View from the Cab: 20 years of news
By: Kent Casson
I marked 20 years in the news business last week and my how times have changed.
It all began in a small news studio at WJEZ Radio in downtown Pontiac when the former beloved news director Roy Frankenhoff passed away suddenly. I was just a young college kid in February 2002 and filled the role as “interim” news director in the following months before being named to the position permanently.
The experience gained while shadowing Roy the prior summer and covering city councils, county boards and the local police beat was invaluable. I learned at the age of 19 that news coverage should always be fair. In other words, there are two sides to every story and that is something I never took lightly in the news world.
When I first started in broadcast news, I used tape cartridges to play sound clips and commercials. There was even a typewriter in the radio newsroom. In the months after Roy’s passing, the typewriter and cart machine were traded for a new computer and monitor. We even promoted a new e-mail account where listeners could submit press releases or news tips. The Internet wasn’t even a big part of our daily lives just yet as the fax machine would often spit out news bulletins from the Sheriff’s Department and other agencies.
Fast forward 20 years to today and a large percentage of my work is online as my business ventures center around online connectivity with podcasts, blogs, live streamed shows and sports and a midday market update which is occasionally recorded from the tractor cab. Yes, I still do regular on-air radio stuff but work on the Internet seems to occupy much of my day.
My former days as a radio news director served as a stepping stone to where I am at today in my career. Two decades in news has allowed me to not only develop an agricultural audience via the Central Illinois Farm Network but a decent following with local news ventures in small communities. My passion for trusted journalism remains after all these years.
I was doing podcasts before podcasts were even cool. My Rural Notebook has to be one of the longest-running local podcasts as I have posted it on the Central Illinois Farm Network website each weekend since the summer of 2010. It was only a year later when I created Central Illinois Today which is posted weekdays.
You could say I was working at home before that was cool, also. Long before the great 2020 work-from-home quarantine around the world, I was commuting down the basement steps for an early Monday through Friday morning radio show since 2014.
Reflecting on the past 20 years in this business has me wondering what the next 20 will bring. By the way, I mark 25 years in radio this fall but that is a topic for another column.
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