One ND Coming and One Leaving

On Friday, FTVLive posted two breaking news stories about News Directors.

We posted that KING/KONG (Seattle) News Director Peter Saiers was headed down The 5 to take the ND gig at Nexstar’s KTLA.

We also reported that longtime News Director Mark Casey was going to retire from KNXV in Phoenix.

My first taste of life in a TV newsroom was when I interned at WKBW in Buffalo. I worked as an intern at the then blowtorch of Buffalo and then later took out a loan to buy a camera and deck so I could shoot news.

I took out a bank loan for $2,000 with no job and no income, to buy a camera, deck, and a police scanner so I could shoot news stories.

I then told WKBW that I was available as a stringer to cover stories for them. Union rules would not let me shoot video in Erie County where the station was located. But, I was allowed to shoot video in Niagara County which was close to where I lived.

Mark Casey

I would put in the Niagara police and fire codes into my scanner and I would listen to it 24/7.

Anytime I heard a call that could be a potential news story, I would jump into my car and race to the scene.

After shooting the video I would call the Assignment Desk at WKBW and speak to their young Assignment Editor Mark Casey and tell him what I had.

Casey had to make the call if he wanted the video or not? If he said yes, I would drive to the station, drop the video off and I would be paid $35 for the story.

This was my plan to pay back my $2,000 dollar loan.

I would run stories all day and all night, one week I made over $600 as a stringer and it got to the point that Mark Casey was even going so far as to call me and ask me to shoot stories.

So, I was no longer covering shootings, car accidents, and fires, I was also covering ribbon cuttings in Niagara Falls and tennis tournaments in Lockport.

That stringer job led to me landing a full-time job as a Photographer at KTUL in Tulsa. I landed the job, despite the fact that up until that point, I had never shot a package in my life.

I took a big risk asking a bank to give a kid $2,000 bucks with absolutely no income coming in. But, I knew TV news was what I wanted to do and this was what I saw as a path.

Thanks to a hyperactive (some would say spastic) Assignment Editor named Mark Casey, I was able to pay back the 2 grand and make my dream of working in TV news happen.

I remember years later running into Casey on the floor of RTNDA. I went up to him and said “hi” and told him I was a stringer for him back in the day at WKBW. He looked at me and it was clear that he had no clue who I was and didn’t remember me even a little bit. He played it off and asked me what I was doing now?

I told him I was a News Director in Sacramento, which was a bigger market than he was working in at the time. He looked at me, said “well good for you” and walked off.

That was the last time I ever spoke to the guy.

Now, that kid on the assignment desk is retiring after being in this business since 1974.

The next time you read a story on FTVLive about you and you don’t like it, you can blame Mark Casey. If he didn’t help me pay back that loan, there is no telling how my life would have turned out.

Just saying….