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10 Questions with ... Chris Conley
February 27, 2007
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NAME:Chris ConleyTITLE:Director of News and ProgrammingSTATION:55 WSAUMARKET:Wausau, WICOMPANY:Midwest CommunicationsBORN:Brooklyn, NYRAISED:Connecticut
BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:
News Director, WLKZ, Laconia, New Hampshire
News Director, WHCU, Ithaca, New York
Morning host, WFAS, White Plains, New York
Morning host and operations manager, Fairfield County News Radio
News anchor, assignment editor, WICC, Bridgeport, CT
Director of News and Programming, WSAU, Wausau, WI1. What made you decide to go into radio? Why radio?
When I was 15, I walked into Fairfield University's 10-watt FM station, and asked if I could go on-air. They didn't have enough students to keep the station going during the summer months, so they decided that putting this high school kid on was better than turning the transmitter off, but probably not much better.
I spent that summer waking up at 2:30am - and missing out on a lot of fun with my high school friends. I almost quit, until one morning after my 9am newscast there were hundreds of high school girls on the lawn outside WVOF's studios. Fairfield University's summer cheerleading camp helped me get through my first year.
Everyone should get to start their career at a small 10-watt radio station, where you can make a lot of mistakes in a low-risk environment.
2. About what are you most passionate?
I'm most passionate that The 55 SAU Wisconsin Morning News sets the day's new agenda for our market.
For radio news to be at its best, it must capture the immediacy of what's going on. We're in trouble if we're repackaging the stories that were on the tv news last night, or if we're re-writing the front page of the newspaper. We can't be caught "chasing" the day's news cycle.
I know we're doing a good job when I call up my tv and newspaper friends, and hear my station on in their newsrooms.
3. You moved from the Northeast (and Bridgeport's news-talk dominator WICC) to join WSAU- what drew you to the area and the station? What was the biggest surprise about life in Wausau?
There are only two radio stations left in Connecticut that do truly great news - WICC, Bridgeport, and WTIC, Hartford. And both have smaller staffs than 5 or 10 years ago.
I wanted to work for a news/talk station that's going to be bigger than it is today - and that's a very small list.
In 2004, I saw WSAU's FCC application for a big wattage increase. (The station increased from 5,000 watts to 20,000 watts within a month of my arrival.) I thought if the station was willing to invest a million dollars in its signal, it would also be willing to invest in its on-air product, too.
Our owner, Duke Wright, is a big believer in AM radio. Midwest Communications has the leading news-talk stations in almost every market we operate in. WTAQ, Green Bay; KDAL, Duluth; WKZO, Kalamazoo; and WHBL, Sheboygan are all radio stations that any broadcast group would be proud to own.
It's also been a pleasant surprise that the cost-of-living is so much lower in the Midwest than it is in the Northeast. My family and I have a much higher quality of life here.
4. You've taught broadcast news (at Yale) and you've done news on radio for years- what makes a good radio newscast? What do you look for, content-wise and in style and sound?
A good radio newscast has to go through "The YOU filter" - as in, "here's why YOU should care about the stuff I'm telling you."
School boards, city councils, police departments are always doing something. Good newscasts explain how those actions affect listeners. If the Board of Education is laying off teachers, the news story is "Your child's class will be more crowded next year." If police are investigating a string of car break-ins, write it "You'll want to lock your car and keep it in the garage. Here's why..."
My ears perk up the moment I hear good writing - because it's so rare. Gil Gross at ABC News, Harley Carnes at CBS, and Paul Harvey Jr. (who writes "The Rest of The Story" for his dad) are some of the best.
I worked with a lot of very promising students during my one year at Yale's student-owned WYBC-FM. Many of them wanted to go into broadcast news - but most of their parents imagined them becoming doctors and lawyers. Training the next generation of radio news reporters is an ongoing challenge.
5. In a similar vein, what makes a good radio reporter- what qualities and skills would you look for in an ideal staffer?
Radio and television news have become "anchor driven" instead of "reporter driven" - and that needs to change. Katie Couric is the star at CBS - yet she's only presenting stories that other people have gathered. It's the exact opposite in Europe. The BBC considers its field reporters as "stars", and the people in the studio are interchangeable. They're not even called "news anchors", they're "presenters."
Because of cutbacks in so many radio newsrooms, it's very hard to find young reporters with field reporting experience. And then it's my job to convince them that the reporting - not the anchoring - is the most important part of the job.
6. Who are your influences, inspirations, and/or mentors?
Tim Quinn, who's been the News Director at WICC, Bridgeport for the last 20 years, is one of the best news storytellers I've ever heard.
I often have "How would Tim do this?" moments when I'm putting newscasts together.
7. Of what are you most proud?
Because of the investment that's gone into WSAU over the last three years, we need to keep growing the radio station.
Our ratings have doubled since our wattage increase - in part because of my morning co-hosts Pat Snyder and Tom King. We set a new billing record, thanks to Samantha Milanowski, a great up-and-coming sales manager. We received the Award of Merit for Best Regularly Scheduled newscast in Wisconsin last year, thanks to the excellent newspeople we have in our company.
One of my jobs is to create an environment where other people can have success.
8. What do you do for fun?
My wife and I have four kids, including twins who arrived last year. Kids are fun.
When time allows, I'm in the basement working on my model trains.
I've also been known to wager a few dollars on horse races.
Live jazz.
Live theater.
9. Fill in the blank: I can't make it through the day without _____________.
...the Internet.
I consume a tremendous amount of news information every day, and I get almost all of it on-line.Washingtonpost.com, nypost.com, USA Today, Fox News, CNN, the Gannett Wisconsin newspapers, and All Access are all on my daily reading list.
10. What's the best advice you've ever gotten? The worst?
Best: From my dad, "If you're going to be in the public eye, not everyone's going to like you." It's allowed me to spend much more time focusing on what I think, rather than worrying about what others think about me.
Worst: "Forget radio, get into television." Television was supposed to be the death of radio for the last sixty years.
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