Barry ZeVan, Tom Ryther and JFK

Anyone who was at least five years old on November 22, 1963 remembers where they were when they first heard the news that President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas and later died. Those who were children then most likely heard about it while in school. Adults heard about it in all different ways, likely either from a television or radio report or through word of mouth.

Whenever I interview someone who was around then, especially people who had careers in media, I like to ask them where they were on that fateful day. I've had the pleasure of talking many times to a couple of talents I grew up watching on television in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, Barry ZeVan and Tom Ryther. The two of them were colleagues and friends who worked together in the Twin Cities market in the 1970s and 1980s, and separately in various other cities. They didn't meet until about seven years after the JFK assassination, but when it happened both of them were young broadcasters, 26 years old at the time, and they both have their own unique stories of where they were when they first heard the news.




KSTP-TV ad promoting Barry ZeVan
 the Weatherman from 1971.

Recalls Barry ZeVan:

I had been attending one of the first BPA (Broadcast Promotion Association) conventions at the Jack Tar Hotel in San Francisco from the 16th to 19th of November, 1963. I had friends in Yuma, Arizona, who asked if I could drive there to visit for a day, and since I had the time, I decided to do so. I arrived in Yuma the night of the 20th, spent the day of the 21st there, then started to drive back home (which was Idaho Falls, Idaho, at the time) the morning of the 22nd. For some reason, I chose to not have the radio on while driving, but decided to turn it on around Noon, Pacific Time. I had just crossed the Colorado River into Needles, California, to get on the highway that would lead me to Las Vegas and northward to Idaho. Just north of Needles, after a commercial had played, I heard Fulton Lewis, Jr., a highly-respected newscaster and commentator, talking about Presidential succession. I thought to myself, "Why?'. Then he stated, for those just tuning in, President Kennedy had been killed. I screamed and nearly went of the road, just south of Searchlight, Nevada (Harry Reid's hometown).

Because there were no cell phones then, I had to wait until I got to Boulder City, Nevada, to call my wife to assure her I'd be driving all night to get home, and for her to not worry about the survival of this country. When I got to Las Vegas about a half-hour later, I heard on the radio all lights on The Strip and downtown, on Fremont Street, would not be lighted until Midnight that night. It was raining and snowing, mixed, that late afternoon and evening, and very chilly for Las Vegas that time of year. The skies were crying, too. I drove through blizzard-like weather all the way to Idaho Falls, which I reached about 7 the next morning. I never turned the radio off. At about 4 a.m., I heard the comforting words of then Senator Hubert Humphrey and Rhode Island's Senator John Pastore, reassuring the nation that all would be well, regardless of the horror we all endured the preceding day. I didn't know at that time Senator Humphrey would become a very good friend to me in later years.

The night I emceed Vice President Mondale's pre-inaugural banquet at the Washington Hilton in January, 1977, former Vice President Humphrey was in the audience and I got to introduce him to come to the podium for his remarks that evening. I told the preceding story (regarding my memories of him that early November 23rd on the snow-swept highway in Southern Idaho), and how he'd inspired me and the rest of the nation, I'm certain, to know we would survive the event of that terrible preceding day.



Tom Ryther became the KSTP-TV sports director in 1971.

Tom Ryther was on the air on radio station WIBV in Belleville, IL, a suburb of St. Louis, when the news broke. His story appeared in my web article, The RYTHER Factor.

It was high noon on that day in 1963, and we had an old newspaper guy who was our news director and all he did was rip and hand us the news copy [off the news wire]. He hands me this thing, ‘There have been shots fired in Dallas. It is believed that President Kennedy has been wounded.’ I was on the air reading a newscast, and I said, ‘We’ll bring you further details as they develop.’ Al [the news director] goes to lunch. When he came back I said "Al, what the…the President of the United States has been shot!"

In the hour after the first bulletin had cleared the wire, while the news director was out to lunch, Tom ran back and forth between the newsroom and the studio, getting reports from the Associated Press and United Press International wires and getting the information on the air as quickly as possible while playing records and taped commercials in the interim. Finally came the bulletin, which he read on the air:

“Word just in from the Associated Press, President John F. Kennedy has died of wounds suffered in Dallas during a motorcade. It is unknown at this time who did the shooting. Investigations are underway.”

Luckily I had gotten some training so I had some experience, [and] I had a cool head that day.

As a journalism student in 1958, Tom had actually met then-Senator Kennedy when he went to Washington with other journalism students as a guest of Sen. Stuart Symington of Missouri. The future President met with the students outside of Senate chambers and answered questions from the students, including Tom. He says:

I never wrote a story about it, but I was in on the interview. I sat there, asked him questions, talked to him. Great charisma.

(Find out about Tom Ryther's memoir, "The Hummelsheim Kid" here.)

Richard Dawson and the worst TV special of all-time

   With the passing of Richard Dawson on June 2, 2012 at age 79, there were many tributes reflecting on his career as an actor and as the smooching game show host of Family Feud. Forgotten in the tributes, a 1979 ABC-TV prime time special that marked a low point in his career, the “Playboy Roller-Disco Pajama Party.’ The program was so dreadful, a news anchor in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area slammed it on the air during a local update.

   Airing on Friday, November 23, 1979, the “Playboy Roller-Disco Pajama Party” was described by a reviewer in the St. Paul Dispatch as “plotless, pointless crap” and “one of the most preposterous and insulting programs in the history of television.”

   The show took place at one of publisher Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansions, and opened with Dawson, dressed in a brown turtleneck and tan sport coat saying, “Welcome to Hef’s Place... Everything around here is well built.”

   Featuring the “top Playmates of 1980,” Dawson was described in a review as “drool(ing) and sigh(ing) as Bunnies and Playmates frolic at a pool and waterfall at Hefner’s Playboy Mansion West in Los Angeles.” The first part of the program included shots of “young women gently smoothing oil on their well-tanned skin” and others roller-skating in “skimpy swimming attire” to the disco hit sung by special guest Donna Summer. “Tops and bottoms swing in slow motion. A Bunny in a blue, star-bedecked bra gasps in athletic rapture as a camera approaches for a close-up…Hefner, in a pale-blue jumpsuit and unexplained Indian headdress, leads a long line of disco skaters. Two women duel with Popsicles.” Disco might have been pronounced dead in 1979, but it was alive and well at “Hef’s Place.”

   The Village People and Chuck Mangione were among other guest entertainers appearing in the show, and meanwhile Dawson pursues a lil’ blonde cutie named “Dorothy,” (the late Dorothy Stratten, as a matter of fact) who at first rejects his advances because she’s only interested in roller-disco. It might have been Playboy but there wasn’t anything all that sexual outside of innuendo and mild titillation, as this was still network television in the late 70s.

   The “pajama party” part would come in the second half of the hour-long special, after “a word from your local ABC stations.” In the Twin Cities, KSTP-TV Channel 5 anchorman Ron Magers appeared live for an “Eyewitness News Update,” starting off with a statement that was not in the script.

   “I want to assure that this is a local news update and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the Playboy Roller-Disco Pajama Party,” he proclaimed. He read a couple news headlines and then said, “For those of you who may have turned off your television sets in disgust, I want to assure you we’ll be back in 30 minutes with local news.”

   Within seconds, KSTP’s switchboard was inundated with calls that came in for more than thirty minutes, most of them supporting Magers’s comments, according to a switchboard operator there in a news story. The New York Times and Associated Press picked up on the story, which was in turn picked up by news outlets across the country. In the ensuing days the station received calls from all over giving kudos to Magers.  KSTP general manager Ralph Dolan had no comment about the incident.

   Magers told the Associated Press that he was required to appear with a news update during the show and he wanted people to know he was not part of it. “In my opinion, the program was blatantly sexist and of no redeeming social value,” he told the AP.

   Ron Magers was at the time the most popular news anchor in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market and so he could get away with such a bold move. Anyone else who tried that most likely would not have made it to the late-evening newscast that followed the Playboy special.

   Today Ron Magers calls Chicago home, arriving there from the Twin Cities in 1981 and working for two different network-owned stations through the years. He remains as one of the most popular—and occasionally controversial—anchors in that city.

 

  

Cops vs. reporters, 1970s style

   Dennis Anderson had a long and storied career at WDIO-TV Channel 10 in Duluth, Minnesota and satellite station WIRT Channel 13 in Hibbing that spanned from when the stations first went on the air in the volatile mid-1960s until his retirement in May 2011. Spending most of his years as the lead anchor on the station’s newscasts he was known for his signature sign-off, “Good night everybody, and be kind.” But as a reporter-photographer for the station in 1971, he was caught in a tangle between the TV station and city police, resulting in a confiscated camera, allegations and counter-allegations of harassment and a lawsuit that determined the rights journalists have in the face of police power.

   When WDIO came on the air in January 1966, it was the scrappy newcomer in a small city with two well-established TV stations; CBS affiliate KDAL-TV Channel 3 and NBC affiliate WDSM-TV Channel 6. WDIO was the area’s first full-time ABC affiliate and it was clear from the get-go that the station came to shake things up in the Duluth media establishment.

  The approach to news was hard-hitting, with an emphasis on exposés and investigative reporting. Critics variously called it bombastic, sensationalistic and muckraking, but the approach grabbed the public’s attention, the solid journalism behind it kept that attention, and by March 1971, the upstart television station in Duluth was number one at 10 p.m., with an astounding 56 percent audience share.

   After working for the station early on as a reporter, Dennis Anderson left WDIO in 1968 to accept a job as news director and lead anchor at another ABC affiliate, KTHI-TV Channel 11 in Fargo. But the departure didn’t last and in 1969 he returned to WDIO to anchor a new consumer watchdog segment on the newscasts called Action Line.

   As the lead investigator for Action Line, Anderson looked into, and attempted to resolve complaints written in by viewers. But in 1971, the mild-mannered reporter was caught in the middle of a sometimes intense, sometimes bizarre feud between the TV station and Duluth police.

   It started with a couple of different Action Line segments uncovering alleged misconduct within the ranks of the Duluth Police Department. The first involved a viewer complaint about a used car dealership. The subsequent investigation found a few police officers were repairing and selling used cars to an unlicensed dealership in their spare time, and were allegedly circumventing state law by falsifying title transfers. The City of Duluth had also been investigating the case, but WDIO-TV brought it to the public’s attention and it eventually resulted in the conviction of one officer.

   A second Action Line investigation turned up police documents, provided by a confidential source, that were found to have been tampered with to protect a prominent local citizen who had been arrested for drunken driving.

   Then just after midnight on March 29, 1971, there was a report of a break-in at the Ski Hut sporting goods store in Duluth. Serving as both reporter and cameraman, Dennis Anderson hustled to the location, armed with a portable film camera and a Sylvania Sun Gun lamp.

   Police were on the scene and soon captured two suspects inside the building while Anderson at first kept his distance, staying behind the building. When he got word that the suspects had been captured, he went to the front of the building and began filming through a store window.

   As the arresting officers lead the two suspects out of the building in handcuffs, Anderson stood about eight to ten feet away on a public sidewalk and began filming, using the Sun Gun lamp to provide light. Sgt. Richard Gunnarson, who was holding the door open as officers walked out the suspects, shouted “No pictures!” twice at Anderson, who then turned off the lamp. The police sergeant then demanded the WDIO camera from Anderson, and he handed it over.

   Lt. Alexander Lukovsky, who was also at the scene, talked to Anderson and offered to give back the camera under the condition that Anderson check with the Detective Bureau to determine that the film he had shot did not contain information that could possibly harm the case, and that the suspects were not juveniles (which state law prohibited being identified) before going on the air with it. When Anderson told the police lieutenant that he couldn’t guarantee any of that, the camera was taken down to police headquarters.

   WDIO news director Richard Gottschald was furious. He went to police headquarters and demanded to know why the camera was confiscated. Police claimed that the bright lights being used by Anderson were impeding the officers in their line of duty but Anderson claimed they said nothing to him about the lights and that an officer in fact had asked him to turn the light on to aid the police.

   WDIO reported on the controversy in its newscasts and the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union got involved on the station’s behalf, while a police union president accused the station of conducting a “subtle, continuing campaign to deride, humiliate and persecute us,” in a lengthy article that appeared in the November 13, 1971 national section of TV Guide titled “Hassle In Duluth.” The union called for a sponsor boycott of WDIO newscasts, which proved to be largely unsuccessful.

   The camera was returned to the station within days, unopened and the film inside unprocessed, but that wasn’t the end of the controversy. The station (then not owned by Hubbard Broadcasting, Inc.) filed suit in US District Court (with Dennis Anderson also named as a plaintiff) and the feud between the station and the police only escalated.

   According to the TV Guide article, employees of the station were claiming police were engaged in a “campaign of petty harassment” against them, with radar speed checks set up on the road leading to WDIO’s hilltop studios on 10 Observation Road, and near the home of news director Richard Gottschald. Station employees said they were stopped and ticketed for minor infractions on a regular basis, and the news director, who made an extra effort to watch his speed knowing police were laying in wait, happened to let down his guard one night and sure enough was nailed for going a few miles over the limit.

   Police in turn complained the TV station was harassing them with reporters tailing squad cars in hopes of catching police committing some small infraction. “For a while, the squad cars and TV cars were chasing each other’s tails around Duluth in kind of a Marx Brothers game of tag,” according to the article in TV Guide.

   Finally on February 7, 1972, United States District Court Fifth Division ruled in favor of WDIO and Dennis Anderson, saying that the seizure of the camera “was wrongful, and in violation of plaintiffs' rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, because [it was] not made pursuant to a valid warrant or arrest. Also, despite defendants' argument, it is clear to this court that the seizure and holding of the camera and undeveloped film was an unlawful ‘prior restraint’ whether or not the film was ever reviewed.”

   The Court went on to rule that “Plaintiffs' right to use a light in the taking of photographs at night should not be restricted except, and unless and until so ordered to the contrary by police in their reasonable belief that such is interfering with or endangering them in their work…There was no evidence of such interference by plaintiff Anderson here.”