"ZMAN6754" wrote in message ...
I worked at Detroit's all-newser, WWJ/950, in the mid/late 80s, and they still
had the teletype sound running in the background. I believe it was on a
continuous loop mechanism, likely the same variety that was used at CKLW/800 in
its 20/20 News heyday.

WWJ remains all news, but the teletype sound was dumped years ago.

When I worked at WTAE, and Ted Atkins came to the station, I was the one assigned to
record the teletype machines for the loop he wanted on-air when the Drake-conceived
20/20 News format was to start, along with the launch of the legendary Bill Drake
oldies format (wow! That was 31 years ago this week!) on Labor Day weekend. (For
those not aware, Atkins was a disciple of Drake, having worked for RKO with CKLW and
KHJ before coming to WTAE.)

I never really liked the sound (KYW had been using it for years, since the start of
the Newsradio format that was spawned by Group W) so my recording was, shall we say,
less than spirited....the several machines were mic'ed from a distance, which in my
mind was appropriate since the noise was to, I thought, be similar in nature to what
one would hear if the machines were "in the newsroom" where the newsreader was
"stationed" so that the news might be assumed to be "the lastest word."

Well, that wasn't good enough for Atkins, and he took me back to the room and showed
me how he wanted it mic'ed....with the lid open, a broomhandle laid in back of the
paper, so as to lift it and make the keys go clack-clack-clack, and the mic stuffed
down the front of all of it, so as to be right there. In fairness to Ted, through
all of this he was respectful and instructive, so don't get any ideas that my
encounter, then or ever, was anything less than this...I learned a lot from Ted, and
my own career in radio was as good as it was, in no small way due to the time I spent
working under Ted Atkins at WTAE.

So it was all theatre. That I already knew. But I never really understood why it is
that we had to put our listeners' heads into the teletype.
--
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Kim Campbell - ex-Prime Minister of Canada - 2004
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