I haven’t mentioned much before, but for a while I was a radio news guy.
I was news director for KERV AM in Kerrville.
It was a weird time in my life, I had taken a brief sojourn from newspapers to explore the world of public relations.
I’d taken public relations classes in college as part of my journalism degree, but a paying job – not much but some pay – shot me into newspapers.
I worked more than 20 years in that part of my life in newspapers, not only in Kerrville, but Seguin, Brownsville, Bryan and the now forgotten San Antonio Light.
I found myself working for Schreiner College (now University) and Mo-Ranch.
I liked both places – I grew up partly in Kerrville – and I enjoyed public relations.
I liked the work, but not my bosses.
So, enter an offer to do the news on local radio.
I recorded the news three or four times a weekday. It was a five-minute newscast.
I was a reporter again, but writing for a different medium.
I would read my sentences on air and found myself having to take a big gulp of air before I finished the sentence.
The general manager explained that radio news writing required shorter sentences.
I quickly learned in my career to lead with the most important point in a story.
In radio, that meant getting to that point even faster.
That improved over time, until I was expected to broadcast a Saturday night election, meaning I had to turn on everything – it was mostly computerized - and start talking.
Well, the words didn’t flow smoothly after panicking a bit when I couldn’t get on the air.
But the long night of broadcasting by myself ended after about 15 minutes of pure terror.
I didn’t go looking for friends who might have listened, but one friend indicated that he heard what I’m calling, in the most exaggerated way possible, a broadcast.
He was nice about it, saying I got the news out about who won in a fairly straightforward fashion.
Since I wasn’t looking for a compliment – I knew better – I told him I was grateful for him listening.
I soon found myself back into newspapers and have never veered from that path.
I grew up in newspapers, and after a detour in radio, I reflect on that time rather humorously and write my sentences for reading…no breathing.
