- Will you "Consider This"?

He's truly been a man about town with television jobs, and his version of AI isn't at all what we have come to know these days, what its definition is anyways, but you'll soon find out.

(upbeat music) He's worked all crazy TV schedule hours, but landing at WTVP has, after a quarter of a century, found a regular schedule and a new gig, and he's a familiar face, Mr. Mark Welp.

- Good to see you.

- You too.

- Glad we're finally sharing a desk.

- How about it?

I know, back in the day you were the competition.

Well, not exactly.

I mean, you had a crazy, crazy morning schedule.

- Yeah, I started in 2006 at what was formerly HOI 19.

And did the morning show there for 11 years.

- Mostly with Gretchen.

- With Gretchen Wirtz.

Yeah, all with Gretchen, my first TV wife.

And then went over to WNBD to do the morning show, and eventually hooked up with Shelby Roberts.

Had a good run there, and then switched to nights, worked with Kimberly Parker for a while, and then Shelby again, and now I'm here.

- Wow, well, that's nice that you landed someplace and you have like regular hours.

I mean, basically nine to five.

- Yeah, it's amazing.

- How about it?

So what does your wife and daughter think about that?

They get to see you.

- Yeah, we get to eat meals together.

I get to go to all of my daughter's events, so it's really nice.

I'm spoiled now.

- Okay, so the thing is that you have been working all those crazy hours living in Normal that whole time.

You were doing the commute for all those years.

- Yeah, still am.

I've been doing it, I guess probably 14 years now.

My first few years here, I lived in the area, but then I met my wife who lived in Normal, so I scooted over that way.

And now the commute's a blessing.

I mean, it's my alone time.

- Do you get to the point, though, when you're driving, it's like, "Oh, I passed that already?"

I mean, have you been in the zone?

- I'm good, I mean, I know every inch of 74, and I'm just blessed right now that there's no construction.

- Oh, yeah.

- Yeah, very happy about that.

- Very unusual, yes.

So tell me a little bit about yourself.

I just found out, I didn't know where you had grown up, but Kirkwood, Missouri.

- The mean streets of Kirkwood.

Yeah, I grew up there and enjoyed it quite a bit.

And then I went off to school in Chicago, Columbia College.

And since then, I've kind of bounced around the Midwest from TV station to TV station.

Worked in Columbia, Missouri, St. Louis, Champaign for a few years.

It's funny, the people in Champaign, I'll run into people that say, "I remember you back from 'Way back when'."

And that was 20 years ago now.

- [Christine] "Way back when" (chuckling).

- Yeah, "Way back when".

- [Christine] Good for you.

- So yeah, I've enjoyed, I'm a Midwest guy, so this is the only place I've ever wanted to live, so I'm happy.

- That's awesome, but you've done news, news, news, news, news except for "Mark's Furry Friends".

- [Mark] Right.

- And that started just as a weekly feature on HOI, right?

- Yeah, I started there.

They had been doing kind of a pet of the week type thing, and they would just take a picture of an animal from TAPS no-kill animal shelter in Pekin.

And I thought, "Oh, we could do more than just a picture."

And I was living in Pekin at the time, so I decided, "Oh, let's give 'em some more publicity."

So I started doing three animals a week.

A lot of fun, just go and hang out with the animals, don't have to do any of the hard work that the people at TAPS do.

And it has just snowballed since then.

I've been blessed to do it at every station I've been at, including here.

And we've gotten 3,800 animals adopted.

- [Christine] Really?

- That have been on the show, yeah.

- How many did you yourself adopt?

- I've gotten one, five from there.

We got a dog and then she passed, and then we got two dogs and two cats.

So right now, we have four animals from TAPS.

- [Christine] Okay.

- So I put my money where my mouth is.

- Well, there you go.

You're a living example.

So you didn't have any allergies to any of those animals, I guess?

- No, my wife does.

She's allergic to cats, but she doesn't care.

She takes it.

I mean, she's a cat person.

I'm a dog person, but we all coexist.

- And you have to in today's world, that's for sure.

Okay, so you started here doing "Mark's Furry Friends", - well, so the big thing is now you're going into AI, and it's not artificial intelligence.

This is real intelligence, right?

- I do my best.

(Christine chuckling) - We are talking "At Issue".

Now, H did it for 35 years.

How can you fill that slot?

- Well, I'm definitely not trying to fill his shoes.

I've got my own size 14s I'm gonna bring into the show.

- [Christine] Okay, big difference.

- Yes, and so we're trying to amp it up.

As far as the look of it, we're gonna have a lot more video, pictures, graphics.

We are a visual medium, so we want people to be able to see what we're talking about.

And it's been a challenge so far.

It's a brand new show for me, and we've got different people working on it, doing different jobs.

So we're all still trying to collaborate, figure out how each other work.

But I think it's gonna be very interesting.

The debut episode is just in a few days here, Thursday at eight o'clock, and we're doing a big show on the new OSF Cancer Institute.

- Which is pretty amazing in itself.

- Oh my gosh, the place, well, it's physically humongous, $250 million project.

And it sounds like it's gonna be a game changer, not only as far as treating people here locally, but the people running the show think that it could soon become a national destination for other people coming into town to get treatment.

- Well, the big thing is their Proton Beam.

And so a lot of people don't know what the Proton Beam is.

Do you wanna tell 'em or do you want me to?

Or we can both tell 'em.

- Well, basically the Proton Beam, it's a huge machine.

If you remember last October, they brought this machine in, I think it was built in Germany.

It sailed to Baltimore, and then they- - In pieces.

- In pieces, humongous machine.

They had to close down traffic at different spots just to get it through.

But it basically is therapy that can be isolated specifically on those cancer cells you wanna get rid of.

And there's less chance of doing damage to the healthy cells.

That's in a nutshell.

- So if you have a tumor way inside and they want to radiate it or whatever, it knows specifically to go to that tumor, and so without much damage to everything else.

I mean, it really is quite a blessing, quite.

So good for you, that'll be a fun one.

- And you're getting a new set and everything.

- Yeah, we slapped a couple coats of paint on some flats, and it's been fun taking what's old and making it a little bit new.

And yeah, we're just really excited to get this show underway.

And one of the things that is a challenge for me is with TV news, as you know, you go into your shift at 2:30, get off at 10:30, next day you're pretty much wiping the slate clean and starting over.

- But now I have to come up with a new show every week, and schedule interviews, and get the graphics and video.

- Right, it's not just news.

I mean, news happens on that day.

And then this is, you're anticipating some things or kind of doing a wraparound of some things.

- Yeah, we've got our first couple episodes already scheduled.

After the Cancer Institute, we're gonna be talking about the CO2 pipeline.

Very controversial issue there.

- You've done that interview already?

- Getting ready to actually later today.

- [Christine] Okay.

- But been researching it a lot and learning about carbon dioxide and all that fun stuff.

But people are really interested in this topic because it's gonna be running the pipeline from Iowa to Decatur right here through our area in Tazewell in Peoria County so controversial issue.

- The people are concerned.

- Oh yeah, they are.

- Absolutely.

- So how many people do you think that you will be interviewing?

How many people are you equipped to interview on your new set, or do you know?

- Well, I think we can interview four people at a time.

I haven't gotten to that point yet.

We're working on it.

- [Christine] Another bug to be worked out.

- Yeah, but we're taking issues that affect people here in central Illinois.

After we do the pipeline, we're gonna be doing a story on a really cool task force locally that is targeting potential child predators.

We're gonna be telling people about that.

We're doing a a two part series on Peoria Public Schools report cards, which is very interesting.

So yeah, we're trying to pick topics that affect everyone.

- Yeah, well, there's a lot.

There are a lot.

And so people can get in touch with you and tell you their concerns and you can weigh that and whether or not it would be worth doing more research and conducting some interviews?

- Absolutely, we've got the WTVP Facebook page that you can message.

You can email me directly at mark.welp@wtvp.org.

And yeah, we're always up for ideas in the news business, I'm sure you've seen people call up the day after an event and say, "Well, why didn't you tell me about this?"

Well, we didn't know about it.

We don't know everything.

We try to, but we don't.

- I remember back in the day, they sent me out on a story and we got there, and I mean, there was nothing.

So I'm radioing them back, "There's nothing."

And so then as I looked more closely at the news release, it was the year before.

So it got kind of tucked in, sometime that filing got a little bit wonky.

So, out of all of your years in central Illinois, what has been your most fun topic to cover?

- My most fun topic?

Well, I do remember when Gretchen Wirtz and I were working together, we did a series called, our show was called "Daybreak".

And we did "Daybreak, do my job", where we would go out and do different jobs.

We worked fast food, we worked at TAPS, we worked at the zoo, and it was just fun.

- [Christine] What was the worst one?

What did you think you failed at?

- Probably the zoo because we were cleaning up animal waste.

- [Christine] Okay, that was not fun.

- A little stinky.

- [Christine] And probably in your good work clothes too, right?

You didn't even have a chance to change?

- No, I did.

They did let me change thankfully.

But those stories were always fun.

Even though I'm doing hard news here and everything, I like to have fun and do those lighter stories because boy, especially after Covid, people want to hear good news.

I mean, they don't wanna be beaten over the head with politics, and taxes, and death all the time.

- No, and it is way, way too much.

Sometimes, you just have to turn it off.

So then, what do you think was the worst thing you ever had to cover, or most shocking to you that you had to try to figure out a way to deal with?

- Boy, that's a good question.

Anytime there's a murder, that's always difficult.

Sometimes when you're in the studio reading these stories, you become a little desensitized.

But once you're out on the street and you're seeing the victims and the victims' families, it gets to you.

- [Christine] It tugs at you, yes.

- Yeah.

- So now you worked all those years with Gretchen.

Did you know her mother and I went to high school together in Ohio.

- What, no?

- Yes, we graduated the same year.

How crazy is that?

- Oh, she's the best.

- What are the chances?

So tell me about when you kicked in the bathroom door at Channel 25.

- Well, yeah, that was after the merger.

So Gretchen and I were still HOI but we were in the 25 building, and it was before the morning show.

That place has so many bathrooms, I don't know why.

The people to bathroom ratio is crazy.

But Gretchen pretty much used her own bathroom and the door was stuck.

She couldn't get it open, and this was right before the show.

And she called me on her cell phone and I came over and I couldn't open it either.

And I said, "Well, okay, gotta kick it open.

"The show must go on."

So I reared back and I even did the fake police stance.

And I kicked the door open and it busted off the hinges.

And I can't say I didn't like it, but it had to be done.

- And this is because were her curlers in there and her makeup or something?

- Oh, the whole shebang.

Yeah, she's got a suitcase full of items to make her look beautiful.

So, yep, they were all in there.

And I think it was about 15 minutes before the show, so it had to be done.

- You know what, you gotta do what you gotta do.

- [Mark] That's right.

- You guys really did have a good rapport.

- Thanks, yeah.

- And that's not something that comes easily.

I mean, you can sit next to somebody and not stand to even look past them, but you guys really did.

How did that develop?

- We just hit it off instantly.

I guess there was a little bit of luck involved, but we have a lot of the same interests, a lot of the same sense of humor, personality.

But I've been really lucky between Gretchen, and Kim and Shelby.

I mean, we get along on and off screen.

None of it is fake.

I mean, we just genuinely all have liked each other.

And I've been blessed that way.

I almost think if if I ever got back into TV news, I'd be hesitant because what are the odds you're gonna get that fourth person who you really like and really gel well with?

- Well, you have all these MMJs, these multimedia journalists.

And did you find that it was starting to devolve into every man, every person for themselves?

Because I mean, back in the day, it was a team, and we didn't have cell phones or anything.

We had a two-way radio, and somebody back at the station was working while you were out in the field and doing all that stuff, but it was a team effort to get that newscast or whatever that story was on the air.

- Yeah, with the way it is, the whole business is now not just here in Peoria, it's nationwide.

And these kids are coming outta college and I don't think most of them are prepared for what they're getting into.

- But we started out young and were we prepared?

But it's a different thing because we didn't have satellite boom, boom, boom, boom, boom on our phone all the time to detract from what we were supposed to be doing, I guess.

I don't know.

- Yeah, we weren't busy taking selfies and trying to be social media influencers.

I was terrible when I first started, and I'm so fortunate that the first station I worked at, everybody wanted me to be better and they worked with me and I eventually got better.

But now it's kind of like the news cycle is so quick that- - Because of satellite, because you get instant news and it doesn't mean that it's always accurate that you're getting it.

- And you have so many newscast, you gotta fill that stuff, so it's almost like quantity over quality now unfortunately.

- And you were experiencing some of that, but now you're a one man band (chuckling).

- Yeah, kind of, yeah.

- You're a one man newsroom, so do you think that you would ever be able to build your news organization here?

- If given the tools, yeah, sure, absolutely.

I think we could do just as good of a job as all the other stations.

We don't have the resources.

It's just a fact.

But eventually, it would be nice to have a third or fourth or fifth, whatever number we would be news organization in town.

And one of the things, since we have so much limited time now is I don't cover fires, or car accidents, or things like that unless someone's passed away or it's a prominent building that's caught fire.

Those things, we just kind of put to the side, let the other people do 'em, and we focus on the things that kind of have a bigger effect on the audience.

- [Christine] On more people, yeah, yeah.

And isn't that how when you were producing newscast back in the day, it's like, okay, what's the lead story here?

The lead story is how many people does this impact?

Does it matter?

Does that one little thing matter because it's a headline?

And that's I think how it should be, but I mean, that's how I was trained and that was last century a long time ago.

- Well yeah, that's all right though, because those things should still be here, the way you look at news and how you determine whether or not it's newsworthy.

But again, now that you have all the TV shows and the internet, you gotta fill up those webpages with stories, stuff, yeah, whether it's real news or not.

- Right, right, so what do you think your biggest challenge will be with this new gig that you're going to?

I mean, 'cause anything can change.

You might be prepared, you might have a show ready to go and then whoop, everything flips.

- Yeah, that'll be a challenge.

That's why you kind of, when you're producing the shows have to make it a little more general and not as specific maybe on a specific time or issue.

Like with this pipeline story, this is gonna be going on forever.

I mean, for at least the next year until the Illinois Commerce Commission makes its decision next year.

So we're just gonna have to talk about what has led us up to this point.

And then at some point, we're gonna revisit it in the future.

But again, I think just, yeah, resources always help.

And right now, I'm wearing a lot of hats.

- You are definitely.

So not only are you doing "At issue" and "Mark's Furry Friends", but you're also contributing to "The Peoria Magazine", I believe, right?

- A little bit, yeah, not as much now.

I scaled back a little bit on that because something had to give.

And I'm not a magazine writer.

(all chuckling) - No, not when you're cutting things down to 60 seconds.

But you also have the ability to be a contributor to ""You Gotta See This"".

- Which I love, that's been a lot of fun so far.

- Okay, so do you contribute ideas?

I mean, working with those two is pretty crazy.

- Yeah, it's fun, Phil Luciano and Julie Sanders.

And well, we should say that ""You Gotta See This"" is gonna be moving from its current time - [Christine] To Thursdays.

- To Thursdays right after "At issue", so that's neat.

And if you haven't watched, "You Gotta See This", you've gotta see it because it's fun.

We talk about the fun things and the interesting people that are happening in central Illinois.

And I've done probably half a dozen stories so far, and it's been a lot of fun.

It's nice to be creative and not be limited to a minute and a half story.

- Well, and that's just it, because then you have five or six minutes that you can dedicate to it.

What's been the most fun of those that you've done?

- I think I did a story on muffler men, which are, if you're not familiar with the term, they're those big fiberglass statues that you see around.

There's one in Atlanta, there's one in Normal at Carl's ice cream.

They used to be all along Route 66.

And we still have a bunch here in central Illinois, so I kind of went into the history of those and what they mean and why people use them.

They're basically advertisements, but it was something that I would drive by these every day for 10 years and think, "Someday, I wanna do a story on these."

And now I had the chance and I had a long time to explain it, and it was a lot of fun.

- Yeah, it is fun.

And people, general audience, they don't necessarily understand it's not their fault that you can be at a story all day long in a courtroom or whatever, and you have to come back and you have to write it for 45 seconds or a minute.

And that's really difficult to capture what went on.

So this gives you an opportunity that way.

And then "At Issue", will you really get to dig in.

- Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

And I'm interested in the interview process because I've done 1,000 interviews in my 25 years in doing this, but if I do a live interview on "The Morning Show", it's two and a half, three minutes and it's about the quilt of the month club, whatever.

But these are topics I can pick and I can research them and yeah, really sink my teeth into 'em instead of just scratching the surface.

- You're producing, but you'll be the one to also come up with what the video is going to entail as well.

- Yeah, I'll be doing that, yeah, the video, I'll be writing the graphics.

Sometimes in interviews, we talk about a lot of numbers.

We're gonna put those numbers up on the screen so people can actually follow along and hopefully understand things better.

And also, Phil Luciano from "You Gotta See This" is gonna be joining me almost every week, I think to kind of put his perspective on things.

For instance, when we talk about the CO2 pipeline, I'm gonna be doing the interview with someone who's concerned about the pipeline.

Phil actually went out to a gentleman's home in South Pekin and talked to him.

- 'Cause it would be going right underneath his yard, wouldn't it?

- Pretty much, yeah.

Pretty much, yeah.

So Phil's gonna be contributing, and he and I are gonna get a chance to chat at the end of the shows and hopefully have a little fun too.

- Well, yeah, and he has explored a lot of really wacky topics in all of his years doing everything, yeah.

So, what a great opportunity!

So, you've worked with a lot of great people and you're still doing it.

- Yeah, I'm looking forward to this next adventure.

And things are changing day by day, and I'm learning more day by day.

And luckily, as with all my other stations, I'm enjoying the people I'm working with, which is so important.

- It really truly is.

And then, so you have your wife and your daughter, and she's nine years old?

- Yes.

- And we figured out she's in third grade.

- Something like that, close, third or fourth.

- Well, that's good.

And they're very proud of you I'm sure?

- Hopefully.

- Have they been over here yet?

'Cause you've been here how many months?

- I've been here since February.

- Okay.

- Yeah, six, seven months.

- February, March, April, May.

We have enough fingers to figure that out.

- Yeah, they have been over here.

They're very impressed that I have an office.

This is the first time I've had an office.

- [Christine] Right, rather than just being in a general newsroom.

- Yeah, rather than being in the cubicle.

So they were impressed by that.

But yeah, they got to meet everybody over here and check out our spacious studio here.

Biggest in the state outside of Chicago.

- That's right.

- Yep.

- That's right, and it is very impressive.

I had some people who work on "Sesame Street" here, and they were very impressed with our studio.

So, let's sell that too.

Hey, we can do it here.

- That's right, you can have your meetings, your family reunions.

Well, I don't know about weddings, but... - Okay, so I think we've talked about bucket list, but specifically your personal life bucket list.

What do you have?

Are you gonna get more vacation time or?

- Yeah, I've got more vacation time, but at this point, I don't know how I'm gonna use it or when.

So I've gotta figure that out.

But yeah, when I got into this business, I just wanted to enjoy it and do a good job.

I didn't have any aspirations of going to New York, or Chicago, or making X amount of money.

I just wanted to be able to support myself and have fun doing it.

And now, I can really support myself and have fun doing it.

And now, I can just focus on being creative and trying to put the best product out there, which is why this is a great place to work.

- Really, it really truly is.

Well, you know what, you landed in the right spot and you got a lot of good ideas.

What is your advice for anybody out there who might want to at some point, follow in your footsteps?

- Oh boy, get internships, very important.

And get an internship where you're not just fetching coffee.

Those are important.

Watch the competition.

So many kids today just are focused on what they're doing and not looking at what everybody else is doing.

It's good to know what the competition's doing.

Nothing's gonna be handed to you.

You want something- - [Christine] You gotta work for it.

- Go out and do it.

- [Christine] All right.

- Go ahead and grab it.

- [Christine] Thanks so much, Mark.

- [Mark] Thank you!

- Good to finally talk to you Like, been a long time - [Mark] I know !

- [Mark] It was great Thanks for having me on - Thank you!

- and Thank you for joining us - You know a lot about this guy now.

- Don¦t forget he¦s an AI Guy At Issue - Be Well - [ upbeat music ]