WTOP Television in Washington, DC was my very first job coming out of the Army at the end of 1964. Since I had already worked in TV at KOLD in Tucson, AZ, I knew some of the ropes. But this time not working in the Art Dept. Since I had an Army background in 16mm film production I was hired as Intern (student/trainee). What does an Intern do? Every grunt job the big time news reporters didn't want to touch.
I was issued a White House Press pass and did get in a number of times but none of my footage was ever used.
Have you ever seen a big named reporter cover a tree planting by the first lady?
This was the kind of news coverage assigned to me. None of my film ever made the local 5PM News.
Every work day it was my job to cover the low level interest stories happening in and around DC. The fires, car wrecks and any other possible news happening in the DC area.
The best part of the job was getting to know the entire Washington area and streets. Very confusing at first with the NW, SW, NE and SE. Many street addresses numbers were identical except for location (NW) etc.
Beyond my film shooting job at WTOP I was also a Floor
Director back at the studio. My job was to put on a headset and listen to the orders from the director and be ready in the studio for any of his commands. I was the person the talent watched to see my signal to start their program.
I did get the chance to talk with many local and international talents, movie stars and anyone popular back in the 60's. That was the most fun.
A month or so before I quit, I was introduced to a new Intern and instructed to teach him the ropes at WTOP. Max Robinson just moved to DC from Portsmouth, Virginia and had a great announcer voice.
Max spent a week with me on my news assignments and I helped him learn his way around DC. His interest in capturing the news on film was not as great a being in front of the camera. His past experience at a southern TV station was reading the news behind the pictures and film being broadcasted. No face time.
It wasn't until a year or so after I quit WTOP that I began to see him doing some of the news stories on live TV.
He moved quickly up in popularity and became a News Anchor in the DC market and then got his shot at the big Chicago market. I lost track of him until many years later when I learned he died at 49 years old in 1988 and saw the rest of his story below.
I never knew any of it before.
Max Robinson (1939-1988) broke racial barriers in the media industry
when he became the first black television anchor in Washington , D.C.
I did have one big memory that happened just a few weeks before leaving WTOP I would like to share.
You all know Vice President Johnson took over when President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and he finished Kennedy's 1st. term.
After that Lynden ran and served 4 more years.
To celebrate his winning the election there was a big concert party at Constitution Hall and it was to be broadcast LIVE to the entire nation. This was big.
Van Cliburn was a star pianist and ready on stage for me to give him the start signal from behind the far edge of the curtain.
3...2...and my knees were shaking ...1 and CBS now had their first LIVE concert broadcasted across the nation. The picture you see is as close as I got to Mr. Van Cliburn but still enough to remember it like it happened yesterday.
He did a great 90 minute concert and all were very happy
And that is all I have to share about my work at WTOP TV
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