in twelve seconds. It's just cut fag, and
I go, come on, you know you didn't even try, like,
you didn't even type.
Speaker 1: They can see how many keystrokes you do, like through
the technology, So you know, just as much as I
like to always say that the world is designed by
geniuses to be run by idiots, right, and if you
and everything, Mark, I forgive me, but everything devolves down
to a penis joke, right, And somebody with a camera
right this whoever invented the camera that we can film,
We could go live from anywhere. You can see things
that you've never seen. We can go to the depths
of the ocean and all that, and what do I see?
Speaker 2: Some guys junk? You know what I mean? That's what
it becomes.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, I think this has been a really really interesting conversation.
Speaker 2: What is uh, what's going to happen? With the potholes.
By the way, I saw you.
Speaker 1: On the news, I think talking about yeah, potholes and stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've done a couple of pothole interviews of late.
This is the time of year for this is pothole time.
This is pothole season.
Speaker 1: Which, by the way, I said once marijuana was legalized,
I was going to open a store called potholes.
Speaker 2: Never did, but I mean.
Speaker 4: Just it's always the great ideas we never grasp. Yeah,
I mean, this is the time of year, and you
know my recommendations are you know, Triple A's recommendations. This
is a fact of life for us. They're out there
and as soon as you patch one, another one's going
to open up. I mean, this winter, we talked about it.
You know, it's been more of a typical winter with
the freezing and the thawing and a lot of you
know where you're getting moisture into the crevices in the
roadway and then it breaks it up as cars drive
over it.
Speaker 2: You know, the weight of the vehicle. So you know, the.
Speaker 4: Recommendation is and this is I'm always careful about sharing
this recommendation, but it's if you're driving along you see
a pothole, try to avoid it.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's okay, Yes.
Speaker 4: But not at the expense of putting yourself or another
motorist at risk right swerving right, We don't we don't
want to swerve and make things worse. And you know,
so decelerate, don't hammer on the brake over the pothole,
because the harder that impact. You know, whether you're hitting
the brakes or you're you miss it, you don't see
it at all.
Speaker 2: And you just.
Speaker 4: Race right over it is you know, you're you're dramatically
bringing up the possibility that you're going to damage the
vehicle in some way, the suspension, the alignment, the tire,
the rim whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that's smart too.
Speaker 1: I always try to say, take your foot off the
gas yep, both in life and in your car.
Speaker 2: See, we've touched on that. We don't need, we don't
need to hit it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure the passion for sports never leaves any of us. Uh,
football your favorite or I mean you played soccer.
Speaker 2: I played soccer.
Speaker 4: Yeah, my favorite sport to play was basketball as a kid.
I want, I mean, I just loved the game. It
just was not genetically happening. Okay, you know, I was
you know, okay again, but not.
Speaker 2: Was never gonna take it anywhere.
Speaker 4: Soccer was enough of a game where I could kind
of genetically make it work, you know, like if you
had the skills, you could play. But football is my
favorite to watch. Yeah, and my favorite play now is golf. Okay,
So that puts me in a large group of people.
Speaker 1: When we the NFL Players Association has come out with UH, basically,
it's the road map if you're a free agent what
teams to avoid.
Speaker 2: You know, it's almost like the Triple A.
Speaker 1: Stay off this road a lot of potholes, yes, and
we see different things the b The Bills get a
B at coaching and things. This stuff is subjective. They
got an F or an F minus and travel so
Terry needs to buy some new plays.
Speaker 2: I get it so right, But when you have seen the.
Speaker 1: Bills from your first time here, and it was Music
City miracle, right when Tennessee all of a sudden pulls
it off. It was Doug Fluti and everybody wondered, why
would Doug?
Speaker 2: Was it Doug? Rob Johnson replaced Flute in the lineup.
That's what Yes, that was what it was.
Speaker 1: Yes, So all that stuff to where they are today
is light years apart.
Speaker 2: In many ways. It's a different game.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yes, it's a different it's played differently, it's
it's legislated differently. The rules have evolved to really emphasize
offense in the game. I'm not saying anything that a
hardcore football fan would disagree with. It's just a different game,
much more emphasis on passing. Yeah, there's and appropriately so
a much greater emphasis on players safety. But yeah, and
in terms of what you're seeing on the field, I
look at a guy like Josh Allen, I mean, he
could have played in any era.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what I mean, He's really one of
those guys.
Speaker 4: I say this anytime I get into a longer conversation
about the Bills, you know, I always say I still,
even now, I'm not sure people really appreciate just how
good he is, right, He's what he does is amazingly
to me on some level, taken for granted. I'm sure
a lot of fans be like, I don't take it
for granted. I think he's incredible, yes, but I just
don't know that people truly understand how gifted he is.
He is a generational talent. You know, again, we understand,
you know, the way sports works that you've got to
do certain things to get into a certain pantheon. You
gotta get to a super Bowl, you gotta win a
Super Bowl, you got to get an MVP on the resume.
Speaker 2: Those kinds of things.
Speaker 4: Those become separators between the Dan Marinos and the Joe
Montanas of the world. But his just his pure athletic ability,
his ability to make plays and to be consistently successful
is unbelievable, and I just find it amazing because this
franchise struggled really from Jim Kelly until Josh Allen to
find the guy, I mean, Fluty. There was magic there
for but he was at the end, you know. I
mean he gave them everything he had, but he just
didn't have a ton left in the tank. Obviously, there
was issues with Ralph I think favoring Rob Johnson and
wanting him to be in the lineup, and that probably
brought Fluti's era to an enderly, But it was never
going to be a decade long run that way. He
was always sort of a stop gap, and from that
point forward they never really landed on the guy. And
then they you know, they didn't hit a home run
they hit a granny with Josh Allen.
Speaker 1: It's so strange because when I go back to that
draft and I think people saying we picked the wrong.
Speaker 2: Josh, I thought they picked the Wrongosh Rose in this compeg,
I was that guy. Was that guy? Yeah, we was.
Speaker 1: Accuracy was under question and all that, and we've seen
what he's become or maybe always was, maybe always was.
Speaker 2: I mean he developed you. I always say his coaching
with Dable.
Speaker 4: I think when he first got here was an absolute
game changer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you look at him from.
Speaker 4: That first year to that second season, he was a
different football player.
Speaker 2: And that's that's his hard work.
Speaker 4: But there's an element of coaching there as well, helping
him understand uh to uh, to connect the mind to
what the body is capable of, you know, to put
those two in sync where they're working together.
Speaker 1: Not necessarily so funny, because you could have some great
coaches but just dummies that you're coaching. And I use
the term loosely, but that just aren't able to grasp
it or physically perform it. And here comes Josh and
so now you're he's not just a great player, but
also you're great coaches.
Speaker 2: But don't get that guy and you're terrible. You may
be as good as any other coach in the league.
Speaker 4: It's amazing when you put those two elements together, because
any any anything that's lacking in that equation and it
falls apart. You don't you don't get to where you
could go.
Speaker 2: You're right.
Speaker 4: I mean you think Allen had gone to a lot
of other teams.
Speaker 2: How does this play out? I don't know. We don't
know that. We don't.
Speaker 4: I think it's successful, but I don't know if it's
as successful as it's been.
Speaker 2: I don't either.
Speaker 1: I think that you Attle was the only other team
who wanted them, and would think at that time they
had Carol.
Speaker 4: And Russ in his prime, you know, yes, you know,
so it would have been hard for him. He would
have had to sit and watch and it just would
have been different. Yeah, I mean, you know, there's a
million things we could talk about with the bills, you know.
And I know there's probably somebody listening saying, yeah, and
he had the football, you know, at the end of
the game and couldn't get it done, you know, and
you're talking about how great he is. I guess I
would just say, like again, like look at all these games,
they're never even in that situation if he doesn't do
the million great things he did along the way.
Speaker 1: Again, another game with the Bills and the Chiefs that
resultant rule changes. They're going to put some technology in
the ball to try to more accurately determine first downs.
Speaker 2: I'm good with that.
Speaker 1: I am as well hard though, too, because when does
the nego I mean, it's the knee, when the ne
goes down, right.
Speaker 4: The part that I'm not I guess you know the
proof will be on the putting when it actually they
start playing games, you know, Like my understanding is that
the official will still spot the football and then they'll
determine virtually whether or not it's a first down.
Speaker 2: I don't, I can't. I guess I can't quite see
it one of these ones that we have. But I
do think it's a step in the right direction, sure,
I think.
Speaker 4: Look, one of the hard things about watching football right
now is watching a game and feeling like pivotal plays
just didn't get called correctly.
Speaker 2: One way or the other. You know that it's on
some level it undermines the integrity.
Speaker 1: Of it, certainly, And I would say that I think
the influence of gambling. And I say this because, yes,
like it or not, the NFL is in bed less
in bed than Lebron James pimping DraftKings. They don't allow
their players to do that. But you are in bed
to the point where it's there. You've got a franchise
in Vegas, You've got in bed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think the.
Speaker 1: You owe it then to be as accurate as possible
in these places. You just you have to. There's no
there's no choice. I think there really is.
Speaker 2: It's it's a literal game changer for some people. A
way these games there's just.
Speaker 4: Too much at stake in every way, there's too much
at stake right not to get it right or as
close to right as you can.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh, this has been a lot of fun. I really
appreciate you coming in. What a great story. I love
the whole trajectory. I love the through line of the
writing and distilling it down and and something that is
just stilling I think will.
Speaker 2: Never go away. I think that will never go away.
Speaker 4: And I would joke and say, you know, the great
part about it is that I really believe it too,
you know, like I said it, but I really believe
it too. I think that those are skills that translate
across the board. When you're good at those things, it
qualifies you to do a lot of different kinds of things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that that is great advice. And I uh,
I'm curious to see what's what's on the Group of
Horizon and somebody the diferent ways.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, we're getting into travel season, so we're
looking at you know, from a Triple A standpoint. For
the Group of Horizon, we're starting to talk about spring
break travel and the places people are going to go.
You know, we get into May Memorial Day and we
get into the hundred Deadliest Days of summer. The one thing,
you know that I will say about, the one thing
that I've embraced and enjoyed about working at Triple A,
that I've found fulfilling, that I have found fulfilling, is
that we do such a great job of emphasizing traffic safety.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And you know, so like we'll get into Memorial Day,
into the summertime when more teenagers are out driving and
talking about the hundred Deadliest Days and making sure that
the teenagers are doing you know, newly licensed teens or
people in general are doing the right things behind the wheel,
and that you know, we as parents and adults are
modeling that behavior behind the wheel as well.
Speaker 1: I have joked for a while that driving used to
be the activity. Now it's what we do while we
check our email, text our friends, surf the web, watch something.
You know what I'm saying, And it's those types of things.
And I even worry. I have a young young guy
that'll often say to me, Hey, you got to see
this video. I said, what am I doing right now?
Speaker 2: Driving? I'm not taking my eyes off the road.
Speaker 1: And I really want to emphasize that because he'll be
fifteen and you know it's not long that he's going
to want before you know it, right, so you want to, like,
I think that's great advice, modeling the behavior and not.
Speaker 2: Always easy to do.
Speaker 4: No, So that's that, you know, that's what's literally coming
down the road for me. You know, I'm trying to
lean into those aspects of my work and really enjoy.
Speaker 2: The driving reason.
Speaker 4: For making this change in my life is to just
enjoy these moments with my.
Speaker 2: Family, all of them.
Speaker 4: Ye savor them, and then you know what they say,
you know, right off into the sun.
Speaker 2: Right off into the sunset. Who knows could be anything,
could reinvent myself. I could professor. That's all I'm saying.
That's such a nice way about you.
Speaker 1: You can spring well to the kids, tell them the
stories some ports through life.
Speaker 2: That would be awesome. I think it would be awesome.
This is great for Mark Ruba. I'm Bill Moran. We'll
see you next week. I won in Cotail. Didn't know
what to do.
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