Just ask WGN's popular early morning/noon news anchor Larry Potash what he likes about the Windy City and his post at "Chicago's Very Own" Channel 9 News and his enthusiastic responses will give you plenty of reasons to tune in to his daily early morning and noon news broadcasts.
Indeed, Potash and his early morning co-anchor Micah Materre have created a formidable newscast that seriously challenges the competition with a very habit-forming blend of hard news stories, informative special segments, lighthearted repartee and intriguing guests. Known as "The Big Show," WGN's Morning News is actually many programs in one. Making the most of their recipe for success, Potash and Materre have embellished an already winning repertoire with fascinating entertainment segments and fun features like the daily "Useless List." Potash also co-anchors the noon to 1 p.m. newscast from which has given the other stations some serious competition thanks to Potash and co-anchor Roseanne Tellez. Of course, Tom Skilling's cutting-edge weather helps add to the midday mix.
The 34-year-old native of Lynn, Mass., has made the most of his professional yet easy-going delivery, arresting good looks and Emmy Award-winning experience. Make no mistake about it...Potash is one serious journalist. Beneath his laid-back manner and easygoing charm beats the heart and soul of a hard-working perfectionist. Potash is the first to admit that he borders on being a workaholic who demands the very best of himself and the people who work for and around him.
Potash came to Chicago and WGN seven years ago from station KOTV-TV in Tulsa, Okla., where he was a weekend anchor and political reporter. Prior to that, Potash anchored for WFIE-TV in Evansville, Ind., on the morning shift.
A conversation series entitled "People to People" earned Potash an Emmy in 1999. A graduate of Emerson College in Boston, Mass., Potash also received an Associated Press Award for Spot News Coverage in 1992. Potash enjoys sports and tries his hand at boxing every now and then. He lives in the Chicago area with his wife Lisa...they married last New Year's Eve.
DG: You won an Emmy for a conversation series called "People to People," which I believe is still in existence.
LP: The show I did was something I put together based on some reports that I had done on the "Ford Heights Four." These are four guys who went to prison for a crime they didn't commit; in fact I think a couple of them were on death row. They were there for years, 20 years I think. They kept saying, "Test the DNA, and you'll find we're innocent." Nobody wanted to test the DNA. And finally it was tested, and it proved that the men were innocent. And they walked and so when a couple of these guys got out I had them on the show and we replayed some of these stories. We interviewed them, we interviewed somebody who worked in the State's Attorney's Office and we interviewed Northwestern University Professor David Protess, who was somewhat involved in the investigation as well. Protess' students had done some checking into the situation and I worked, really with him ( Protess ) , in developing some stories. It was really one of the first if not the first story of this Illinois death row situation. This led to a moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois.
DG: And how long did this series run?
LP: Well mine was a one-time show. But the series involved a couple of other anchors as well. Gloria Brown was in charge of my show.
DG: Larry, as you probably know, Channel 9 falls behind the network stations ratings-wise as a general rule …
LP: Not necessarily. I mean, everybody's behind Channel 7 ( WLS ) . They're in first place. At 9 o'clock ( PM ) , we're not up against them. But our rating ( at 9 p.m. ) is certainly higher than Channel 2's ( at 10 p.m. ) , and I can't speak for the 9 o'clock show that much. But our noon show beats Fox and NBC that's on at the same time, and our morning show beats The Today Show. In fact, it beats everybody in town between 6 and 9 ( a.m. ) . Good Morning America does very well and they usually beat us in the 7 to 9 period. But we beat The Today Show, CBS. And at 6 o'clock we've been beating Channel 5, and we always beat Channel 2.
DG: What is the working relationship like between you and Roseanne Tellez?
LP: It's great! I consider us very good.
DG: Since you won an award for Spot News Coverage, it would appear you like street reporting.
LP: Well, I think in many respects street reporting is very rewarding when you can do stories that really bring changes and impact people's lives. Anchoring is very rewarding when there's breaking news and it's sort of … you're ad-libbing and you're trying to put together a story; it's almost like you're reporting but you're in a studio. You're doing live interviews and impromptu pieces … I like them both for different reasons. Our morning show is somewhat entertainment-driven, it's very creative and I like that aspect of it. Now people associate anchoring with reading the TelePrompTer, which couldn't be further from the truth as far as my job is concerned. It's not like anchoring the basic newscasts that are on every other station throughout the day. So in that sense, I like my anchor job. From a reporting standpoint, I enjoy doing investigative pieces and longer-term pieces. I got a little tired of crime reporting because I think a lot of local news focuses a disproportionate amount of coverage on crime.
DG: What was one of your absolute worse moments as an on-air anchor?
LP: Well, ( Larry laughs ) it doesn't really bother me, but when I was in Longview, Texas, the IFB that I wear in my ear, you know the ear piece that enables the director to talk to you if he/she needs to? Well, it exploded in my ear. It went, like, BOOM! And so I'm on the air reading the news and I go like this ( Larry gesticulates and has a crazed expression on his face ) . ( laughing ) ... I think I saved that tape. Everybody in this job says something stupid at some point or mispronounces a word; you know there's typos on the page or something. But that's going to happen, you know it's going to happen. It's embarrassing and the next day it's forgotten.
DG: Larry, your fondest childhood memory would be…
LP: Lighting Hanukkah candles to the soulful sounds of Nat King Cole's "A Christmas Song." Because my mother's Catholic and my father's Jewish. It was always fun to celebrate both holidays.
DG: What qualities would you say you bring to the table that distinguishes you from your colleagues at WGN?
LP: Well, the first thing that jumps into my head is that I'm very passionate about not just this job but this industry. And to me working isn't really working. These guys will tell you, I'm in here working on one project, I put it away, I've got another project, I'm running around, I'm looking at tapes, blah, blah. I'm not one of those anchors that strolls in here 10 minutes before the newscast and does the newscast. ... And when I'm done here at the end of the day, I'm fried and I crash. And that's not to say that others don't love this work or this business. But I think there are people who work hard and they may not be passionate about what they do, but I am very passionate and I do work very hard. And I'm sure there are people here ( at WGN ) who have some not-so-nice things to say about me. But the one thing I think my worst enemy would say about me is "Yeah, he really works hard."
DG: Do you think that the media has been effective in keeping our nation informed yet calm in light of the Sept. 11 attacks? Remember the "high alert" warnings suggesting many major bridges in the West were regarded as potential targets of terrorist attacks which was later disproved? Does this border on "sensationalistic journalism?"
LP: No, because that warning was given by government officials and agencies. I mean, they came to us, we didn't go to them. ... They say it's disproved, that doesn't necessarily make it disproved. You're taking the government's word for it there. ... I just did a piece on security at nuclear power plants. And I knew I was going to get this, "Stop it! You're scaring me. Stop it, you're going to let the enemy know how to break into a nuclear plant." And I responded what if the media had done this "blitz" far before Sept. 11 about how poor domestic airline security was? Maybe, maybe Sept. 11 never would have happened. ... And this all happened with the anthrax scare. We were doing anthrax long before it ever came out as a reality. And people said, "Oh, you're blowing it out of proportion." So you know it's not our job to make people calm. There can be some sensationalism in how you do things in your execution. And I don't want to pick on any particular network, but there's one network that's very good at this. They will say something like; "There's a brand of cola that will kill you! We'll tell you which one it is tonight at 11!" I think there can be some sensational execution in terms of 9/11/2001, and I think that's irresponsible. But like any other industry, there's good and there's bad. And then there's mediocre.
DG: What would you claim as the best story you ever delivered and why?
LP: One of the most gratifying stories that I did was when I first came to Chicago, and I could only pull this off because people didn't know who I was. We went under cover and we used a hidden camera to go into a children's hospital where a girl had just been raped. The hospital spokesman comes out and says, "Aw, we beefed up security and everything's fine." So we got a hidden camera. We were there for hours, we were begging to get caught by the end of the day. We went everywhere and anywhere, and if I could have written this story ahead of time, and said "If I could just get this and this and this." Everything came true. In the end, we were literally trying to get caught and I passed through the lobby four times, and the last time a woman finally stopped me and said, "Who are you?" And I said, "I'm Larry Potash, WGN," and I wrote it down. But she never checked my ID or anything. I don't know what security measures they took after that because they would never discuss it, which was actually smart on their part. This was like seven or eight years ago, and I think someone was arrested in conjunction with the rape. Probably convicted if I remember right.
DG: Would you say the TV news industry is still largely a homophobic medium? What is the climate like at WGN?
LP: Well you know the thing about journalists is that we get into the mix far more frequently and far more intensely than the average person. I've been to Cabrini Green and sat at some lady's kitchen table, and I've been up in a fighter jet. And I've done these things from all different walks of life and so I think journalists are very open people. And I think in this newsroom of, I don't know how many people, but clearly there are at least 50 people in here at any given hour of the day that tell me that obviously we have gay/lesbian people working here. But behind the scenes I can tell you that it's not an issue. It hasn't come up; there haven't been any meetings or memos; it's not like working at IBM. While it is the news and we're all sort of serious people, it is also a creative atmosphere at the same time and sort of this unique blend of people of all kinds.
E-mail: DavdRonald@aol.com
