I was a bit player in Philadelphia’s media journalism history – a writer, reporter and news producer at WCAU-TV from 1968 to 1974. But in those days, turbulent times for America and Philadelphia, I collected memories and met amazing, controversial, sometimes criminal characters who are themselves a collage of all that’s made Philly an extraordinary place.
In these pages, you’ll read my encounters with many of these characters. I invite those of you who witnessed these same events and people to comment, to add your own stories of all those people and happenings, and certainly to correct an aging reporter’s memory where the facts may have slipped a bit since the days of my youth.
I was not quite 22 years old when I started work at Channel 10. I left to run my film production company 6 years later when I was not quite 28.
I’ll be adding stories about the characters and events that shaped my journalism career, and in many ways, my future, over the weeks and months to follow. But here is a list of just a few you can expect to read about:
The legendary television anchorman John Facenda
The Big Bambino, Frank Rizzo
Eugene McCarthy, Frank Church, Skip Jackson – the anti-war triumvirate in the US Senate
Hubert Humphrey
Buddy Cianfrani, Herb Fineman, George X. Schwartz and a few other notable Philadelphia politicians whose careers ended in jail.
1974: On the field at Veterans Stadium directing a soccer shoot for the Philadelphia Atoms