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The New Times Interview
Almost 10 years ago, when this writer penned a cover story on Jim Reith and his radio program, he refused to show his face to our cameras and, by extension, our readers/his listeners. Now you can see what he looks like weekdays from 6:30 to 7 p.m. when he presides over his new gig, Reith, on WCNY-Channel 24. The show premiered May 14, nearly seven months after ClearChannel higher-ups included Reith in a nationwide axing of personnel, replacing him first with Sean Hannity and soon thereafter with Bob Lonsberry, who yaps out of a studio in Rochester.
Well, Rochester is no Syracuse and while Lonsberry may talk nice, he probably couldn’t find Columbus Bakery, Tipperary Hill or Sedgwick with a GPS up his wazoo. Love, dislike or feel indifferent about Reith, at least he was our guy, he understood local issues and aired them live for four hours on WSYR-AM 570. That is, until the corporate bozos at ClearChannel initiated changes in early 2011, such as relegating the urban format that was airing on its WPHR-106.9 FM (Power 106) to the AM dial and started simulcasting its WSYR “newsradio” operation on 106.9. Then the powers-that-be pulled the plug on Reith last October after nearly 12 years of his eponymous show; the previous 15 years he had worked there as a reporter.
“Everyone that I’ve heard from is happy that I’m back,” Reith says. “Especially because I talk about local stuff,” he says.
Really, now, where else could you listen to a 20-minute interview with County Executive Joanie Mahoney or hear Bob Congel prattle on about Destiny USA, his grandiose transformative vision for Carousel Center? While Reith has yet to have Congel on his show, (sidekick David Aitken appeared on May 24), Mahoney did appear on the debut alongside Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner. They provided a solid start. For that matter, TV is just a start, too; the plan is for Reith to appear on WCNY’s HD3 radio frequency once the operations move from Liverpool to the Near West Side, around Thanksgiving.
It’s the mix of local newsmakers, unusual causes and Reith’s own spin on the topics of the day that got Bob Daino’s attention. That’s why WCNY’s president and chief executive officer didn’t hesitate to contact Reith. “To me, it was obvious,” Daino says. “We’re the last locally owned public media outlet. Our strength and growth will come from remaining focused on all things local. Jim is a local voice, a local talent. It’s a natural fit.”
Further, Daino is heartened by what people have said to him about the show in its first two weeks. “The feedback to date has been outstanding,” he continues. “Whether through email, phone calls, people I run into on the street, they’re just ecstatic that Jim is back and back with WCNY. And the great thing about this is that the TV show is the only piece we’ve shown so far. We still have the radio show to come, and that will bring full circle all the forms of communication we cover.”
After an introduction showing recognizable landmarks from Central New York, accompanied by a frenetic instrumental piece, Reith transitions into segments. First up is “ReithLines,” what the host sees as the notable news items of the day. Then comes “The Main Event,” the core interview that lasts about 15 minutes. “The whole idea is to get in-depth on a topic and let people listen to newsmakers directly,” Reith says.
His interview with Onondaga County District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick ranks as the best in the young show’s run. And Neal Powless, who appeared May 18, after the May 16 world premiere of the film Crooked Arrows, on which he served as a co-producer, is a close second. During the interview Powless, whose day job is assistant director with the native Student Program at Syracuse University’s Office of Multicultural Affairs, was polished and prepared; his appearance on Reith no doubt convinced more people to check out the lacrosse movie. Some other guests haven’t been quite so compelling.
After the main interview, Reith devotes five minutes to “The Link,” providing community news, events, charities and the like. The debut program saw Post-Standard sports columnist Bud Poliquin chatting about Syracuse University’s decision to move some home football games to New Jersey for the coming season. A far more interesting guest, Chris Bostick, creator of Retro Syracuse T-shirts, visited on May 18. The boomers who were watching got a kick out of the defunct businesses whose original logos grace the T-shirts Bostick’s company is currently selling.
And since Reith always has to have the last word, there’s the final segment, “Just One More Thing.” Reith says, “It’s my take on an issue for a minute.”
Reith is no fool: He recognizes the good fortune he is experiencing at WCNY, which took a big gamble on a live television show. “I love the fact that I’m 53 and I can start a completely new challenge and a completely new career,” he says. “It’s really, really exciting, especially in this business. The only downside is I have to wear makeup.”
Q: How much of what happened at ClearChannel can you talk about?
A: I’m not going to talk about any of it. I’ll talk a little bit about it.
Q: OK, let me ask and if you can’t answer, don’t answer.
A: OK.
Q: Did you see it coming?
A: Kind of. The atmosphere was that there were going to be layoffs company-wide that day. I just didn’t think it was going to be me (laughing). But I was probably surprised, shocked for 30 seconds, then that was it. It’s the nature of the business.
Q: When something like that happens do you immediately ask yourself, what am I going to do? Or do you cower for a few minutes?
A: The way it happened, you didn’t have time to do anything. It was {vice president and general manager} “Joel {Delmonico} needs to see you,” so then I knew I was part of it. So we sat down and he laid out the severance package and I thought, good, OK. That was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. So, I didn’t have any immediate reaction like that.
Q: Do you have a non-compete clause? Did you have to lay low for several months?
A: Yes.
Q: How many?
A: I’d rather not say.
Q: So you’re free of the non-compete?
A: No. But this is not seen as direct competition, because it’s television and not radio.
Q: How did you get here?
A: Bob Daino called me two weeks after I got let go and expressed an immediate interest. He was the first one to express an interest. I came in and met with him right before Thanksgiving and then we met several times with him and other members of the staff over the course of several months, and then decided to start the beginning of April.
Q: What’s it going to be like for you, going from a three- to four-hour radio show to a half-hour TV show?
A: TV’s a whole different thing. You have to prepare more for TV because there are more people involved. Lighting crew, camera crew, director, graphics person; it takes a lot of planning to do a television show as opposed to walking into a radio studio with a microphone. You have stuff set up in radio, but you can do your own thing. This is much more structured.
I’m also podcasting a half-hour every day, I’m also blogging, I’m Facebooking and I’m tweeting, so it’s involved. In the late fall, I’ll be doing a radio show. So my day will be 2 hours of radio and then the television show once we move into the new facility.
Q: What is the process like? Do you collaborate? How much of the show are your ideas? How much did higher-ups contribute to this?
A: The whole concept was they wanted me to put a lot of my radio show into my television show. And most importantly, they want me to be me. They want my brand here at WCNY. And so I’m like the managing editor, but I do have an executive producer. A couple of people I do answer to, after my boss, Jim Aroune. It’s a collaborative effort, absolutely.
Q: Once word got out, have people called you to ask if they can be on your show?
A: Actually, when I was let go, probably in the month after that I got calls from people that had been on the show. I saw {state Sen.} John DeFrancisco, {former Onondaga County Executive} Nick Pirro called me, Bill Fitzpatrick called me, and a few others called to say, “Sorry to hear about this; if I can do anything to help out, let me know.” {State Sen. and former WCNY host} Dave Valesky called me. I have a producer who you met, Producer Doug {Moreau}. He works in much the same way that Producer Bill {Ali, from the former radio show, who was also let go by ClearChannel} did, but I’ve made a lot of calls personally and no one has said no, either for the podcast or the television show.
Q: How did you come up with the name of the show?
A: Reith was the working title and we all just kind of decided we liked it. One thing I’ll say about this place is there’s a tremendous atmosphere of cooperation and collaboration. All the people get involved with the local shows they do here. We meet on a regular basis and exchange ideas and let each other know what’s going on. That kind of creative process doesn’t happen anymore in radio, but it definitely happens here. No one’s idea is dismissed out of hand, from a crewmember to a host. Every idea is taken into consideration and talked about. It’s really a great atmosphere; I love it here.
Q: The theme music is rather, ahem, attention-getting.
A: That’s an original song by Kevin Brennan, the guitar player in Producer Bill’s band, Dead Before Dawn. Anyone who has mentioned the song says they like it: It’s not PBS-ish, it’s attention-getting. And it works great for the intro. We had a meeting about the open, and thought it was important get local landmarks in there, but not just Syracuse. We may be adding to it—thinking about adding Rudy’s in Oswego. Because the music is so fast, we wanted to make the drive kind of quick. It’s pretty cool.
Q: Tell me about your set.
A: You have to consider how things look on camera, which I never had to worry about before. So now it’s all about how it looks on TV, so it may look different on the set than it does on camera. This looks really, really good. This is going to be a wall with pictures; we had considered a window in the middle of it and we were going to change the window scene. But we decided against that and instead we’re going to have photos and posters and paintings and I’m going to switch them out from time to time. There also may be a time when I ask viewers if they have something they’d like to see on the set. It’s going to be a retro theme, a man-cave theme. I’ve got clocks and stuff from the 1930s to the 1960s, I’ve got some movie posters from the 1970s. I have some other stuff that’s retro.
Q: So is your demographic predominantly men?
A: Well, I don’t know about that. It’s me, this show is me, so that’s what I would have as a man cave-type of thing.
Q: When we published the cover story about you on Dec. 4, 2002, you were absolutely adamant about {photographer} Michael Davis not showing your face in photographs. Why the change of heart? Aren’t you just as divisive as you’ve always been?
A: (Hesitates). Uh, yes, yes. But I think a lot of that was that I’ve never liked being photographed. I don’t think I photograph well. This is going to sound stupid but I frankly don’t think I’m good-looking at all so I think it was just my own shyness. A lot of talk-show hosts are actually quite shy off camera and off microphone. I just never liked my picture taken and that was a huge part of it.
But it was also a “thing.” It was something that I could use on the show and I could use in a show business way—keeping people guessing what I look like—but there were real concerns about my kids and I think I was far more divisive then than I am now. It’s time to grow and time to move; and the kids are older, 16 and 12, so it’s no longer that much of a concern.
Q: Tell me about the plans you have to make this show interactive.
A: People are going to be able to join the show in a variety of ways. We’re going to do Google Plus. That monitor {he points to a nearby screen} allows people do a thing called a hangout, like video conferencing, be able to bring people up live on the TV show. Facebook and Twitter, of course.
Q: So, I could sit on my computer on Google Plus and talk to you, kind of like Skype?..
A: Yes, live on the air.
Q: How do you get into that queue? Does a producer decide?
A: We’ll decide together. The thing I like about it is, you
have to provide your real name; it’s not anonymous. So that weeds out
just about all the yay-hoos right away, and if a yay-hoo is willing to
put their real name on screen then I’m willing to have him on the show.
Q: Their faces are showing too?
A: Yes, correct. If I’m showing my face, they should show theirs.
Q: (From photographer Michael Davis): Are you going to smile more than you have for these pictures?
A: You know, it’s funny. I’ve already gotten, through the video podcasts, “You’ve got to smile more.” And I go, “I am smiling. That’s my smile, man.”
