THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

Mark Suppelsa is a 1984 alumnus of Marquette University in his native Milwaukee, and spent the first years of his career in Green Bay, Wisc., as a weekend anchor and reporter at the ABC affiliate WFRV-TV. In 1987, Suppelsa moved to Minneapolis where he joined station KSTP as an anchor/reporter co-anchoring the 5 and 10 p.m. news broadcasts. After three years of co-anchoring the 10 p.,. news for KSTP, Suppelsa headed for Chicago, where he landed a position with Channel 5 in 1993 as a general assignment reporter and eventually co-anchored and reported on Channel 5's weekend news broadcasts. In May 1997, Suppelsa was promoted to co-anchor the 4:30 and 5 p.m. weekday newscasts and presently shares the anchor desk with Channel 5's Marion Brooks.

An Emmy Award winner for his highly acclaimed "Disease on Demand" investigative series, which revealed how deadly germs can be ordered through the mail, Mark has also been honored with The Society of Professional Journalists Award and the Associated Press Regional Award.

On the afternoon of Jan 25, I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with Mark for an in-depth interview in which he candidly shared his views of a wide variety of topics, from life at Channel 5 to his take on his fast-paced career progression, to his connections with and feelings about the gay and lesbian community. In this frank and revealing interview, Mark conveyed both his passions and his fears.

WCT: Mark, among your many accomplishments, you won an Emmy for an investigative series entitled "Disease on Demand." What can you tell me about it?

MS: Essentially the bottom line of the story was that you could go on the website ( and this was four or five years ago before the dot.com explosion ) and we found that you could come pretty close to finding any sort of explosive chemical that you wanted, if you posed as the right person. And we showed how that was being done, and how the feds were trying to stop it. You could essentially find the germ that you were looking for, call it an experiment, pose as a scientist or pose as a researcher, and there were companies that were willing to sell it to you and you could get it. We did the story shortly after an Ohio arrest where a man had gotten some Anthrax and other chemicals, explosives and diseases if you will, germs if you will. Prosecutors claimed ( he claimed he wasn't ) he was going to use them for some sort of mass killing.

WCT: What are three of the best reasons to work at Channel 5?

MS: There is a spirit in this newsroom that I feel as a journalist … I mean, you could go back to the days of Floyd Kalber in the '60s. The constant here is that this has been a reporter's newsroom, for as long as I can remember. And that is a very good thing. There are newsrooms that are more producer driven or more anchor driven, what have you. This is a reporter's newsroom, and that, to me, is what will set a television journalistic operation apart from another one.

We've had some deaths in this newsroom. Let's take the Paul Hogans and the Phil Walters—you know, the loved ones who have passed. They were tough, hard-nosed reporters and they sort of set a tradition in this newsroom that even though we are a team and equals here, doesn't mean that you don't compete with each other to come up with a good story every day. Like I said, good stories told well.

And that tradition does continue here. Every day there is a battle waged here to come up with another good story that somebody else doesn't have. That makes this place special. The culture seems to stick to the wall. I like that.

The second thing is that I like the chase, I like the daily chase of the story. And if you lose the sense of the chase or the want to actually make the chase, then you might as well just sit down and be nothing but an anchor, or get out of the business.

The chase is really fun. The third thing, and certainly not the least, you know I'm very comfortable with who I'm co-anchoring with, Marion Brooks. I'm very comfortable with all my colleagues that I have to interact with every day. Filling in for Warner ( Saunders ) and poppin' up there with Allison ( Rosati ) at 10. There's a comfort level there—we've known each other for seven and a half years now. We've worked with each other through thick and thin. Exciting times. Tough times. And you can't take that away. Oftentimes when somebody comes into this newsroom they stay.

WCT: The hardest part of working with Mark Suppelsa is ...

MS: I'll get on your case a little bit if I disagree with something. I guess I've learned this from some colleagues through the years. Don't settle. If you think that you've got a good story, maybe think that you can get a better story. Maybe you didn't quite get the big fish in the story, and put that big fish on the air. Why not try for it? Did you find out if you could really get the big fish of a story? So the short answer is I try, just about every day, to take a look at what we've done, and if I don't like something, if we haven't tried hard enough, you'll hear from me. And that's uncomfortable at times. Ask the producers. And even some reporters. That's probably the hardest part about working with me.

WCT: Do you prefer reporting the news or anchoring the news?

MS: That's a great question. My answer is, those two crafts mutually enhance one another. So I think that reporting skills out in the field assist at the anchor desk. If you're reporting stories out there, you're going to have the breadth, the depth and sort of the nuance that is what a story is. I get a kick out of doing both. So it would probably be frustrating if I could only do one and not the other. And everyone who sits down to attempt to become a reporter/eventually an anchor ( if they'd like to do that ) should think about honing their skills without a TelePrompTer. It's not just going up there and reading.

WCT: Speaking as a hard-core newsperson, Mark, in your opinion, was President Clinton correct when, at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he made the statement, "Everybody has a right to a private life, even a President?"

MS: If he was saying that we should not, as journalists, ask questions about the goings-on in the Oval Office, no he was not correct. You are a public figure as President. You're a public figure as a journalist. Unfortunately, that's not going to be fair when it comes to your private life. I think it goes on a case-by-case basis. There's subjectivity that comes into play, do we report about this or not? There is no clear-cut, down-the-line answer. It's gray. My opinion is, no. Mr. Clinton was wrong when he said essentially that private lives should be left untouched. I disagree with that. I just flat-out disagree with that.

WCT: What prominent gay or lesbian figure that you've met left an indelible mark on you and why?

MS: That's a good question. That's a very good question. There is a very good friend of mine who is gay; who I didn't know was gay for a long time until after college who probably left the biggest impression on me about lots of things in life. But later on the gay and lesbian lifestyle. Or what it's like to be a person of the gay or lesbian sexual persuasion. And I feel it would be unfair if I named him, but he's one of my favorite people in the entire world. And he's in the business; he's in this business. There were so many things that he taught me that I took home with me and many of them had nothing to do with his sexual preference, but I admired him immensely. When eventually he was comfortable in his own skin, and he said, "You know, I've got something to tell you." And he said, "I hope this doesn't change our relationship as friends." And I said, "Heck, no. I have even more respect for you." I admired the way he worked through that. And he talked about all the good things and the bad things. But, beyond that, I just learned so many things from him as a person, it didn't matter what his sexual preference was.

He's a journalist today. To this day I quote him, and there are some people around here ( at NBC ) who know who he is too, and when his name comes up, ahhhhh—everybody glows. It's just his personality. He's just a great man. That's the short answer.

WCT: I am often asked if I consider myself a gay journalist, and my answer is "I'm a journalist who happens to be gay." Are gays and lesbians gay by choice, Mark?

MS: You're right. You are who you are. And I don't know whether or not you disagree with me or agree with me, David. And I don't know where science and technology and medicine stands and biology and the whole bit at this point. But the one thing ( my friend and I had long discussions about being gay too, cause I asked him everything ) ... when he came out and said "I'm gay and I just wanted you to know that," I sat down and I said, "Can I ask you a million questions ( it was probably the reporter coming out in me ) ." I said "When did you know, when did this hit you, do you think you were born with these feelings?"

You know, all those naïve questions that to this day get me into arguments with someone who will say, "Well, when they decided they were going to be gay…." I say, "nobody decides they're going to be gay." At least, that was the discussion that my friend and I had. And he just taught me so much about what was happening to him and the experiences he was going through and what he was all about, probably, as he put it, from day one. From before day one. It's in his blood; it's in his system. He was born the way he is. I know where I stand; I know what I believe. Not only in large part, but almost in total because of things that he taught me. It was so common sense. It just made sense to me. And I also became so much more—I think I'm a very tolerant person when it comes to Black, white, purple, green, gay, man, woman, wife, husband, mate, spouse, whatever—compassionate.

He taught me extreme tolerance about a lot of different types of people. Not just Joe White Guy standing here in a suit being a reporter. I learned a lot from it, and I am forever indebted. To me, it's a wonderful relationship, a wonderful friendship. The difference between people is interesting, not strange. To me, that's what life is all about. The fact that I'm a reporter means I get a chance to sit down and talk about these issues with you.

WCT: Mark, can you cite for me your proudest moment as a journalist or as an anchor?

MS: I don't think I have one. And I know that's a cop-out answer. One of my proudest moments was a very simple moment but I worked on this story that didn't win any awards, but it was a nice story, an investigative story about "dumpster diving" essentially. By myself I went out there and hammered the pavement over a months' period or a two months' period and I found some very interesting things in dumpsters that were on public property, that shouldn't have been in those dumpsters. For example, banks. Your checkbook, for example, that you didn't want anymore because you'd switched banks or because you changed the color of your check. And on the box it said "shred." And it wasn't shredded; it was sitting in a bank dumpster right where the drive-through goes through. I found accountants did the same thing. I found lawyers do the same thing. It ( the story ) got results. It was a very interesting story in my opinion. I was under pressure ( under the knife, if you will ) , to come up with a story idea for that particular month and make it happen. And I did it by myself, and I remember when I got done. It was a small victory but I got computer messages from various people saying, "that was really good." Kind of like, "Wow, I didn't know that you could do that."

WCT: If you were to discover that one of your siblings were gay or lesbian ... or, if you were to discover at some point in the future, that one of your children turned out to be gay or lesbian, how do think you would react?

MS: David, to be honest with you, my wife and I even discussed that possibility. Not frequently but periodically. I would be so proud of who they are regardless of what they are, and that would be an easy one for me. It may be tougher on my son or daughter, because they're living it every day.

But I know in the bottom of my heart and right on my sleeve right here ( Mark extends the sleeve of his jacket towards me emotionally ) that nothing would change in terms of how I feel, my treatment—all those sorts of things. That is a no-brainer to me. And that's what my friend taught me. That's what my friend who is gay showed me, who I admire a lot because he taught me so much about this. And probably I think pulled it out of me. "It's in there, let's talk about this." And if it came up, that would be a real easy one for me. Nothing would change and I would be most proud.

WCT: In your opinion, Mark, is it an abomination that the regime of Saddam Hussein is still in power?

MS: If I were President, and I never will be, so I don't know the answer to that. Being President is a tough job. From my viewpoint as a reporter, I suppose it's an easy answer for some to say "why didn't we just go in there and pull a Harry Truman, and finish this thing." But you're talking about innocent people there. You're talking about a wily character who changes residences and locations on a nightly basis, sometimes three times a night. Someone who has doubles, triples and quadruples walking around the countryside. I don't think I have enough information to fairly judge somebody's situation, like either the Defense Department or the State Department or the Oval Office to say wow! They should have taken him out. Who would have been next? Again, I'm not a public policy person; I just report the news. As a reporter, I will say that I think that as long as he's out there—as long as he's in power—it's going to be a difficult situation for freedom-loving democracies.

WCT: What is Mark Suppelsa afraid of?

MS: Failure. Sure. And I think it's a healthy thing to a certain degree. You don't want it to consume you but there's a certain drive in me professionally, and even as a parent, even as a husband. You know, I think people who are driven to succeed and do well are looking over their shoulder and saying, "You know, I left out a little bit here and I could slip up." Whether it be with your job, your kids, or your wife or husband or partner. And that does drive me each and every day. There is that fear of failure, that nervous energy. There's that fear of getting beaten by your competitor or letting these guys ( NBC colleagues ) down. So, the simple answer is I fear failure.

Everybody likes to succeed.

_____

And succeed he has. By the way, Mark's wife Candus is an aerobics instructor at a YMCA in a Chicago suburb and he has two children, Matthew, 6 and Ava, who is 3-1Ž2. I think the interview speaks for itself. Forget about that old cliché, "Nice guys finish last." Mark Suppelsa seems to have crossed the finish line headed for greater heights. And they don't make them any nicer.

E-mail: DavdRonald@aol.com