Via ENCDTV, news of Eastern Carolina's News Channel's 50th anniversary! This logo may look pretty primitive, but when I was a boy it stirred my imagination and set my soul on fire. I still remember watching the great Lee Kanipe deliver the noon news with paternal authority. Back then Channel 7's signal flickering on my parents set seemed to emanate from some glitzy broadcast center millions of miles away from my rural home. In reality, it originated from a dusty studio just an hour way in little old Chocowinity.
Little did I know then I would one day work for WITN as a photographer, reporter and eventually, Promotions Manager. Shortly after I obtained that not-so-lofty title, I realized I was in fact, a newsman through and through. Needless to say, I ran screaming from the building the first chance I got, swearing to all who would listen I'd never, ever return. Eight years have passed since I left in a huff and in that time my bitterness has faded like an old photograph. Perhaps I should take this opportunity to make amends with my old employer, to beg forgiveness for fleeing Westward in desperation, to apologize for calling the station's hard-charging GM an evil jackhole every chance I got...NAAAAAH! Why try to rebuild a bridge I so gleefully firebombed long ago? Life's too short for that kind of insincerity. Instead, let me offer my heartfelt congratulations to (most) everyone involved at WITN, with special props to David Cowell, Fred Anderson and Tom Midgette, three class-acts who taught this then-young punk a thing or three about small-market broadcasting. Thanks, fellas!
1 comment:
Thanks for the memories of WITN. I was "Continuity Coordinator/PSA Coordinator" back in the late 1970s- a very fancy title that covered the scutwork of writing 10-second commercials and tags for Ronco ads, plugging in PSA spots to satisfy FCC requirements, and giving tours of the head honcho's art collection. Hands down the worst job I ever had! There was such a backwash of PSA material that I dumped a big box of it in a roadside trashbin on my final drive away from the station. Glad to know others escaped from the big WITN.
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