MEDIA MATTERS

Growing up in the 50's, radio was a very important influence in my life. When I was young, we had no TV. Nobody did. All of our entertainment came from the radio. As I got a little older, TV had become a staple in practically every home on the block, but, radio still mattered. Our music was becoming a statement and the disc jockeys I listened to positioned that statement like nothing I had ever heard. They were loud, they were creative, they talked fast and, they talked to me. When I was 8 years old, my Cub Scout den mother, who also happened to be MY mother, took us on a field trip to a local radio station and, from that day, my destiny was set. I didn't think much about it for years. To me, it was just a given. I would just have to age a little and look for a window of opportunity. That all changed in 1966 when I was drafted. I came home from basic training and heard a brand new station in town. It was what was then referred to as a “soul” station and it played some of the best music around. Music that was borne of the jazz and blues I had heard growing up in my particular household, where entire walls were covered with shelves full of records. I decided that I would take a ride to the station, introduce myself and see where it went. That window of opportunity had appeared and I wasn't about to let it shut. We were in a war in Vietnam and I was about to go. “I may not come home,” I thought. I had to make my move and that's just what I did. I introduced myself to the DJ, Don Tracy, who, for some reason, decided to become a mentor and began, during my couple of weeks home, to teach me, at least, some of the ropes. I spent the next 4 years in places like Nashville, Tn., Angeles City, Republic of the Philippines and Saigon, Vietnam, where I took advantage of the local radio scenes to learn more and get involved in any way I could. I took it all in and, on Jan. 10, 1970, I stepped off the plane in San Francisco, threw my duffel bag in a ditch and headed toward my career behind the microphone. It took a short while to get my “foothold” in what became, to many, a truly storied career, during which time, I was fortunate enough to be involved in a number of “firsts” in the industry. In the mid 70's, FM was still very new and fairly untested. I was on the air in Plainfied, New Jersey and had been offered a job in Philadelphia at a brand new radio station called Magik – WMGK-FM. It was my first major market and I was their first ever morning man. I couldn't turn it down, but, after a while, I learned that I also couldn't support my young family with what they were paying. I asked for a raise and was told that I would never make any more money as long as I stayed there. I sent my tape and resume package to 2 stations in town, WIP, the #1 station in town, an AM giant and WYSP, a small FM station with a new rock & roll format. I was contacted by Sonny Fox, the program director of WYSP. We met and he immediately offered me the morning show. I took it, not knowing that he had an ulterior motive. The station was doing a lot of programming that was new and experimental. I had been doing the morning show for about a month, when Sonny called me into his office, closed the door and asked if I had ever heard of “Bob & Ray” - a radio comedy duo out of Boston and, eventually, New York that I had always found very entertaining and inspirational. I immediately knew where he was going with the question and said, enthusiastically, “Let's do it!” Sonny did the show from his apartment and I was in the studio. We never saw each other as we created a show based on “theater of the mind,” comedy and rock & roll. After a short time, Fox & Leonard became the number one morning show in Philadelphia and, what has been described as, the prototype for the “morning zoo” format that eventually took over morning radio. In 1981, I left a job as morning host on WLS in Chicago. I had been offered the opportunity to be a part of another ground breaker. I helped to physically build the studios and was the first person to turn on a microphone at the Satellite Music Network, the first company in broadcasting to experiment with 24 hour formats delivered by satellite. We were very successful and, eventually became the ABC Radio Network, from where my morning show was syndicated on nearly 260 radio stations throughout the country and in a few other parts of the world for 24 years. Through the auspices of ABC, I also became the first American to be broadcast by Radio Shanghai in the Peoples Republic of China – a show that I did twice a week for 7 years. These “firsts” were fun and very rewarding, but, there was one that was not. In the early 90's I became the first person in my family to be diagnosed with Diabetes. My doctor wasn't happy with my blood work and wanted me to see an endocrinologist, who was very matter of fact in his diagnosis. “You have Diabetes” was really all I heard. That and myself crying when I got to the car. I was devastated. I had worked very hard to get to where I was in the radio industry and this guy had just given me, what I perceived to be a death sentence. I got home and tried, through the sobbing, to tell my wife that all had been for naught. I was diabetic and it was all over. Well, the only thing that was all over was my life as I had known it. I got over my little “pity party” and we began to get proactive. I had no frame of reference because I had no family or friends who were diabetic. I knew no one with it and nothing about it. As we discovered quite a bit later, I had been exposed to Agent Orange in Southeast Asia and the government was recognizing Diabetes as a result. So, we buckled down, learned everything we could about the disease and became extremely proactive. I had supported my family for quite a while and I couldn't quit now. I had a career where I never “worked” a single day – I looked forward to going in and having fun every morning. We had quite an uphill battle ahead of us and we charged into it full force. We got rid of the “Fry Daddy” and began compiling recipes and exercise programs and, within about a year and a half, I had come off all meds and was maintaining quite nicely. It was then that I realized that I had an outlet to educate others while entertaining them. I had a microphone and radio stations worldwide carrying my show. “What better way to teach something,” I thought, than to make it fun and, maybe even rewarding. I came up with an idea for a daily contest. I would take my blood sugar readings on the air and give the listeners a chance to win a prize by guessing my numbers. The person who came closest would be the winner. It became so popular, that listeners would take their readings at the same time and we would compare notes. Because of the nature of my show, I also had authors and experts on often to explain things. Diabetes had become an integral part of my show, with the intention of getting rid of societal stigmas surrounding it. Everyone who listened to my show knew that I was diabetic and that I was on a crusade. I was that DJ with Diabetes who wouldn't shut up about it. My partner at the network and I would often make personal appearances in cities where we had affiliates. On one such visit to Helena, Montana, we were at an event signing autographs and meeting the listeners, when a man walked up with his little girl. He said that she wanted to give me a hug. It seems they were listening one morning as I was playing the “Guess My Blood Sugars” game, when the little girl jumped up excitedly and screamed, Daddy, he has diabetes – just like me!” I gave her a hug, cried a little and realized that my diabetes had, indeed, made a difference in someone elses life. This little girl was no longer ashamed. Throughout the course of the next few years, I received a number of letters and calls from people who also no longer tried to hide the fact that they were diabetic and no longer had any problem with “testing” in front of other people. It was “just the way it was!” I wrapped up a pretty amazing career when I retired a couple of years ago. Nearly 50 years of comedy, rock & roll and great fun. I have met and interviewed politicians, rock stars, movie stars and authors, yet, the greatest accomplishment, in my mind, was making a difference in the life of that little girl and, subsequently, other diabetics who happened to tune in. They now feel the way that I did when I created a bumper sticker that read: “I may have Diabetes, but Diabetes will NEVER have me.”

THEY DON'T MAKE NEWS LIKE THEY USED TO

With all due respect to Rod Serling: Imagine, if you will, a Sunday morning. The weather has cooled down. It’s a little overcast and near 73 degrees. There is a slight breeze. It's a truly lovely morning to sit on the patio having a cup of decaf and reading the Sunday paper. This was once a scenario shared by thousands, even millions around the country on Sunday mornings, albeit with real coffee in most cases. I remember how enjoyable this was and how many fewer distractions we had with the good old fashioned newspaper. I read an article online recently, that speaks with dread of the demise of one of the most useful bits of media we have had.....the newspaper. With the advent of the internet, circulation of newspapers has dropped off considerably. The fall began in the 50’s when television began to deliver everything we needed to know and increased another 18 percent between 1990 and 2004. Between 2004 and today? Who can count that high? The job of a good newspaper was to hold governments and businesses accountable for their actions and set the news agenda for the rest of the media. At least that was the general idea. Since more and more people have shied away from print and are getting their information from blogs, “citizen” journalists and on-line periodicals, newspapers were forced to print less news and more of what they feel we want to read. Entertainment, sports and celebrity dirt. The dumbing down of the print media is in full swing. Over the next few decades, half of the worlds general newspapers will shut down. TV was a great source of news for a while. There was a sense of credibility that came from real journalists. Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Huntley & Brinkley – people who gave us a sense that they were reading the papers for us and helping us understand. They rarely editorialized. They gave us the facts, not opinion, so that we could disseminate things for ourselves and make up our own minds how we felt. Television news has become quite difficult to watch with all of the distractions. Do I watch the anchor or read the crawl underneath or that other flashing thing on the screen. The internet isn’t a lot better when it comes to that concentration factor with popups and advertising. There isn’t anything worse than trying to read the latest news about the incompetence of the Congress or follow the events in the middle east than when that tasteless toe fungus ad keeps sending the little ogre across my screen. TV news has almost become a parody of itself, now that we have all-news channels that have to attempt to fill 24 hours with about 5 minutes of what is actually news. They are nothing but opinion that attempts to sway public attitude to their way of thinking in order to drive viewership so they can charge more for advertising. They hire anchors who look great, but are incapable of stringing together more than 5 words into an intelligible sentence. Facts? What are they? MSNBC skews all the way to the left, CNN isn't a lot better and Fox, or as I often refer to it, Feaux, News seems more like a satirical skit than an objective news outlet, making up most of what they report by stretching facts to near the breaking point. They then have bimbo's relating those stories to us while making a valiant attempt at credibility. But, hey, at that point – who's listening? Most of what we get online comes from blogs and other sources, which are, in their nature, no more than the opinions of people we don't know. Those opinions fall flat when, after we've read it, the first question is: “Who?” We just have to sorta “take their word for it!” Facts fell by the wayside somewhere along the way, only to get lost in all the folderol, goo gah and nonsense. I recently decided to bring back tradition and picked up a Sunday paper to enjoy on my patio with that cup of decaf. I spent about 40 minutes sifting through myriad ads that made my newspaper weigh in at about 20 pounds heavier than it’s daily “fighting weight” just to try and find some relevant news and feeling bad because soon it may be gone and I’ll be forced to make my mind multi-task it’s way through CNN, FOX, MSNBC and a billion or so blog sites just to find out what’s what in the world. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go wash all that wonderful newsprint off my hands - with my tears!