- Will you "Consider This"?

We tuned in for years, and who knew he eventually would work at all three local stations?

I'm Christine Zak-Edmonds and we'll catch up with Tom McIntyre.

(gentle rock intro) (music fades) Such a familiar face and trusted newsman, Mac did it all throughout his forty-plus year television news career.

Help me welcome to "Consider This", my friend, Tom McIntyre.

- Should also mention that we used to live down the street from each other.

- We did, and as I was looking out my front door, you were always on this side, and you're still on this side.

- It's just very weird.

- [Christine] It's very weird.

- Did you plan this by the way, so that I would be on this side?

- No, this is just a regular thing, sorry.

You're just part of the club.

- Okay, well, okay.

- Chenoa, Illinois - Yeah.

- Is where you got your start.

Tell me about Tom McIntyre as a little boy and what he wanted to be when he grew up.

- Good lord.

You gotta prep me for questions like this.

- [Christine] No.

- No, okay.

I was a ventriloquist from the age of 11 on.

- [Christine] Yeah?

Let's see.

- And that got me in front of people and I was comfortable in front of people.

And then I traded in my clarinet for a typewriter when I was a junior in high school and started writing.

And I wrote plays.

- [Christine] What kind of plays?

- Funny ones I hoped.

That depended on the sense of humor of the listener.

- [Christine] Of the audience, okay.

- I'm not the one to judge.

- Right.

- If you say Oscar material, I can only agree with you.

- So, give me an idea, what was one of your first plays?

- Oh, well it had to do with making fun of the faculty and the other students of course.

- All right, and did the faculty ever get ahold of it or-?

- Oh, we performed it, oh, yes.

It was pep assemblies, things like that, yes.

- [Christine] Did they get a kick out of it?

- Some did, some didn't I suspect.

- (laughs) And were you hunt-and-peck because- - [Tom] No, I'm a touch typist.

- Okay.

Well, for the longest time you were, well, yeah, touch, but- - Oh, come on.

- Just with four fingers, four digits.

- No, no.

I can touch type.

- You can do it all now?

- I can do it all now.

- Well, because we have keyboards, it's much easier than the old fashioned typewriters.

- I only had strength in two fingers, so- (Christine laughs) - Had to go from there.

- Terrible typewriters.

You must understand that the typewriters that Chris and I started on, the letters were like this.

And we had to make five copies of a script.

- [Christine] To get through the carbon.

But a lot of people don't know what carbon paper is.

- Banging on these things.

This is not something you can do with a little finger.

You were- - Banging out a story.

- Mashing these- Yeah, it ruined my typing, because you really had to- by the time you got to the fifth copy.

- Yeah.

- I mean, they were terrible.

The first copy went to prompter.

- [Christine] Right.

- Second copy went - [Both] To the director.

- Third copy went to the producer.

Was it producer?

Or was that us?

- I think that was us.

I can't remember.

- One of them went to me and one of them went to you.

- [Christine] Right, yeah.

- So, now we're back to the fifth copy then, which becomes the producer.

- Yeah.

- Who's holding it up to the light to see what it really says.

Just, it was not a great system.

- No, but it worked, for us.

- It worked.

- For a while.

All right so, you wrote these little plays and everything, but then you went off to college.

- [Tom] Went off to college.

Discovered radio.

- What did you wanna major in?

You discovered radio.

- I discovered radio.

- Or did it discover you?

- No I found it, it was in Cook Hall at ISU.

They had just decided, a guy by the name of Cliff Curly and some others had convinced management at Illinois State University to put in a student radio station.

Which became WGLT- well it was WGLT from the very start.

- What did those call letters stand for?

- We Gladly Learn and Teach.

Somebody won a contest to get that.

(Christine laughs) We all thought at the time, because we were going to be radio personalities.

But nonetheless most of them became teachers anyway.

But the deal was, oddly enough- it was closed circuit first of all, you could only hear us in the dorms.

And that depended on how close your radio was to the radiator.

(Christine chuckles) 'Cause the heating system of ISU was our antenna.

- Interesting.

- It was.

Now, this is the same system they used at Ohio State, I believe.

Except, there one of the guys ran the cable to the railroad track that ran through town.

So, you had a much wider audience.

(Christine chuckles) Til the FCC stepped in.

- Okay, and said "No, no, no, no, illegal."

- Yeah.

- Well, so you were a radio newsman.

- I did radio news in college.

- But, you didn't finish your career because you started- I mean your college career.

Did you end up graduating?

- Yeah.

- Oh, I thought you didn't.

- No.

- Okay.

- I didn't know I graduated.

- Ah ha, therein lies my misinformation.

- Yes, I thought I still had a couple of hours to go because there was a- chemistry- - [Christine] Lab or something?

- A lab class that I had failed for not attending.

'Cause it just bored me and I took it again and got the same- Dr. Plumber by the way- professor and I dropped out the second day.

So I dumped this class twice and it was required or something.

Anyway, my memory was that I needed to take this make-up class to graduate and by that time, I had enrolled in the Navy Reserve, I was getting ready to go off to some place.

And so, I inquired at the office, "How much more do I need to - [Both] Graduate?"

- And she said, "Well, you should have graduated last semester."

And sort of like, "Why are you still here?"

- [Christine] Ah ha.

- So they sent me my diploma at training camp for the Navy.

- Well, then you got some good training in the Navy as well.

- [Tom] I did, that was fun.

- What did you do?

- I can't tell you.

That's kidding.

No, I worked at the National Security Agency.

I was a communications technician, which is why my typing was pretty good.

- [Christine] Okay.

- Because that's what I did for the most part, relaying messages from point A to point B.

We had lots of point As and lots of point Bs and one point C. - And this was at what year?

Not that I wanna age you, but- - No, I'm 77, how's that?

- Okay.

- Gonna be 78 in- - A couple of days.

- By the time this airs, I'll be 78 I think.

- I think you will, yes.

- I will be.

We won't ask you because a gentleman wouldn't.

- (laughs) But you know.

- I know.

What was the question?

- Well, I think that we can move on from the Navy.

- [Tom] Yeah.

- To your first job, and you liked radio, because you learned how to- - I got a job right out of college, for radio.

Because I knew I was going into the Navy and the feeling was well, I'll grab this job at WIOK Radio 1440 in Normal, Illinois.

Which was- it was in an old service station across from the Steak 'n Shake.

It's now a beauty parlor, I believe, but I could be wrong.

The general manager got what used to be the oil change bay.

- [Christine] Okay, well.

- We were located over in the area where I think they did carburetor servicing.

It had a certain smell.

(Christine chuckling) But, it was small-town radio.

- [Christine] But, you learned a lot.

- I did, because there was only two of us in the news room.

And then there was only one of us in the news room and it was me.

So I became news director by default.

And I got paid $90 a week plus I had a budget of $30 to pay stringers to cover meetings at night, and I said, "Hey, I can cover meetings at night," so I took it all.

And I got up to $120 and I was told I was worth 115.

- [Christine] Whoa.

- I didn't tell them I was keeping the money for myself.

- [Christine] Yeah, well, you know what.

- Anyways, so there into the Navy.

- Okay.

- That's that story.

- Out of the navy then.

You-?

- [Tom] Tried to get back to WIOK.

- Yeah.

- Oddly enough because federal law said they had to re-hire me.

- Because you had been in the service.

- I had gone into the Navy, gone into the military.

They didn't believe that.

So, I came over here, the saddest story of my life.

I had to give up my car because I was unemployed for two months.

That is the only time I've been unemployed since I was 15.

- [Christine] Really?

- It was kind of shocking.

- I bet.

Devastating.

- It was, because my wife had decided to go back to graduate school.

She didn't have any income coming in, she was going back to ISU, and I didn't have any income coming in.

We had some savings and it was dwindling.

And I was waiting for WIOK to come knocking and they did not, so I applied at WIRL.

- Radio.

- Got the job.

Radio and television in those days, it was 19.

- Okay, yeah.

So, was that located-?

- It was located downtown but the TV station was in Creve Coeur.

- [Christine] Okay, yeah.

- So, every day, about four o'clock, they would gather up the news and drive it over to Creve Coeur for re-typing.

- And you did some then.

- As a reader reporter, I had a Bell and Howell silent film camera.

- Little camera, heavy.

- Oh, heavy camera.

Cast iron.

Survivor of both World War II and Korea.

These were heavy duty cameras, they could be used as a weapon if necessary.

Wind-up, you had thirty-seconds of silent film.

- I remember.

I had to use those too.

Well, - Fixed-focus lens, so you didn't have to worry about focus.

- [Christine] Right.

(laughs) - Want a close-up you walk in.

- There were three lenses, weren't there?

- There were some, but I never used them 'cause I could never figure out how.

(Christine laughs) Not my skillset.

- Not a- too much of a challenge.

All right, so you ended up then from radio, then you ended up at Channel 19.

- [Tom] I did.

- And you were in television only?

- [Tom] No.

- You did both.

- I did both.

- All right.

And then how did you switch over to Channel 25?

- There was interim period at WWCT and the reason there was a interim period, I'll tell you the story, you got three minutes?

- [Christine] We have at least, yeah.

- Okay.

The story was- and for those of you who are a certain age, this will bring back memories.

There was a time, when Channel 19, again, was WIRL.

AM, FM, TV.

And then we got the word that the TV side was being sold, and Steve Hunter, who was the anchorman at Channel 19 in those days, said "I know these people who've bought the station, they're gonna gut the place."

You know, "They're cheapskates, they're just gonna gut the place, I'm leaving."

And he did, he went to WGN.

Rick James, who was the reporter/editorialist for Channel 19, heard that same call and went to WCFL Radio in Chicago.

That's the Chicago Voice of Labor, very popular news station up in Chicago at the time.

Lorn Brown was the sportscaster and he said, "Well if they're leaving, I'm leaving."

and he went out and eventually did pro football.

I'm thinking Denver, but I may be wrong on that one.

They had an assistant news director, who then also went to New Orleans to became the Associated Press Bureau Chief.

The guy they hired to replace him went to WG- this is all in the space of about a month.

People were leaving like the ship was drowning.

- Exactly.

- They were just- I thought, I'll be smart, this is one of the first times this has ever happened.

And I said, "I'll stay in radio, 'cause that's where the employment is."

- Ah ha.

- Future is radio.

And little did I know that as soon as they sold the TV station, they informed myself and Carol J. Sutton, another reporter that we were extraneous to the purposes of radio in those days.

As it turns out, TV was making money.

- [Christine] Yeah, back in those days.

- And it was supporting radio, so we got let go.

(coughs) Excuse me.

The beauty of it was that the program director had let me know a week ahead of time that I was about to be axed, so I went to a local bar that afternoon to drown my sorrows.

- [Christine] I don't blame you.

- Yeah, I was gonna be fired.

Not a good day at all.

And this is my own decision, by the way, to be fired because if I'd had stayed with the television, I wouldn't have had a problem probably.

So, I'm really down in the dumps and I run across a guy who used to work at WIRL in the Ad Department, didn't know him very well.

And, I said, "Hi, how you doing" and he said, "Fine, how are you doing."

I said, "I'm gonna be fired in about a week."

And he said, "Oh?

Over at WIRL?"

I said, "Yeah."

And he said, "Well, here.

Show up at this address tomorrow."

I said "What?"

And he said, "We're starting a new radio station in town.

Show up for an interview, 10 o'clock."

I went, after work at WIRL, and just down the street, as a matter of fact.

And I met Paul Carnegie, who's still in town by the way.

And he was from Detroit and he was starting WWTO.

- Oh, TO, okay.

- In those days, it became CT later.

W2.

And he and a partner were starting this first FM station, they were going to have three hours of news every morning, plus a twenty-minute newscast at 4:20 at night, why they picked that particular period, I don't know, but that's it.

And he had a voice that would flatten a carpet.

Just (vocalizes) basso profundo.

Did the interview, went "Well, that seemed to go okay."

The next morning he called me, said, "Well, you taking the job or not?"

"Yes!

I'm taking the job, yes.

I will take the job."

And he says, "You wanna come over now?

We're not on the air yet, but you could start arranging things."

I said, "No, I've got some things to do over at WIRL."

And I went and I xeroxed everything I could find.

Every phone number, every address, all the tip sheets, everything I could find.

- Because, you had looked it all up.

You had researched it to begin.

- It was research is what it was, right.

(Christine chuckles) And, the daybooks and everything, and I told Ira Bitner, who was the morning guy at the radio, and I said, "I'm going over to this news station.

Don't know how it's gonna work, but I got a job, 'cause they're gonna fire me.

And it's a secret."

And he called me like four days later and said, "Your secret's on page B6 of the Journal Star this morning.

You should be aware of that."

And it was.

- Mm-hm.

- So, that was my last day at WIRL.

- All right.

Well, so you went from the radio station, and then Tom Connor got ahold of you for WEEK, or-?

- I wish it was that nice.

- Okay.

- Nope.

WWTO- (imitating plane crash) - All right that fast.

- Going into a decline.

They repossessed the wire machine.

This is always a bad- - It's a bad sign.

- A bad sign if you're in the news business.

When the guy comes in with a fork truck, and takes out your equipment.

I wasn't fired, but I was told that I wouldn't be doing news because there wouldn't be any.

- And you had no way to get ahold of it.

- Yeah, that's right.

- Okay, all right.

- And as it turned out... - [Christine] You went to-?

I made some phone calls into Broadcasting Magazine, there was a job opening in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

- Mm-hmm.

- And so, I called and they needed a news director for a radio and TV outfit in Lake Charles.

Pay wasn't bad, cost of living was cheap, I didn't know about the hurricanes at the time.

Those of you who know Lake Charles, knows hurricanes.

- [Christine] Right in the center of the eye.

- Yeah.

- Right.

- Not a huge market, but on a lot of cables.

They essentially said they were going to hire me.

They wanted an audition tape because I would be doing some anchoring, or needed to do some anchoring if necessary.

So I called my friend, who was the news director at WIRL TV, and said, "Hi, I'd like to come over and cut a video tape, to send to this job in Lake Charles, Louisiana."

And they said, "Doing what?"

I said, "Well, just reading some news, anchoring."

And he said, "I don't think that's a good idea, you're just not anchor material.

Why don't you do a story on spec for us?"

"A story on spec."

He says, "Yes."

I said, "Well I've got an idea for a story, that'd be a good TV story, there's this steamboat race coming to town, the Julia Belle Swain versus the Delta Queen," I thought, "I could do something for that."

"Nah, we got somebody else doing that one."

Okay.

"All right, okay."

"How bout bicycles, do something on bicycles."

I said, "I will call you back."

And then I called over to Tom Connor, who I'd never met in my life, and I explained my situation.

I needed an aircheck tape made of me, five minutes long.

I'd pay for it, I just needed it pretty quickly.

And he said, "Sure, come on over."

Cool.

Got some wire copy, re-wrote it, did my five minute shtick.

And he said, "Who wrote it?"

I said, "I did."

He said, "Hmm, okay."

And then he said, "Can we keep the tape for a day?"

I said, "Sure, duh."

(Christine chuckles) And the next day, I got offered a job.

And so I never went to Lake Charles, Louisiana.

- But we kept you here.

- They did.

I was a little surprised, 'cause I was not trying out for 25, I was trying out for Lake Charles, Louisiana.

I'd have a great tan by now.

- (laughs) And maybe no home, because... - That's always a possibility, yeah.

Lake Charles gets flooded a lot.

- Well you worked with Tom Connor.

- By the way, just to finish the story.

To finish the story, two things.

One, Channel 19 did not go into the dumps when all those people left.

They hired Clark Smith and Rollie Keith.

The ratings went up, they spent money.

That's the first thing that happened.

Second thing was, the story I did, the first story for 25 was about The Great Steamboat Race, and it won an AP Award, so take that.

(Christine laughs) Sorry, just still a little bitter after all the years.

- One thing about Tom McIntyre, he loves to write, and you could always tell what stories he wrote, because he really gets into it.

You love to dig.

- And the spelling.

The spelling was bad.

- The spelling is always bad.

(Tom laughing) But that's okay, but I won spelling bee in sixth grade.

- Yeah, okay.

The thing about Christine Zak, is that she has the most amazing memory.

You do.

- Yeah.

- And we love that, "Chris, what day did the mayor say that he was gonna do such and such?"

And you'd see this, (making rapid ticking noise) "Okay, that was April 22nd, I remember I was wearing the green blouse that day."

- (laughs) It really is a very strange- - That really was the way it worked.

- Very strange talent, and I could be within a couple of days.

- Yeah, and we'd go...

I must tell you this is pre-computer for all intents and purposes.

Certainly for pre-home computer, pre-computer at business.

We had a log book, then we wrote our stories in the log book.

Well, that's great, except there was no cross-index, if you needed to know... - [Both] You had to come up with the date.

- At least a year in a date.

- Yeah, not a great system, to be perfectly honest.

- [Christine] But we made it work.

- We did, cause we had no alternative.

- We have about five minutes left, - Is that all?

- so just tell me... Yeah, I have to have you back.

Yeah, you have a lot of good stories, but we know a little bit more about you.

Heck, I know more about you and I sat next to you all those years.

All right, so tell me, - [Tom] What have I been doing?

Gaining weight.

- Okay, well.

So you retired how many pounds ago?

- (laughs) About 20, about 20.

- I won't ask specifically.

But you're involved in Rotary now.

- [Tom] I am, and I'm very proud of that.

- And you're gonna be president next year?

- I will be, yeah.

- All right.

So, he's a legend.

- [Tom] Yeah, well.

- [Christine] He was always a legend in... - [Tom] No, I'm married to a legend.

That's the deal.

- Ah ha.

Or she married a legend, or it's a mutual legendary exchange.

- [Tom] Yeah, it's very nice for Martha to get some recognition.

- [Christine] Yes, for all the work that she did, for all the years.

With women, for women.

- Here's a picture of myself and a very blonde Christine Zak.

- Very blonde and very thin.

- And thin.

- [Christine] Tom McIntyre and Christine Zak.

- [Both] And Tom Brokaw, - [Tom] who looks about the same, his hair's gotten grayer.

- [Christine] Yeah, well, that's okay, that happens.

- [Tom] But that was in - [Christine] I think 1985.

- [Tom] You would know.

You had two roommates - [Both] from college.

- That showed up at this thing in New York that we went do.

- We stayed at the plaza.

- That's right.

- And it was a very fun weekend.

- It was a great weekend.

We got to eat Indian that night, remember?

- [Christine] We did.

I do remember.

- It was a huge feast, and there was 12 of us, and it cost us a hundred bucks.

In the village.

(Christine laughs) It was just a great night.

- It was, and that was after we met on the top floor of Rockefeller, because they had a big reception with Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert and some of the greats from back in the day.

- It was a very interesting evening.

The deal was, you may recall, this has nothing to do with- we're now just reminiscing, folks.

We went to the village because somebody knew this great place to eat, which was closed by the time we got there.

- Exactly, because it was about 11 o'clock at night I think.

- And so we ended up wandering to this down town, downstairs- - [Christine] Down some stairs.

- Indian restaurant, where they were counting the money visibly.

They had closed, and 12 people walk in, they just closed the cash, and let's go, "We've got food here folks."

- [Christine] It was delicious.

- It was, great.

- It was fun.

So really quickly, what was the most fun story that you ever did?

Or, you just have too many to choose from?

- I think I have too many.

No, that's- - [Christine] The most difficult was when Tom Connor died.

- That was impossible.

Yeah because, in all honesty in most cases, people die and you have some preparation.

You expect it.

They are of a certain age, you know that this is gonna happen, they've been ill, or whatever.

But this came as just a total shock on a Saturday morning.

- He was fine Friday night, 52 years old.

Dead Saturday morning.

- Yeah, now he had emphysema, which was from years of smoking.

Did him no good whatsoever, but as far as we knew, he was perfectly healthy.

What did we know?

- And then you had to go on the air that night and make the announcement.

- Yeah.

It was not a pleasant experience.

- [Christine] What was the best thing you ever learned from him?

- Brevity.

(Tom snorts) He made a remark, and I will not mention who it was about, because he was taking his red pencil or his black pencil to one of their scripts.

- [Christine] Okay.

- And he just, like this, "Well he certainly has a way with words."

(laughs) And he's just removing, one after the other.

Yeah, Connor could say a lot in a few words.

- [Christine] He really could, he was great.

- Simple declarative sentences, which is a good thing.

They didn't get complicated and you didn't have to remember at the end of the sentence, what the subject and the predicate were.

- But I don't think people even know that or how to diagram a sentence anymore.

- We're sounding old when we do that.

- We are very, very old.

I didn't like ever doing that anyway.

- I didn't either.

You know diagramming was- I got that wrong a lot, so.

- Well, will you come back and visit us some more and then talk about the best story you ever did, the worst story you ever did, the most frightened you ever were?

- The worst story, I can tell you right now was Tom Connor.

Just getting through that, 'cause he was a nice man, - He was a good man.

- we liked him.

- He was the boss.

And here you are, he's dead, we don't know what the future's going to be.

Who's going to replace him?

Is some idiot going to come in here-?

- [Christine] And it was you.

- And it was me.

(Christine laughs) I was correct, some idiot came in, But nonetheless, it was a very surprising time and you had to do it right.

- Yeah, you had to buck it up.

Well, thanks for being with me and we'll have you back, because we have... That's your preview, those are the things I wanna know next time.

- Okay, should I write these down?

Would you send them to me?

- [Christine] I'll get you- - You've got my email.

- I'll get you a memo on that.

So, again, thanks for joining us and for learning more about Tom McIntyre and I hope you enjoy your day.

Stay safe and healthy.