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I claim no grammatical or lingual expertise or even competence in these areas, only thoughts and opinions. Certainly opinions.
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Okay, at this point in time there still is no House Speaker, Damar Hamlin is still under sedation and many of my former colleagues in Seattle radio are dealing with a tragic and sudden loss among their own. Pope Emeritus — a word I recently found out was difficult to pronounce — Benedict the XVI is still above ground and GMA3 remains in their version of a scandal.
So, let’s talk about pronouncers.
Really, this is Pick a Thing That Bugs Me Week in Bill Zito’s BNM column.
And while it has been brewing for a while, it came to the surface leading up to and after the death of Pope Emeritus Benedict the XVI. I quickly learned just how many members of the news media were either unfamiliar with or incapable of saying the word Emeritus.
Look, I’m nitpicking here for sure but this is a column and if not here, where?
And let’s be clear, I was no A student or B, really for that matter. In fact, if you look hard enough, the letters G.E.D. clearly will surface in my academic past. (I had issues showing up for class in those days)
I claim no grammatical or lingual expertise or even competence in these areas, only thoughts and opinions. Certainly opinions.
In other words, most people actually have true knowledge and feelings about the Oxford comma and the use of independent clauses for fun and profit.
Moving along here, I am not raining down on human error, more human disinterest or creatural apathy. There’s no reason, however and frankly no excuse for appearing dumber than we really are.
There are people, places, and things that have earned the right to be referred to correctly and in the proper context and I really have never found it particularly difficult to find a way to get it right or at least publicly acceptable.
Yet, I find an almost arrogant sense of self in watching the broadcast set try to power through it all when they could have taken the time or enlisted help to get it right.
It seems the Associated Press would set a standard in days past for providing reader pronunciations but most of the time that falls by the wayside except for the more obscure cities in Ukraine. And I offer no blame and no judgement, we’ve all been cut to the bone as far as resources are concerned.
Unfamiliarity is not a crime. Most of us don’t even know how much we don’t know but not trying or worse, not caring is a significant transgression.
I hear a network anchor who I can guess by appearance has been to Europe at least once, mispronounces Tibor River and I think, “Wow, that could have been prevented”. And that’s fixable just by looking online.
Believe it, if you don’t know already. There’s a lot out there that’s just unfamiliar to many of us because of a simple lack of regional or geographic knowledge, generation gaps and having never watched Jeopardy.
Try a small town in Nebraska, a county in Arizona, or a New England hamlet. A smart journalist or conscientious person is calling the local library, the city hall, or the sheriff’s office and nicely asking, “How do I say this?”
Big things happen in out of the way places so who wants to get it wrong for half a day until everybody who did feel like taking 90 seconds to check makes your station look dotty or worse, like they don’t care?
Even after hours when something breaks, calling the voicemail of the town library or a local business can save your image and spark some nice conversations
“Hello, Saskatchewan Moose Optical”
“Puyallup Pizza, pickup or delivery?”
People and proper names are yet another challenge. The hero — if they’re truly heroic — will not really mind the initial gaffe but that’s not really an excuse. Gee, why not wait until we know for sure? You know, like that thing we’re supposed to do with all stories…what’s it called, confirmation?
When we identify victims for the first time on air it often leaves me pause. Nobody wants to hear the name of someone who met with violence or tragedy spoken incorrectly yet we often get it wrong or just guess.
If you don’t know, don’t say it. If you think you know, ask. If you do know, let everyone else in on it. Swallow your pride.
We need to look smart. I think we’re supposed to appear to know more than the audience. We don’t have to and we probably won’t but it would be nice if they thought we did.
Bill Zito has devoted most of his work efforts to broadcast news since 1999. He made the career switch after serving a dozen years as a police officer on both coasts. Splitting the time between Radio and TV, he’s worked for ABC News and Fox News, News 12 New York , The Weather Channel and KIRO and KOMO in Seattle. He writes, edits and anchors for Audacy’s WTIC-AM in Hartford and lives in New England. You can find him on Twitter @BillZitoNEWS.
Radio, TV Allowed Bob Sirott to Tap Into His Creative Side
Radio, TV Allowed Bob Sirott to Tap Into His Creative Side
Mike Broomhead Found a Home as Talk Radio Host
Was George Santos Lying or Exaggerating?
Jim Haug
January 5, 2023 at 8:30 am
My pet peeve, aside from having MY last name mispronounced, is “verse” replacing versus in radio speech. Second place is “pit of my stomach” instead of “A feeling in the pit of my stomach.”
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Radio prepared Bob Sirott to roll with it if things went wrong in television during his media career.
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There are three things any Chicagoan would be familiar with; The Magnificent Mile, The Gold Coast, and Bob Sirott. Generations have grown up with the life-long Midwesterner. First as a top Chicago rock and roll DJ with WLS in the 70s and later as a news anchor on CBS2, NBC5 and Chicago Tonight on WTTW and on Fox32. After several previous stints on WGN Radio, Sirott is back home on “Chicago’s Very Own” AM 720 weekday mornings from 6-10 am.
The Chicago radio legend went to Columbia College located in the South Loop. It leans a bit artsy with alumni such as Pat Sajak, Bob Odenkirk, Andy Richter, and Janusz Kaminski (1982–87) – Academy Award-winning cinematographer for Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan.
“I went there for four years in the late 60s,” Sirott said. “The faculty was more radical than the students. A tremendous place to learn. I knew a lot of cinematographers, film people, those like me who went into broadcasting or advertising.”
Columbia’s philosophy is to turn out working professionals, not professors working on getting published or future game show hosts. (Sorry Mr. Sajak.)
“As a student, I was able to do a lot of networking in the city. Al Parker is one person who was instrumental in my success at Columbia.”
I think our mission at Columbia is a very simple one and always has been. And that is: To provide the finest education that we can to our students so that they’ll understand what communications is all about and pick an aspect of it that has some appeal to them, that they are obviously suited for. –Al Parker
Parker’s name is synonymous with the radio/audio department at Columbia. He was a huge influence on Sirott until the day he died.
“We often had coffee together and I’d ask his advice on this and that,” Sirott said. “I realized early that I didn’t want to go to school to learn how to work in radio, flip switches, and work the reel-to-reel. I could learn that later.”
Sirott said the physical aspects of the job weren’t going to take him four years to learn. Instead, he focused on classes like European literature, the art of cinema, advertising and science classes. He felt he needed a general education.
“Nobody hires you solely because you went to this school or that school,” Sirott explained. “Especially in broadcasting. You’re better off to have a general sense of knowledge so you’ll be able to discuss things intelligently on the air.”
His father was a furrier in downtown Chicago, near State Street and Wabash.
Sirott is a sharp guy. Always into learning something new. A self-described dabbler. Jack of all trades, master of none. He was also a very introverted kid. “I never had a huge ego. I was always a shy type of kid. We lived in apartments and growing up when my mother gave me the rent check to take to the landlord of the building, I was terrified.”
Growing up, Sirott always liked to learn a little about a lot.
“I grew up in a household that was interested in news, documentaries. I remember my father always watching programs about U.S. History, watching different kinds of interviews. That served me well. Gave me the desire for a broader curriculum in college.”
Growing up on the north side, Sirott was a Cubs fan. “I grew up watching WGN when all the games were on Channel 9. Then things got weird when not every game was on WGN. You could find them here and there. With Marquee Sports Network, at least the games are in one place. Baseball is all I wanted to do. I wanted to do what Jack Quinlan did.”
Quinlan was best known for doing radio play-by-play for the Chicago Cubs, first on WIND and then on WGN. His broadcast partners were Lou Boudreau and Charlie Grimm. He currently hosts “Icons of the Ivy,” a series of interviews with Chicago Cubs legends, on the Cubs Marquee Sports Network.
“I know a little about baseball. I’m not like an X’s and O’s guy that follows it every day,” Sirott said. “I always made fun of the TV news live shots when they were interviewing fans at a bar. If I want insight or commentary I want to hear it from a player or manager. I can go and interview my friends and ask what they think. It’s the same thing.”
Sirott said he’s always tried to focus on the personality angle whether on the radio or television. He strived to get to know the players, the musicians. That curiosity served him well in both mediums.
His radio career began when he was 21. While working as a producer and writer at NBC Radio in Chicago, he landed a summer on-air job at WBBM-FM.
Way to go, Columbia College.
Sirott achieved great success for the next seven years before moving to television in 1980.
“Radio is a lot more creative than television,” he said. “It’s harder. My early radio career allowed me to adapt to television. It goes the other way too. I think the television work has made me better at the radio the second time around.”
Radio prepared Sirott to roll with it if things went wrong in television. Doing something live with a news cam definitely helped me on the radio with the kind of shows I do.
He says he’s a kind of ‘dabbler.’ Likes sports but isn’t interested enough to do it full-time. Likes hard news, but not only hard news.
“I can’t fake it. I’m a terrible actor,” Sirott said. “I can only be me and it’s sort of worked out okay. I was always this way. Influenced by everybody I grew up listening to. I’ve anchored news at quite a few different stations and I always did it the same way.”
Sirott recalled it was Johnny Carson who said if you’re always yourself, there is no guarantee of success. But if you’re not yourself on-air, there’s a guarantee you won’t make it. Hopefully, whoever you are, you’ll find an audience who likes you.
“John Chancellor was an NBC news reporter and anchor I always listened to,” Sirott said. “He was natural. “I can go back to tapes and watch him. I was always struck by how he talked to you as a viewer. It wasn’t announcing.”
Sirott said he used to do a newscast for WBBM-FM in the morning in 1971. The FCC required 15 minutes of news. He couldn’t fake the news-guy voice.
“I just tried to be as conversational as I could. I didn’t want to be a high-energy guy who couldn’t maintain that persona. I wanted to be natural and comfortable.”
He recalled how Conan O’Brien was a real guy when he interviewed him a while back. “I’d interviewed him before,” Sirott said. “He was the real deal as a person. I think that comes through in whatever you’re doing. Whatever that quality is. He was really cool and would go into a lot of funny schtick with me, but I always felt he was the real Conan. He was just talking about things. That’s who I am. I had done quite a bit of research on Conan. I asked him what he was like in high school and he told me he wasn’t the most popular kid. Not a leader. O’Brien jumped in and said, ‘I don’t’ like the way this questioning is going.’ He was joking, that is just his sardonic way.”
After being hugely successful in radio at WLS, Sirott dipped his toe into the hugely competitive Chicago television pool.
“I did some guest shots on television in 1980 at CBS 2,” he said. “This was during the reign of Walter Jacobson and Bill Kurtis,” Sirott said. Kurtis and Jacobson were a big deal in Chicago–‘newsmen, not announcers,’ as proclaimed in a 1975 promo for WBBM TV.
“The first week I was there I had to do a live shot from Chicagofest, a short-lived music festival on Navy Pier,” Sirott said. “When I got back to the station everybody was very complimentary. I’d just come from a job where I was doing four hours live, six days a week. I do a three-minute segment on WBBM, and I’m a hero.”
Sirott was and still is a bit uncomfortable with the notoriety.
“When somebody in my family came across someone asking, ‘Are you related to Bob Sirott?’ I’d feel so uncomfortable. I can talk to tens of thousands of people using the microphone or camera, but feel uncomfortable in front of three people.”
Other things kept Sirott from getting a big head. When he joined WLS in 1973, he worked with a great DJ staff that wasn’t afraid to pop the proverbial balloon if it became over-inflated.
“We were cohesive, worked hard and respected each other,” he said. “If anybody showed a sign of a swollen ego, they’d get shot down by the other six people. We were all very close and hung out off the air. We helped keep each other in line. If you got too big for your britches, you were heckled to death and would never hear the end of it. I was grateful for that, always have been.”
In college, Sirott wasn’t one of those guys that hung out at clubs, despite Chicago having an immense music scene.
“For one thing I didn’t drink, hated the taste of alcohol,” Sirott said. “To me, it always tasted like the first time you took a sip of your father’s drink. I didn’t like it. If I went to concerts it would be at the Arie Crown Theater. We’d also go up to Belmont to see performers.” Sirott said folk clubs like The Quiet Knight were also a destination to listen to music.
In addition to his morning gig at WGN, Sirott hosts Legends of the Ivy for Marquee Sports Network. It’s all about players, not about salaries or statistics.
“I’m able to get to know players,” he said. “This kind of stuff brings me back to the love of the game. The fun and inside stories. Inside baseball, that’s where the stories are.”
As a kid going to Wrigley Field, Sirott would sit in the grandstands and then at the end of the game, he would get to work.
“The grounds crew would give each kid a row and say if you step on the cups in this entire row, we’ll give you a ticket to tomorrow’s game because stepping on the cups would make it easier for the crew to clean it up.”
He still loves going to Wrigley Field. As a fan, he said it’s harder to get access to players than it used to be. But he also recognizes the love of the game is still there. Among players as well.
“One time I was at Wrigley and saw Mark Grace sitting at the top of the dugout stairs during batting practice before a game,” Sirott said. “I could just tell he was taking it all in. Loved the game. How wonderful it was when you talked to some of these guys who were baseball purists. It’s so generational. My dad took me to my first game. No other sport has the same quality. Poets don’t write about football or basketball. Baseball is romantic.”
Jim Cryns writes features for Barrett News Media. He has spent time in radio as a reporter for WTMJ, and has served as an author and former writer for the Milwaukee Brewers. To touch base or pick up a copy of his new book: Talk To Me – Profiles on News Talkers and Media Leaders From Top 50 Markets, log on to Amazon or shoot Jim an email at jimcryns3_zhd@indeedemail.com.
Among any criticism of Elon Musk in recent months is the charge that his Twitter purchase has negatively impacted his flagship asset, Tesla.
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“2022 saw a lot of shareholder wealth destruction for Tesla,” the conversation began on CNBC last week, with added emphasis to get the point across.
“It’s hard to say if it could go any further down; it’s been a horrible season for Tesla,” the analyst pointed out with an extra dose of intensity.
Many have pointed out that the reporting on the company in recent months has increased both in its fervor and in its negativity. In fact, some think the media at large has seemed breathlessly gleeful, almost gloating about the recent decline of their once-prized Tesla.
The great Rush Limbaugh used to say that liberalism was the religion of the Left. He believed that, for its adherents, the ideology trumps all, including God, family, country, relationships and careers.
Is that the explanation as to why the legacy media has turned so quickly and viciously against their darling, Elon Musk? All because he dared to offer transparency, inclusion, equality and diversity of thought to the social media network previously dominated by liberals?
“Musk has gone from a superhero on Wall Street to a villain,” said Dan Ives, Wedbush Securities Managing Director & Senior Equity Research Analyst, on a financial program last week. “I think for someone that’s viewed as a modern-day Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, it’s more of a Howard Hughes-type moment, right? I think the question now is, does he start to focus more back on Tesla, away from Twitter? Because that’s really been it. It’s a brand issue. It’s been a black eye for Musk. A black eye for Tesla. But it goes back to investors. This is a name they want to own as a transformational company. They just can’t keep having Musk, cause every time he tweets something, the controversy, it’s created ultimately a black cloud for Tesla.”
Solid analysis, indeed. However, why do some investors and members of the media consider the ushering in of more Twitter transparency and fairness to be a controversial black eye? Could it not also be considered principled and heroic?
“Tesla’s been egregiously overvalued, so we have seen the repricing of Tesla throughout the year as competition has credibility come into the market. As people have understood the outlook for pricing pressure. And the longer-term trajectory, where everyone assumed that Tesla would operate in a vacuum hasn’t come together. Forget about robotaxis and the other daydreams that were out there,” Roth Capital Analyst, Craig Irwin, told Yahoo News, basing his analysis on company fundamentals. “The company’s been executing, but not nearly as well as the daydreamers, so the lofty valuations come off. And it has to come back to earth. So I think Tesla’s short-term trading is really going to be a function of whether or not Jack Dorsey goes back to Twitter or maybe Dick Costello. Put Elon’s focus back on the company and on, you know, driving units. But they’re having problems. That’s why they’re discounting. So I’m still bearish. I’m sticking with my $85 price target.”
Although in this instance, Irwin cited fundamentals, such as lower production compared to other manufacturers, Musk’s approach with Twitter seems to be playing a large role in the price target calculations offered by others.
“It is unfortunate that Elon Musk has had a semi-antagonistic relationship with politicians of one party,” the long-term Tesla bear added while commenting on the coming EV tax credit and the impact on Tesla from the Inflation Reduction Act.
Were media members citing it as “unfortunate” when Musk, previously a lifetime Democratic Party voter, championed causes near-and-dear to the political Left? Was it “unfortunate” when he seemed to be “semi-antagonistic” toward Republican priorities?
Tesla is indeed down bigly for the year. The numbers don’t lie, with most of the stock’s roughly 70 percent loss coming in the past couple of months. Yes, the pandemic is once again causing troubles in China, and the U.S. recession may be deepening as we begin 2023. True, these factors could certainly be major headwinds for any premium car manufacturer, such as Tesla. However, no other car company can boast the debt-free balance sheet and pricing wiggle room Tesla possesses. Many analysts have pointed out that the company can continue to sell cars at a lower profit margin in an effort to maintain or grow market share until America’s economic malaise is eventually corrected.
Still, many think the dire media rhetoric doesn’t quite match the situation on the ground regarding Tesla. For the past couple of months, we have watched the financial media mob pile on and amplify a narrative – seemingly because it now satisfies their political point of view.
When Musk spoke mostly about solving the “climate crisis,” he was their media darling. Now that he espouses freedom of speech while uncovering numerous scandals which benefited liberals, they seem to have turned on him. And it goes both ways. A year ago, conservative media stood, on average, much more anti-Musk than it does today.
Musk reassured Tesla employees this week in a company-wide memo, urging them not to be scared by the “stock market craziness.”
Yahoo finance reporter, Brad Smith, mentioned that fact last week, then followed up with a laugh, saying, “this move coming from Musk as the stock heads for its worst year on record.”
The rest of Musk’s memo to employees read, “As we demonstrate continued excellent performance, the market will recognize that. Long-term, I believe very much that Tesla will be the most valuable company on Earth!”
The network noted that Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas “slashed” his 12-month price target for the company to $250. That lower target represents more than a 100 percent increase from its current price, a feat that normally would have investors rushing to jump on board. In fact, the average price target from analysts is $250 over the next twelve months. Some analysts, in fact, see Tesla climbing back to $400 or $500 per share in the next year.
Among any criticism of Musk in recent months is the charge that his Twitter purchase has negatively impacted his flagship asset, Tesla. But is it the fact that Musk is “distracted” by Twitter, or the fact that he is democratizing Twitter and moving it in the direction of fairness and freedom. And away from radical, left-wing monopolized control? Could that be the real reason for the venom and the reason the attacks have seemingly increased in recent months, in tandem with Musk’s countless “Twitter Files” revelations about the corruption and duplicity throughout the company in recent years.
“Employees are also privy to stuff like, is demand softening? They can actually see that, along with Musk kind of being away from the picture. Being in Twitterland, doing what he’s doing there,” one reporter mentioned.
Also pointed out by reporters over the past weeks is Musk’s selling of more Tesla shares, presumably in connection to his acquisition of Twitter.
Regardless, most analysts and reporters don’t seem content to simply report the facts. Many seem personally annoyed by Musk’s moves and thrilled that the company is down approximately 70% on the year.
Meanwhile, fellow tech giant, Meta, is down a comparable 65% on the year. However, that fact doesn’t seem to bring out the anger and hostility Tesla’s decline has elicited. Some theorize that this is a result of the fact that, unlike Musk who endorsed Republicans prior to the 2022 midterm elections, Meta is stewarded by Mark Zuckerberg, who contributed large amounts of money to help Democrats in 2020.
And while many objective observers might agree that left-leaning drivers might be increasing their virtue-signaling by pulling away from Tesla, the opposite may also be true, as centrist and freedom-loving consumers now find themselves attracted by Musk’s recent stance. Might the net result, based solely on consumers lost or gained, be a wash?
The confusion stems from the fact that many analysts seem to be cutting their price targets for Tesla not based on fundamentals or estimates but rather on emotions and sentiment. In the long run, as Warren Buffett often points out, fundamentals usually win out. A fact of which these market experts are well aware.
“In the short run, the market is a voting machine,” Buffett has said. “But in the long run, it is a weighing machine.”
While many feel the “voting machine” is currently working overtime in financial newsrooms, others expect the “weighing machine” to continue lifting the company to new heights in the years to come.
“Yes, Tesla, Twitter, Elon Musk, there’s these distractions,” CNBC Contributor Tim Higgins summed up last week. “But this is a growth stock story, and if the growth can continue then, people are going to be excited again.”
Rick Schultz is a former Sports Director for WFUV Radio at Fordham University. He has coached and mentored hundreds of Sports Broadcasting students at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting, Marist College and privately. His media career experiences include working for the Hudson Valley Renegades, Army Sports at West Point, The Norwich Navigators, 1340/1390 ESPN Radio in Poughkeepsie, NY, Time Warner Cable TV, Scorephone NY, Metro Networks, NBC Sports, ABC Sports, Cumulus Media, Pamal Broadcasting and WATR. He has also authored a number of books including “A Renegade Championship Summer” and “Untold Tales From The Bush Leagues”. To get in touch, find him on Twitter @RickSchultzNY.
Mike Broomhead said he found a new home as a radio talker, adding he liked the platform and that it was exhilarating to cover so many topics.
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If you’re gonna be dumb, you better be tough.
That’s not only my personal mantra in life, it’s the title of Mike Broomhead’s book.
When I spoke with Broomhead, he was driving from Fort Myers, Florida to Daytona. He’d just cleared all the Disney traffic in the Orlando area, and it was 58 degrees in Orlando. But nothing keeps people away from Mickey.
Broomhead has been in morning drive for 15 years. You can hear him on weekday mornings, 8-Noon, on KTAR 92.3 FM, as a guest host on the nationally syndicated Glenn Beck Show.
He grew up in Florida. Not Miami, Palm Beach, or even Fort Lauderdale. Broomhead grew up in the murky and beautiful areas of the state. So pristine is the land you can still see God’s fingerprints.
“I’ve always loved Florida,” said Broomhead, who now lives in Phoenix. “I miss driving to the middle of the state. I don’t miss the ocean and beaches so much. I like the swamps. I like the redneck central Florida. There is so much agriculture. My best friend’s dad owned some produce packing houses. We’re talking about a very rural area. Florida at one point had more beef cattle than Texas. The grass is so lush. We had tomatoes growing and orange groves. It’s really something to see.
The recent devastation caused by Hurricane Ian was hard to look at wherever you lived. Up close and by a native of the area, it can be traumatic.
“My brother is a Captain in the Sheriff’s office,” Broomhead explained. “He drove me out to Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel. It’s really hard to fathom the devastation in the area.”
Broomhead said he’s confident the area will be rebuilt to its pre-hurricane condition. “It makes sense. Perhaps not everybody will rebuild who owned homes before the storm, but the area will see new people. There are so many big resorts that I know they’ll rebuild. The streets are cleared and work is already underway.”
A number of the big resorts are still closed, some had been flooded through the first and second floors. Immediately following the storm there was absolutely no power, no fresh water. The causeway connecting the island to the mainland was severely damaged and closed.
“When my brother was deployed to the search and rescue team right after the storm, his wife was home with the kids,” Broomhead said. “They had no internet or electricity, so from Arizona, I was telling them over the phone more information about their immediate area than they could find.”
The oldest of three brothers who were raised by a single mother, Broomhead got his first job by the time he was twelve. On his own by 16, he eventually earned his GED and, with dreams of being a cowboy, he moved to Arizona to become a bull rider.
Bull rider. Somehow I can’t see Hannity or Levin doing that.
“The first time you ride and you get to that eight-second whistle it doesn’t matter which bull or what your fear is, you feel 10 feet tall,” Broomhead explained. “It is the best feeling of accomplishment because it’s terrifying,”
Broomhead decided early to go into the trades. Becoming an electrician sounded appealing.
“I was just out of high school and knew I wasn’t going to college,” Broomhead said. “I worked since I was 12 and kind of fell into the trade. At 18, I knew absolutely nothing.” Broomhead went to school to study to become an electrician.
He began electrical work on Sanibel Island and Captiva, cutting his teeth.
“I did a lot of electrical estimation work and learned quickly,” he said. “I made decent money and had my own business, but I had to close it because of the economic crash of 2008.”
Even before his business went under, Broomhead had been voicing his opinions on a larger level. His brother Tom was killed in Iraq on Memorial Day in 2003, and Broomhead began to speak out at largest pro-troops rallies across the country. He was only two years older than Tom.
“We fought like crazy as brothers do,” he said. “But we stuck up for each other. Our parents divorced when I was 14 years old. It was mom and the boys against the world. We were very tight knit and I have absolutely no regrets.”
He was called upon to debate against the anti-war crowd on both television and radio and is still highly requested around the country to speak at events. Mike joined the George W. Bush campaign as a volunteer in 2004 and has had the privilege of being the master of ceremonies for two Presidential visits to Arizona.
For Broomhead, everything began around telling Tom’s story.
“I was traveling with veterans groups, telling what I thought was a unique story about my brother,” Broomhead explained. “Then you get around the other families and learn what their kids did, what their siblings did. The veterans have done so much and aren’t asking anything for it.”
Broomhead was a regular caller to radio shows, still discussing the troops.
Fate decided to turn Broomhead from an electrician into a radio talker. A friend was called upon to do a shift at a small radio station and asked Broomhead to co-host. He didn’t know what he was doing.
“She called me to co-host with her,” Broomhead said. “Apparently, I did well enough as I was asked to do a show on Saturdays for an hour. I had to learn to work the breaks, talk to people on the phone. It was so hectic I don’t recall what I said on the air.”
Broomhead felt he’d found a new home. He liked the platform and said it was exhilarating to cover so many topics that were running through his mind.
“I was asked to speak at pro-troops rallies. I went on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox. Glenn Beck had me on.”
In just a few years, Broomhead went from calling into a local radio show to hosting the number one morning drive show in Phoenix, as well as being a popular public speaker, TV host, and frequent guest host for Glenn Beck.
“Somebody was looking out for me,” Broomhead said. “I love what I’m doing, but I’d trade this career for another ten minutes with my brother. It opened doors, but it was laid in front of me, presented to me. It’s amazing to see what has happened, how blessed I’ve been with it all.”
Broomhead said his approach to his show and radio is, to be honest.
“I wasn’t trying to get my own radio show, this was never anything I thought I’d do. I decided if I was going to do it, I had to take it seriously and I wanted to be honest. Glenn Beck became a good friend and I learned a lot from him. He was like a mentor. We’re very different in a lot of ways. He helped me learn the business side of things. He had a working man’s perspective.”
When Broomhead talks on the air, he said he envisions talking to some guy in a work truck. The way other announcers talked to him when he was on a job site.
“I always picture somebody listening while doing their job. We’d listen while we worked over lunch. Sometimes people get mad, sometimes they smile. My political leanings tend to come out. But I talk about issues people deal with. At the end of the day, people are just trying to feed their families. That’s the way I approach things on KTAR.”
His first radio station was very conservative and Broomhead said he was made to feel like a preacher.
“I would say things to the listener congregation. They all believed the same thing. I think now I’m more of a missionary and I have to win my audience over.”
He’s a conservative but not a whack-job.
“I try to be fair with people and I don’t try to take myself too seriously,” he said. “I want to understand people. I’m not saving the world. I’m not curing cancer. But I have to be compelling, have spirited conversations. I may not agree with some people but I’ll be respectful. I will ask them to come back if it has been a civil conversation. We are not going to agree on everything.”
His book, If you’re gonna be dumb, you better be tough, was written with writer and author Lisa De Pasquale. De Pasquale wrote for Townhall.com and wrote a piece on Broomhead.
“The publisher asked if I’d like to do a book; let me tell my story,” Broomhead explained. “I said yes, if Lisa was the person I’d work with. We talked on the phone for 45 minutes at a time. She’d tape me and transcribe my words. It was really cathartic. A lot of tears. We talked about my brother and I growing up together.”
In the recent elections, Broomhead was called upon to host a debate in the gubernatorial election. He explained there’s an agreement with public access television and Citizens Clean Election Commission. If one candidate doesn’t show, as in this case, Katie Hobbs chose not to, there would be an interview with the other candidate. Kari Lake was the other candidate so Broomhead hosted an interview with Lake.
Hobbs, governor-elect for Arizona, refused to debate Lake saying, ‘Debating a conspiracy theorist like Kari Lake — whose entire campaign platform is to cause enormous chaos and make Arizona the subject of national ridicule — would only lead to constant interruptions, pointless distractions, and childish name-calling.”
“That’s how that interview came about,” Broomhead said. “I’ve discussed some of the election controversies. I’ve said on the air, ‘If you have a problem with voting machines, take a look at the maintenance records.’”
Exactly. You want to check to make sure the pilot is sober before you take off.
“I’ve known Kari Lake for about 5 years,” Broomhead said. “I like her. We don’t agree on something. I don’t believe everybody cheated or was in on a conspiracy. At some point you have to say we’re moving on.”
Broomhead explained how John McCain always won by double-digits.
“The problems tend to come from party leadership here in Arizona, inside the Republican party,” Broomhead said. “McCain was hated. There was such a disconnect with party voters and leadership. If election fraud is your lead issue, you’ve got a very small pool to draw from.”
Broomhead would like to see more agreement, or at the least more conversation.
“It’s about right and wrong, not Right and Left. It doesn’t mean you call the other side out all the time. If you’re just chirping, it does no good.”
Broomhead loves doing his show, but he would also love to do a stand-alone podcast. Right now they package his show into a podcast.
“That kind of long-form platform would allow me to have conversations without constraints,” he said. “If I’m having a great conversation with someone I would love to stay with it. Extend the conversation.”
Looking back at his life, Broomhead said he finds he can become frustrated that he couldn’t do more.
“I see people on the radio who have done well, but they give generously. I give my time when I can. I write checks when I can. I want to make a difference in people’s lives.”
Jim Cryns writes features for Barrett News Media. He has spent time in radio as a reporter for WTMJ, and has served as an author and former writer for the Milwaukee Brewers. To touch base or pick up a copy of his new book: Talk To Me – Profiles on News Talkers and Media Leaders From Top 50 Markets, log on to Amazon or shoot Jim an email at jimcryns3_zhd@indeedemail.com.
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