VMD: How are the three WCAX news broadcasts different?

MP: They have different audiences and a different focus. There’s a more rural, elderly audience for the Noon news, which is a quick capsule of what’s going on. The Six O’Clock, or 98 percent of it, reports on what’s happening within the range of our antenna. We try to cover primarily Vermont, but also the three northeastern counties of New York — Clinton, Franklin and Essex counties. We also offer some limited coverage of Grafton and Coos counties in New Hampshire.

Sports is obviously an exception. Sports runs ten to eleven minutes a night, and they cover everything from Tonya Harding to New Zealand trout fishing.

And the Eleven has national news.

VMD: What advice do you have for public relations practitioners?

MP: Well, I would hope that a good public relations professional becomes a student not only of his or her profession but of our profession, as well. There is nothing more irritating than somebody calling up and saying, “I have a really good medical story, Marselis, and I really want to tell you about it.” I don’t do medical stories, especially ones that involve out-of-state companies, which many of the pitches I get do.

Watch the news, and become familiar with what we do and who does it.

VMD: Are reporters assigned to beats at ’CAX?

MP: Yes. Brian Joyce covers crime. All the reporters do features, but if you’ve got a medical story that you’re trying to pitch, you’d better be pitching it first to Bridget Barry. If you have a story that deals with the United Way or human service agencies or unemployment or creating jobs, it’ll either go to Natalie Borock or to Alva Taylor.

Catherine Hughes covers the environment. Katherine Malle covers education. Alva Taylor and Tim Lewis both cover state government. Roger Garrity covers the city of Burlington and agriculture, which is kind of a strange combination. Will Mikell is the assignment editor. George Wilson is the news editor, and I’m the news director.

VMD: You must get a lot of mail. Do you read it all?

MP: I can’t tell you how many times people call up and say, “Marselis, I sent you mail on such and such.” I don’t even open my own mail. The assignment desk opens the mail.

VMD: Are we better off pitching you on a story or one of the beat reporters you named?

MP: You’re better off talking to a beat reporter or to Will Mikell. Not that I won’t talk to you, but I probably take 30 calls a day from people who are trying to pitch stories. I have no secretary. There is no secretary in the newsroom. Most of the reporters either answer their own phones when they’re here or one of the desk editors answers for them. It’s the kind of place where you can call and get ahold of the news director, if you want to. There are no gatekeepers, really. But your best bet is to figure out who you want to sell your story to and talk to them.

VMD: How about faxes?

MP: Don’t fax me. I’ve got two or three fax machines running all the time. Donna Shalala is sending me a fax. The governor is sending me a fax. Kaiser Permanente is sending me a fax. Every political candidate you can imagine is sending me a fax. Everybody who wants to sell something is sending me a fax. And they’re getting the names out of not just the Vermont Media Directory, but from the Radio and Television News Directors’ Association, SRDS, and all sorts of different national and international media directories. I get stuff from Dr. Scholls four times a week on Odor Eaters!

VMD: It sounds like we’re better off just picking up the phone and calling.

MP: Yes.

VMD: Any other advice?

MP: Learn deadlines. The Free Press goes to bed at 11:30 or quarter of twelve. The Herald goes to bed at 1:30. We have three editions — a noon, a six and an eleven, with the six being the major one.

VMD: So we shouldn’t call at 4:30.

MP: I know that’s the end of your day and you’re thinking, “I’m going to go home in half an hour.” But that’s when I’m coming to an absolute frenzy. It’s the same as if you were about to put out a big proposal to a client. Imagine the last two hours before you do that.

Come and visit the stations. Learn how they work. Don’t try to visit them around 4:30, though, unless you want to be told to go stand in the corner, be quiet and watch. But even that can be instructive.

VMD: Do we have to choose between ’CAX and the Free Press? We like you both.

MP: Sometimes you do have to choose. If you have a story on the front page or the split page or the business page of the Free Press, don’t come to me the following day and say, “Here’s a really good story.” I’ll say, “Why didn’t you tell it to me yesterday?” because I compete with the Free Press. I want it before them.

VMD: Okay.

MP: And if they have it, I may ignore it. But if you can send me a different angle, then you could be in business.

VMD: Can you give us an example?

MP: Sure. The Franklin County Library came to us and said, “Look, we really are trying to get some new machines — a computer that will enable people who are visually handicapped to read.” Well, that was covered in the print media — in the St. Albans Messenger and the Free Press. They came to us and said, “Would you do the story?”

We said, “Well, we need a good angle. Looking at a piece of machinery is not exciting. Let’s find somebody, a real person, who uses the machine.”

Well, they looked around and found a woman who was legally blind who was no longer able to read her grandchildren’s letters. They put her in front of the machine and she started reading the letters and tears came out of her eyes. Our camera was eight inches away from her face. It was one of the most powerful, moving stories we’ve ever done. It was a very strong story.

VMD: That’s also an example of how print and broadcast media are different.

MP: Yes. With television, in particular, you need to personalize the story. Things don’t tell stories. People tell stories. You need to show how it affects the person on the street. Otherwise I won’t care.

VMD: The word is that you’re not a big fan of video news releases. Is it because they blur the distinction between news and advertising?

MP: That’s not it exactly. It’s that I’m not sure under what conditions a VNR is produced. I like to have editorial control.

But we do use them sometimes. We used one last night. Some school kids came into Wyeth Laboratories to, basically, manufacture a product. They were told to make a fruit drink or some sort of a powdered product as part of their business education. We didn’t go to their big celebratory dinner a week or two ago. But Wyeth had somebody shoot it and send it to us, and it did lend itself to our story. So, we used it. We labeled it clearly throughout, though.

But normally, I just don’t like them.

VMD: It sounds like you’ll use “B Roll” on occasion.

MP: I don’t normally use even the “B Roll” — only when I can’t get in to shoot it myself. For instance, I’m not going to get into Martin Marietta — for security reasons. I would love to have them shoot me some tape. I’d use it. Because normally, you know, when there’s more employment at Martin Marietta or less employment, all we can do is show you a shift change. We show a whole bunch of people walking across Lakeside Avenue. That doesn’t tell anybody anything.

VMD: Do stories you produce ever get used by other CBS affiliates or the network?

MP: We sell stories to CBS all the time.

VMD: How does that work?

MP: They call us twice a day to see what we’re doing that’s interesting. We’ve uplinked three or four stories recently. About a month ago, we did a story on edible film. You may have seen it in the Free Press. There’s a guy up at the UVM “Ag” School who has developed an edible film out of whey — so you’ll be able to coat tomatoes in a sandwich or the whole sandwich and keep things from getting soggy. It was an interesting story.

All of a sudden, about a month later, AP picked it up as a feature and ran it on the national wire. And one day last week, I had four calls: from a station in Detroit, from one in Evanston, Illinois, from somewhere in Texas and from Eugene, Oregon. So, we uplinked it at 3:30 on a Wednesday afternoon, and it was on newscasts that night at WJBK in Detroit, which was the largest market, and the other stations that asked for it.

VMD: These are other CBS affiliates.

MP: Exactly.

VMD: How about the network?

MP: What was the most recent thing we did? Well, the day before yesterday, we were in Rutland. The Postmaster said, “There is far too much snow. We won’t deliver the mail today.” Well, you can bet that made the CBS Evening News — along with a shot of the New York City Post Office, which says, “Neither rain nor sleet nor snow shall keep them from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” But in Rutland, Vermont, they’re all sitting around the post office playing poker.

VMD: Do your stories appear unedited on the network?

MP: Yes. Usually not on “Rather,” but often on the CBS Morning News, and more often on affiliates, where they will use their anchors to read a script that we have provided them. And we’re contributing to that feed two to three times a week.

VMD: How do you feel about the syndicated news segments that are available on a variety of subjects like health and travel?

MP: The mighty minute. I don’t like them. A lot of stations do plug into these medical minutes or travel minutes or whatever minutes. Peter Martin (WCAX general manager) is going down to the annual meeting of the National Association of Television Programming Executives, in Miami, next week. There’s a whole trade show on these guys.

Except for sports and national/international news, nothing goes in the broadcast that we don’t produce.


Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted in winter 1993/94. The names and organizations mentioned were current as of that time.