Q&A with Brad Byrd, longtime WEHT/WTVW weeknight anchor
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After 46 years at WEHT/WTVW in Evansville, Brad Byrd will anchor the evening news for the last time on July 2. The television station announced his plans for departure in May.
Byrd has received numerous accolades throughout his career, including the Edward R. Murrow award, Indiana Associated Press awards, regional Emmy awards and Society of Professional Journalists awards. He’s a member of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Gold Circle, the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame and the Indiana Broadcasters Fairbanks Hall of Fame.
Byrd spoke with Inside INdiana Business about his nearly 50-year career in the Evansville TV news market and the state of journalism today.
Why did you pursue a career in journalism?
Because I was a child going into my teen years in the 1960s. When you think about what happened in that incredible decade, it was tailor-made for a young kid from Muncie, Indiana to get hooked on wanting to be a messenger and a witness to history. The Cuban missile crisis, JFK’s assassination, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., civil unrest, the Vietnam War and Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination.
It was a time when television came of age, and that, particularly in the late sixties, got me really wanting, not necessarily to be on TV or radio, but just wanting to be in the middle of all that.
You’ve been in Evansville for nearly 50 years. Why did you stay in this TV market?
I started as the weekend anchor at Channel 14 (WFIE) in July 1975, and then I was hired as the weeknight anchor at Channel 25 (WEHT) in January 1978. I learned that in Evansville I was so fortunate to be able to do things that reporters and journalists could do in much bigger markets and still stay here in the confines of the Tri-State where we have great people.
For example, I was able to cover Don Mattingly winning the batting title when he was a New York Yankee. Because our sports crew at the time, and this would have been back in 1984, they had a wedding to go to that weekend. I was asked, “Would you like to go?” And I said, “Yankee Stadium? Mattingly? Heck yes, I’ll go.”
I was able to cover two presidential inaugurations, Bill Clinton’s and George H. W. Bush’s in Washington, and do a series of reports and live satellite reports from those events.
I was able to go with a photographer to Poland where two Peace Corps workers from Evansville gave up good jobs—and one of them was our former news director, John Morovich—to become Peace Corps workers in Krakow. This was about two or three years after the Berlin Wall came down, and Poland was converting to capitalism. We were there for two weeks.
I traveled down to the Gulf Coast twice for Hurricane Andrew and Hurricane Katrina. Just being able to get out of the anchor chair and the newsroom and breathe the air of what was happening around us was probably the primary reason I stayed.
What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in TV news over the years?
When I first started, it was all film, of course. There has been no change in our primary mission, and that is to seek out the facts, report the truth, stay neutral and get it right. The mechanisms we use have changed, but the biggest thing that’s having an impact on those of us who are in journalism is social media.
Social media can do some wonderful things, but it also has an underside in which the spread of misinformation is probably at a record level. That is one of the changes that we have to continue to keep fighting to maintain accuracy and give people who we are accountable to the correct information.
What are other challenges you’ve faced in TV news?
A lot of changes at the station. We had a merger in 2011 when Channel 7 merged with Channel 25. Channel 7 moved into our station building on the Henderson, Kentucky side of the Ohio River. That took a lot of getting used to—for everyone. We lost some people during that period.
Also, covering stories that touch us directly. There was the University of Evansville plane crash that was so surreal in 1977. The weather disasters that Evansville went through. Horrendous crimes we had to report: the Gilligan family murders in 1980 followed by the murder of the late Evansville Mayor Russ Lloyd, Sr.
What are some other memorable stories from your career?
Going back to Poland, one of the most heartwarming stories that we did there, we were lucky. The photographer, Mark Fisher, and I were doing a story on these kids who were learning how to play baseball. We were told a shipment of donated baseball equipment was coming to these kids the day we were going to shoot that particular story in the series were doing. And that shipment came from the Evansville/Newburgh area.
We watched all of these kids who were probably nine, 10, 11 years old, male and female, getting things like fielders’ mitts, catchers’ mitts, chest protectors for catchers, bats, balls, a face guard for a catcher, and saw the smiles on those kids’ faces.
There was one young lady who was learning how to speak English, and we had a brief interview with her. You know the old saying, music is a universal language? An event like that proved we all have the same dreams and the same desire to do things that bring meaning to life. That was a great story. To see that firsthand, that was probably one of my favorites of all time.
John Simpson and I went to Indianapolis to cover the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They had a ceremony at the park on Broadway and 17th.
Robert F. Kennedy was running for president at the time [of King’s assassination] in the Indiana primary, and he had just left Ball State University where I graduated, and a fairly good-sized rally of about 9,000 at the arena. And he learned that King had been shot. Then he learned as he flew from Muncie to Indianapolis that King had died.
Kennedy had an event scheduled in a predominantly black neighborhood north of downtown Indianapolis. They were trying to tell him, “You can’t go down there. There’s going to be trouble. There’s going to be violence.” RFK went anyway. He’s credited with a seven-minute speech that basically saved the city from burning that night.
I remember watching that and that day in particular. And ironically, two months later, Bobby Kennedy was killed. We were able to get Steve Bell, who was an ABC correspondent on the platform with Kennedy in Los Angeles right before he went into that kitchen. And he was talking about just all of the connections of history there that happened in that two-month period in 1968.
That is probably my all-time favorite on my bio. That’s the story that won a National Edward R. Murrow award for John and me. That was probably the most touching thing that I was fortunate to report on. We talked to one of Bobby Kennedy’s children, Kerry Kennedy, who runs the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights foundation. She was there for this ceremony that day.
You taught at the University of Evansville and the University of Southern Indiana. What did you enjoy most about that time?
I learned more from the students than they learned from me. It was a great opportunity to come face to face with the future that was approaching. At the time—this was in the early 1990s—I thought to myself, “This is not a generation gap, but this is a new generation. They’re going to be driving the boat or flying the plane here pretty soon.” I learned about what they felt was important and the challenges they faced.
We are in a world where we are multicasting so much. We’ve missed the mark—at least some of us—on good, solid writing of a story that’s easy to understand. That’s what I try to help, especially the young people coming into this newsroom, giving them advice. There’s nothing in stone; there’s no one way to do this. But I’m offering constructive suggestions.
What is the state of journalism right now?
We are under siege in many ways. True journalism has new interpretations. But it still comes down to basic reporting, working hard for a story and revealing what you have learned in a truthful, professional and empathetic way.
Sometimes what I see, particularly on cable TV, are different ideologies competing with each other in the form of CNN and Fox News. And there’s that middle ground where you’re neutral, and that’s slowly coming under the shadow of other sources of information. People are saying, “I saw it on Facebook. I read about it on TikTok.” With streaming and the availability of demand on smartphones, broadcast television is going to have to adapt.
What are you most proud of in your career?
Even on the bad days, I still wanted to get up and come back. It’s like falling off the horse and getting right back up. I had to learn by doing, and I made more than my fair share of mistakes in my early years. But I tried to learn from that.
I was lucky to have some good people when I first came to Evansville who helped me learn the ropes. Among them, David James [former longtime weeknight anchor at WFIE], who has always felt like a big brother to me, and we’ve stayed in touch. I’ve just been fortunate. I’m very proud of the fact that I hung in there. I know longevity has its benefits, but it can also have its drawbacks. But I’m trying to get the best out of that, and I stayed with it.
I was on the air for about 20 hours in 2005 during the November 6th tornado tragedy. I tried to keep a calm voice in that newsroom in the darkness. We were half-power at the time, in the middle of the morning, but I didn’t feel like I was talking at people. I felt like they were right there with me. We were all seeing this story unfold for the first time. I tried to be careful about what we were broadcasting before it got confirmed.
You’ve been involved with many charities. Do you plan to keep that work going?
Yes, I hope to. I worked with the United Way, Easterseals and Santa Clothes Club. I’m still emceeing the Business Hall of Fame, and that was a great event because I learned about Evansville’s rich history of how this town grew over the decades.
I was president of the American Heart Association in Evansville back in the early 2000s. I got a 1959 Chevy Impala, we got [my wife] a 1953 Buick Super and we decided to do a fundraiser at the old Starlight Drive-in called Cruising for Hearts. We showed the movie American Graffiti, and it was a great time. It was the one event I recall that I could see generations coming together at the same time for one cause and having a great time together.
I worked with so many wonderful people in getting that put together, but that might be one of the proudest moments.
Why did you choose to leave Eyewitness News this year?
Television is changing. I’m 72 years old. It’s time for me to pull back a little bit. I’ve reduced my schedule somewhat over the last year and a half, and it’s time for me. What do I want to do now? Sometimes I think I hung around too long. But there’s still more I can contribute, whether it be guest lecturing at a university or writing.
I wrote many columns for the Evansville Courier & Press. I learned a lot from that experience and newspapers. It’s the way print journalism has evolved, especially in the last 10 years, it’s changed dramatically. It was just time to take a deep breath and get out there. It’s going to give me more time with family. That’s the primary reason.