March 6, 2025 • 39 mins
Former TV news anchor & investigative reporter John Boel - WINNER OF 106 EMMY AWARDS! - sat down for a wide ranging conversation on life, service, peace, and journalism.
He's the best of the best of the best in our media business, now heading off to retirement so that he can care for ailing family members in Wisconsin.
We never got around to talking about our Green Bay Packers fandom so that will be an excuse to reconnect this fall.
He's the best of the best of the best in our media business, now heading off to retirement so that he can care for ailing family members in Wisconsin.
We never got around to talking about our Green Bay Packers fandom so that will be an excuse to reconnect this fall.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Are we just going to break into the middle of
a conversation? Is that how that works? Yes, because whatever
you want to do, I at your disposing. John Bull,
longtime friend, media killer. I mean he's he's just a
pillar of the media community here, recently announced for retirement
and uh, I just want to have him back just
to have another chat again. So we now that I'm
(00:22):
not constrained by any contract. Right were constrained before? Did
they say? No? No, no, no, no, no, nobody ever
said anything. But let's be real, I had to watch
what I had to say, always worried about getting fired
when I'm on the radio. Really, yeah, what for just
(00:42):
because we're in an era where everyone gets offended at everything. Yeah,
but there are so many people who are in they
call it journalism when really they're they're opinionators. Well hello,
not you, not me, No, because you stick to the
news principles I do. I'm a I'm a They always
(01:03):
ask people, you know, would you want to be your
own juror? Like, I'm a independent, totally independent too, not
just not just saying it, try to approach life like
what would Jesus do? I voted for lots of Democrats
and lots of Republicans over the years, so I'm I
think I bring an element of fairness into the table
(01:25):
that a lot of people don't share. I always feel
like my job is to go thirty thousand feet anyway,
see everything from a wide lens, and people getting mad,
they call me names and write horrible things. You go
through the same thing. You're You're such a boot liquor
for filling. Oh my god, I did. I did a
police use of force investigation about ten years ago. I
(01:48):
opened records request at every all four hundred or five
hundred use of force incidents in LMPD and did a
whole in depth examination of it all. And then I
was weaving race into it as well, and and I
came out of it and I got destroyed by one side.
(02:08):
I forget what it was. It was like your your
pro police, your pro police. And a week later there
was a high profile police involved shooting and the station thought, wow,
John just did an investigation on this. Let's rea air this.
We rear the same piece with no changes in it.
And I got destroyed. Your anti police, anti police, anti police,
(02:29):
the same exact story. It's fascinating because people don't realize
it's their mental illness. They're holding on to this one thing,
it's their whole life is based on holding onto the
flagpole of politics. Everybody has burrowed in. Everybody has burrowed
into their foxhole, and they view everything through that, and
if they don't like what they're getting, they switch the
channel or switch the radios. But they don't realize how
(02:51):
nuts they are. And if they if you could just
show them the email that they sent you, where they
talk about hoping you're dead soon, if you'd show them that.
My main tweet segment, we did a whole mean tweets.
I saved a bunch of them and Myra had me
read them, and it was fantastic. They were so mean,
and that's okay with me. It was beautiful. I've saved
(03:13):
some of mine. I framed one I had up. We're
not allowed to have personal things in this building, but
in our old building, I would keep things framed that
I thought were hilarious. People just ripping me a new one.
I just thought it was funny. I think it's funny too.
It makes me laugh, it makes me happy. It makes
me happy too, And I admire good a good mean tweet,
(03:34):
right like I was saying on the segment, A good
mean tweet is short, you know, it uses words that
you don't normally use, and and this is the key,
there's a granule of truth in it. Like one of mine.
I just remembered, was you flabby efing goon, right amidst
some other stuff. And I went home and I got
(03:56):
on the scale, and I was two forty. I always
ballooned up every year after iron Man because iron Man
was always late summer, and every year, like around Halloween,
I'd be like I'd get up to two forty. It's like, Wow,
I'm a flabby, I'm by goon. But he's right. I
like goon though. That's a good's a good word, words
that we don't normally use, right, goon and an element
(04:19):
of truth flabby. Yeah, he's right. Goon is good though,
because it means that you actually emit some fear to
other people. They feel like, I can't get through that thing.
Here's another one, Lummox, Lummox excellent. Yes, but a lot
of people that you deal with are morons, and they
don't they have the IQ of you know, that's of
(04:42):
a radish, and they don't know how to argue whether
they're just they're just lashing out at people because they
won't try hard, they won't read and learn. One of
the things I used to do for all those years.
I'd do all these intense investigations, and when someone would
call to complain, I would make sure I had a
printed copy of the script right next to me. I'd
be like, okay, real polite, I got it right in
(05:02):
front of me. You tell me what I got wrong.
And then they start going and I read the corresponding statement,
and no, I didn't say that. No, I didn't say that.
Here's what I said there. And then it always would
come down to, once I've completely eradicated and disemboweled all
their arguments, it would always come down to, well, it
(05:23):
was your tone. It was your tone. That's it. Well,
come on, I can't remember how many years ago I
quit caring about it. You know, I used to try
and answer people, Oh my god, this person is offended.
I need it now. It's like I'd like to sit
on your head for about an hour. Well, I have
(05:45):
to care about it. I was a news anchor, like,
now do you know I don't care? But you I
got called well, I got in trouble one time and
my news director called me in because I said something.
I can't remember what I said. It was like the
day of the big Kentucky Indiana a rivalry game, and
I said something that might alienate half the crowd out there,
(06:05):
the Kentucky fans or the Indiana fans. And I got
calling the news recer's office and he said, John, what
is the most important part of being a news anchor?
And I said, I credibility, saying facts truth. He said, no,
it's it being liked by people. Do people like you
(06:27):
and saying stuff like that is going to make a
certain segment not like you, Whi's wrong, which I found
fascinating because I just did a I was just telling
you off off air. I just did an incredible zoom
interview with a with a mentor of mine, an idol
of mine, a guy that just retired up at WCCO
TV A long time. They're Ron Bergundy up there. The
(06:48):
reason why I became a news anchor and investigative reporter.
Guy's name is Don Shelby. Is that Minneapolis, Minneapolis, And
he was really instrumental in my recovery, and so he
did this whole thing about recovery and all that. But
but he we got to talk about news after that,
and he said where news has gone wrong is news anchors.
Now it's all about whether they like you or not.
(07:08):
And he said, that's that's that's then you're not doing
your job. We're so shallow, we're so lost. When people
are just they only want to hear their things echoed
back to them. Yeah, they don't dare let somebody else's
opinion come in without them raging on tiptok like this guy.
The other thing this guy said that was I thought
was really profound was he said, our job as journalists
(07:31):
is to be a watchdog, not an attack dog. A watchdog.
It's our job to bark outside the home of the homeowner,
let the homeowner know something's up, and then if the
homeowner wants to do something about that or not, it's
up to them. It's not up to us to then
take another step and take another step and get the
person fired and whatever. He said. That's why he said,
(07:53):
half of my investigations I did ended up in nothing
being done because people just like, we're okay, but you
got to keep being a watch dog, which is what
I think. He's right, that's what our role is being
a watch dog. Now, we apply for awards at the
end of the year, and they always on the investigative categories.
They always say, and what change did you get enacted?
And I always thought that's weird because like agenda journalism,
(08:15):
I don't set out with an agenda to get something changed.
So twenty two year old wrote that question. Yes, because
they all feel like they're activists. Yeah, we're not to
be activists. We're to be the watch dog, barking when
something's amiss. I saw some of our news anchors, the
younger ones, posting things that were activism on Twitter, and
(08:37):
I've thought, you are a complete idiot. You're ruining our business. Yes,
that's correct, you're just chipping away at any credibility that
we have. But they don't get it. It's all about
they just want to get some clicks, some affirmations. I care.
My heart is so much bigger than everyone else's. Can't
you see how good I am so to that end,
(09:02):
I'm getting out at a really good time because I
got to be me. I got to be a watchdog.
A lot of my stuff I did it resulted in nothing.
A lot of my stuff I did resulted in an
incredible change to all the animal shelter investigations I did
back in the nineties, creeping around animal shelters, gunshot, euthanasia outlawed,
and millions of dollars approved to upgrade animal shelters and
(09:24):
different things like that. Over the years, I helped enact change.
But again that there's a lot of things I've done
that nothing happened, and that's okay. Media is going to survive.
Obviously it takes on new forms. I'm worried about it,
but it is. Yeah, it's also splintered off that it's hard.
You know, there's one Joe Rogan. Yeah, and there's one
(09:46):
caller Daddy if that's what women feel drawn to. But
it's still it's it's just so menacing and rude that
they're the great of life has like wafted away. People
don't give each other any patience at all. No, and
(10:07):
it's they get more joy out of berating and drilling
somebody down until they're exterminated, until their job was taken
from them or whatever canceled. What kind of joy is
that you and you put your head on a pillow
late at night and go I got the guy fire.
He wouldn't salute my pronouns. It's because people are are
(10:28):
living hard and in some cases miserable lives and they
just take it out on others looking to be mean.
The on that topic that I had kind of an
eye opening experience that made me worry about the future
of TV news. Anyway, the night that Donald Trump, the
first assassination attempt of Donald Trump happened, it was a
Saturday night. I remember I got somebody texted me right
(10:49):
after it happened, and it was like six o'clock at night,
and I was grilling, and I came in and I
sat there with my wife for the next five hours,
flipping around. It was mesmerized. I was flipping around all
the stations, mostly NBC and and I came to a
discovery because I had my second screen in front of me.
I got on Twitter, and Twitter had all of the
(11:12):
major developments in that story two hours before TV had them,
because TV has a protocol you got to get it
doubly confirmed, et cetera. Whereas Twitter is posting the video
of the guy up on the roof, and you know
what I mean, like, you're his name his name, Although
that night, oddly we haven't learned a lot more about
that guy since you guests, well, all true, isn't that interesting?
(11:33):
That's very bizarre. But anyway, it made me think, now
that's an issue, right, yeah, because we have to adhere
to protocols and TV news, but but as as we
open up the free flow of information and now you're
going to get duped a lot on Twitter, you've got
a problem. You got to really watch it because there's
a lot of idiots on there that are posting false
(11:53):
stuff and they're good and they're slick presenting something and
they'll say breaking in all caps and you're like, what
you can't you can't go overboard. You get a vet it.
But in a situation like that that I just described,
a big breaking news event like that, and you have time,
you can see what ends up being true and what
doesn't you know, and it's it really opened my eyes.
(12:14):
I contend though, my biggest thing in I would be
a terrible news director because I'm not big on censorship
of any kind. And then you always got people coming back, well,
the kids are watching, well, I'm sorry, we're not a
babysitting service like I don't. I'm really big on no
censorship at all so I would let things go, and
because it's important to report the truth right, And I
(12:39):
just think the two most important developments here over the
last several years were when we found out on Twitter
and then Zuckerberg came out on Facebook and admitted what
we all knew, which was the censorship that was going
on on COVID and other things bizarre. All right, we're
out of time in this segment. We got more time
(13:00):
to do it. I'm here, I got to take a break.
Come back. We're to talk more about some other issues
coming up to but we're trying to save the world.
That's what John Bowle and I are doing. Could do
that one click at a time. Back in a few
on news radio. Wait forty whas free well out over her.
I love her too, Alum fish, I spend all day.
(13:22):
That's for you, John boll a phishing song. I already
went Monday night. I can go on weeknights now and
I went and I kept thinking I had to go home,
and I thought, why do you have to go home? Right?
John Bowles here, he just retired. Where we're kind of
working out the world's problems. You know, we were talking
about some of the challenges we have in our media business,
and we don't know everything where we just only live.
(13:44):
You know, a problem we have in our society is
everybody judges everybody else. You don't understand my pain. You
have privilege of this or whatever fill in the blank.
But whatever one doesn't understand is of the seven billion
people on the planet, everybody's got a pack of sticks
on their back carrying the number one thing I came
away from this whole retirement process and all the beautiful
(14:06):
notes I got, I just sat down yesterday and read
them all finally for the so I could make sure
I covered them all. And it's the little things I said.
I can't tell you how many times the biggest takeaway
in life changing thing I did for somebody was a
little comment I made that I don't even remember at
a time when, of course I didn't know that they
(14:26):
were going through something, and it helped them immensely. So
if there's any lesson in that, it's to do it
even if you don't feel like doing it, because you
never know what somebody's going through. Just constant encouragement. It's
so true and so valuable to so many people who
send you notes and update you on things in their life,
how they're doing, you have seen them in twenty years
(14:47):
or whatever. I couldn't believe it. All the little encouraging
things I said to people that I don't even remember,
and to be honest with you don't really sound like me.
I mean, I have been a different person after rehab, fortunately,
so credit rehab with changing my character. But we're in
a business where we're on stage, and so we have egos,
(15:10):
and it is different than someone who works at a
job that's more nondescript and not certainly not public. So
you know, we've got exaggerated egos. Yep. You know when
you and I walk into Kroger fourteen people are going
to say something to us and they're all friendly. Yes,
And a good lesson I got on that one time.
Was I was I was walking through church with my mom.
(15:32):
She was in town, and several people had stopped and
tried to talk to me, and I wasn't being very
nice and she grabbed my hands. She says, Johnny, you
need to be nice to these people. They're your viewers
and you're not being nice. And I thought, you're right,
Like that's that's terrible. But yeah, we all have egos.
I just this Don Shelby, retired anchor up in MINNEAPOLISID.
(15:53):
I was just talking about he was talking about. He said,
my advice for you in retirement is to say no
to everything for two years. And I said why and
he said, because a news anchor works a job where
you feel relevant and special all the time, and that
now that you're not going to be doing that, you're
going to want to feel relevant and special. So you're
going to start saying yes to all these things. And
(16:14):
he said, don't do that, like find yourself. But I
thought that was profound because I can see where that
would happen. Yeah, you want to fill up your dance card.
And you also want to feel that thing that when
somebody pulls you on a sleeve in a grocery store
and says, I enjoy your work. Yes, it's nice to
feel that again. And it's kind of click bait for
(16:35):
us emotionally because we're we're fragile anyway, because we're in
this business. I told you this long time ago, Well,
the funniest things has ever happened to me. I like
to tell people this and speeches, but it's got a
curse word in it. So I got to limited. I'm
in Bashford Manor Mall. That's how long ago that was.
I'm looking at some shirts on a table and a
guy touches me on the back of my hand because
(16:56):
my face is down. I'm looking at shirts and I
turn up and look and there's a man standing there
and he says, you're full of fecal matter. You know that?
And then he spun and walked away. And I thought,
I'm going to take that as praise. I still laugh
about that. I just had a guy yesterday came in.
I was at a consignment store trying to get rid
(17:19):
of all my Derby suits. I'm not gonna be neating anymore.
And he he comes in. He goes, John Bowl, please
don't retire. We really no one does what you do.
Who's going to go undercover now in the most dangerous
neighborhoods and do? And he went on and he started
reciting the different stories I've done. That story you did
at Fourth and Oak, and the story on this and that.
(17:39):
I thought, wow, like, I'm not going to get that
up in Wisconsin. But we've gotten to do really touching
things too. A woman and her family are standing on
Breckenridge Treat the home burned. People saw it all over
the news. I happened to work for a foundation quietly
that was run by Patino. I call him an hour later,
(18:03):
I got ten thousand dollars. Yeah. I walk over and
this woman doesn't know me from Adam, walk up, slide
a check in her hand and say it's looking out
for you. And the way she started shaking over that,
and we were just trying to help her, just give
her a little boost. I did that so many times,
delivering money or letting someone know that they were going
(18:24):
to get something from that Daniel Patino foundation. It was like,
that's the difference is when you get a chance to
do those types of things. I didn't do anything. I
was just a messenger boy. But that's okay. Yeah, I
did a story and I got a call from a guy.
You know. I used to get thirty forty story pitches
or complaints, you know, per day, And in a market
(18:46):
size of like a million people, a lot of so
everybody was coming to me with their problems. The one
guy came to me with he he had a problem
with he had a son with severe disabilities, and the
way the Kentucky system was working there wasn't a place
for him. Essentially, they couldn't accommodate, and I just did
the story and boom, he called me back crying like that.
(19:07):
The second that thing hit the air. You know, Uh,
they're going to do right by him. They found a place.
It's just all worked out, thank you. Now. A lot
of times that doesn't happen. But and the other thing
that's kind of the funny flip side of that is
a lot of times just the mere call, hey, John
Bowle's working on this, getting ready to do a story
on this. You'd be amazed how that happens. Just the
(19:31):
pull that lever once or twice too. But for everyone,
service is the greatest thing you can do in your lifetime,
service to others. That's why it's the twelfth step or
the twelfth step process in recovery. Yeah, to to continue
to carry the message and to be of service to
(19:52):
other people. No one cares about the stories you did,
they interviews, whatever it is. It's the it's the lives
that you've in packed it and helped mentor yeah, or
you just helped somebody who was in a pinch. And
then you know, I've had some challenges in my life too,
and then people pop up and they just they throw
you a life raft and you're like, where did this
(20:15):
come from? What came from heaven? That's where it came.
You know what's interesting about that is I had a
you know, anybody who's read either of my books knows
that every chapter is really just a mini life lesson.
And I just lived a mini life lesson, like the
day of my retirement as I looked out to address
the people or just mingle with the people who showed up.
(20:36):
What's the first thing that popped in my mind when
I saw different people, Like when I saw Doug Prophet,
it wasn't oh, that's the competing news anchor guy I've
been battling with, who's just a great journalist. The first
thought in my mind was, Wow, that's the guy that
wrote me a letter when I was in rehab. Right,
and it just goes. It was down the line, don g.
(20:56):
It's not for all the community stuff she does. It
was first thought that popped in my mind was her
wheeling up a cooler full of drinks when I was
in intensive care with my daughter after she got hit
on hersborn land. Like every single thought, the first thought
that I had about the people in that room had
nothing to do with what they do for a living.
It was how they came through for me in a
(21:19):
time of crisis. That's what you're remembered by. I'm worried
about our society. You and I've had this discussion before.
We've run enough miles together. We've had discussions about everything.
I'm just worried about the unwinding of I've already used
the word grace earlier, where people don't look out for
each other, and it's so easy to do. But it's
(21:41):
just like they say, the simple rules are finish high school,
get married before you have kids, and help raise your kids.
Don't run away. It just seems like a simple path
to at least having some stability, and of course that
(22:03):
lesson that is talked to the kids you bring up
and their kids and so forth. It's it's very simple.
It's really simple. But so many other, so much other
messaging comes in. You don't need this, you don't need
you need to be in Vegas, you need to be this,
you need to have this purse that costs eight thousand dollars,
and none of that means anything. No, when we uh,
(22:23):
when I get in discussions. You know, inevitably in a
newsroom especially, you get into the what is wrong right,
what's wrong with Louisville, what's wrong with the country? What?
You know, what? What? What's what's when you're doing the
homicide stories, and it's it's really simple. It's it's it's
three things. It's, uh, we don't value life anymore, right,
we don't value life. They've legislated that right out. And
(22:46):
now there's just that's why these guys are just going
around hitting people, shooting people fourteen years old whatever. Parenting
which you just touched on. Parenting is trash largely and
there and there's no accountability, like there's I don't know
where accountability went. There's no shame either. No, people don't
feel shame about anything. There's no we had it. You know,
(23:09):
It's funny when reporters start in the newsroom and they
we do a lot of shock probation here. They've never
heard of the term shock probation. Then I have to
explain it to them. That's you get a long prison sentence,
but then you can petition after sixty or ninety days.
I can't remember which one it is to get out
of jail and the reason being, well, what I did
wasn't that bad, but I learned my lesson. Okay, I'm good.
(23:32):
And so many people get shock probation. Fine, whatever the
argument is. We did a story on a guy who
robbed and shot a dude in a public park in Louisville,
who got shock probation. I'm like, what, mind boggling. Yeah,
and some people listen to us and say, well, those
are just old guys talking. Well, I'm talking about this
(23:53):
is the way the human race stays together from the
beginning of time. Yeah. Just raising your kids and being
there for them. There's nothing different about this from the
year one hundred BC. I mean, if you could wave
your wand and change one thing about society at least me,
(24:13):
if there was a genie in a bottle, to me,
it would be fathers being fathers. Yeah. Do I have
time to tell a quick story? Okay? So I was
doing a story on this great guy. I even remember
his name. This is in the late nineties. Andre Barnes
was doing something in Smoketown to try to turn around
(24:34):
the wayward kids. And I went to his Bible study
and he held his Bible study in a school. I
remember that I think was at Mosique because kids don't
trust churches. He thought he was right. So I go
in there with a camera cameraman and there's like sixty
or eighty kids in the bleachers getting ready for this,
(24:55):
and mostly girls. And he told me most of these
people are gang members. And he starts talking and he
opens up for discussion about the pain they're feeling and
all that, and I thought, no way in the world.
You know, how kids are you get a camera up
in their face. They're not gonna bear their soul with
a camera in their face. And one after another after another,
to the point where I was crying myself. They started
(25:18):
just divulging these horrible stories about their dad's being absent
in their life, all of them. That was a common
denominator in all of it. And then how their lives
had gone sense and they're now in gangs and blah
blah blah. It was so it was one of the
most eye opening things I ever witnessed as a journalist.
That's the human race, though, I mean, it goes to
the beginning of time. Yeah, but people talk about, oh, well,
(25:40):
you're just old school now years it's really simple. Yeah,
structure is what parameters is what helps someone stay within
a limit, and you know, you let people express themselves
to a degree, and it's really easy to get out
of that structure. Like how many times I'm guilty of this?
Like like have the value of the family sitting down
(26:01):
for dinner, right, and like I'm the one who is no,
I want to get take it in front of the TV.
My wife, God bless her, is no. We're sitting down
as a family and that has carried on to my
kids and I've seen it reap all the benefits. Yeah,
we don't have any much time left here unless you
can have time for another segment. You're going fishing. I'm
not going fishing. Just sit tight. We're gonna talk after
(26:23):
the top of the hour. Yeah, John Boll retired news anchor,
because we have a few other issues to get to
because we have to save journalism. Let's save journalists. We're
going to do that before it's so all right, we
talk fishing later back in a minute. But look at
that John Boll is hanging on for extra innings. It's
(26:43):
good to have you here. I love you. You are a
fantastic love you too. Thank you. This is great. We're
solving all the world problems. We've helped each other through
tough times in our lives, and it's just good. It's
good to have friends that you can consult. Henry sad
Loos another one. This is somebody that we talk to
each other every week, at least once a week. He
has just helped me out with a health issue recently.
(27:04):
Is fantastic. Oh good, But but you know, there's just
a few. There's a handful of people I can talk
to anytime anywhere. Three in the morning, three in the afternoon,
doesn't matter. You were one of them. Yes, that is correct,
and same goes for you. I know you'll be at
the house in a minute if we have an issue.
And that's that's what you need in life. I think
that's we're lucky. Some people don't have those types of relationships.
(27:26):
I feel sorry for him. I don't know what to
say because I can only be me, you can only
be you. No, And I didn't have a relationship like
that pre rehab. I was, you know, all shutterered in
on myself and not a kind person and not inviting.
Didn't have very many friends like that's the way I was. Well,
you're pretty immersed in your work. But I could call
(27:47):
you and say, dude, I'm training for a marathon. Oh yeah,
I got to run fifteen miles and say, okay, i'll
be here in the morning, and then we'd go do it.
And you were just helping me. Yes, you didn't need
to do that, and you just helped me. Right, So
I appreciate that. And I never forget that either. Well, good,
my memory is as sharp as ever, and I never
forget people to help me. Well, I'm the same way.
I'm always there and I do so far. I think
(28:09):
that's the best, the best gift. All right, So I
have to ask you. Yeah, I went to your party Saturday.
You retired last Friday. When you woke up on Sunday,
you went to church, I'm sure. Then Monday, Tuesday. Here
it is Thursday. What was it like yesterday morning? You
haven't been in news for three news days business day
(28:29):
the first The good news. The good news is I
used to wake up and by the time working night shift,
by the time i'd wake up, I would have thirty
to fifty emails, all people asking me for something. And
then through the course of the rest of the day,
I would have another hundred and I'd have to be
on my phone fourteen hours a day because you work
news and you get story tips that even when you're
not at work, that's gone, and that is that is
(28:50):
a good development, Okay, I don't have to stress and
worry about all those things. The downside of it is
like I still feel like I have to be somewhere,
I have to do something. I just feel like I
have to have duties. And then I remind myself why
you don't like you're free right now to do my
(29:12):
Like right now, my wife has a long list of
things to get the house ready to sell it. But
you know the ten thousand hour rule. You do something
ten thousand hours, you're kind of an expert at it.
You've done one hundred thousand hours. I did sixteen thousand
hours of anchoring. I totaled it up, oh sixteen. I
went through year by year and the number of hours
per day I was anchoring just in Louisville, and it
(29:35):
was fifteen thousand and nine to ninety. So you throw
in a few derbies, and it's sixteen thousand hours on
the air. That's on the air a couple thousand stories exactly.
But think of the prep time that goes along with
that one, right, right, I do that four hours on
the radio forty five. I'm at year forty at nine. Now, right,
let's think about how much mock has been given to that.
(29:55):
But that's okay. I just wondered how it is okay,
And like a lot of like when I was doing
my going away speech at the retirement lunch, and a
lot of people, when they're at the end, they look
back and I start thinking of all those weekends I
spent in the edit bay, all the vacations where I
took my notes with me for stories I was working on,
and all the extra hours I was putting in. And
(30:17):
a lot of people then apologize for that to their family. Right,
that's time I took away from my family. But you
know what, I come at it from a little bit
of a different angle on that. I don't apologize for
that because what we do, what I did was important,
It was important. That makes sense. We both love the
(30:38):
news business. We know it's reshaping, and that's good because
it's reshaped from the time we were babies. That's just
all part of it. Everything just changes. And if you
don't accept change, your loss. Yes, so we all know
everything's on digital platforms, all these other ways people reach out.
It's all splintered off broadcasting as a word that means
throwing it everywhere, But really it's narrow casting, is what's
(30:59):
going on now. Yes, people just narrowly points a beam
of light and just the people that care about it
fly into the broadcast to your foxhole, and your foxhole
followers stay there. I'm afraid that it's going to be
hard to put it all back together and get people
unified like you do on Super Bowl Sunday, for instance,
(31:21):
that's one hundred and twenty five million people. I mean,
that's a unifying event. News is tougher now just because
of so many different things. People say, Hey, I'm I'm
free to be me, and I only want to hear
things about me, And it's like, it's odd we haven't
had a unifying event news wise since nine to eleven.
(31:41):
Think about it. Good point. It's a long time, sad
and horrible and tragic. Speaking of such, the rules have
changed drastically. I know that you brought in that Courier
journal from nineteen eighty nine that shows the Standard Reviewer massacre.
One of the victims is in the photo on the
front page. You know, you can't find that online anymore.
I know. So I brought this in to Terry here.
(32:03):
I used to I'm going through my stuff, getting ready
to move and pairing things down, and I came across
this because I used to carry this to speeches to
students to show them what news used to be when
it comes to censorship and what it is now in
the to describe it, how would you describe it? The
front page of the Courier Journal on September fifteenth, nineteen
(32:23):
eighty nine literally showed a worker slumped back over a
conveyor belt, blood all over the ground, blown away. That's
somebody's dads. And so I even back then the Courier
took a lot of grief, I remember, but the I
do also remember the next day of the Career put
out an explainer that if people don't realize now, but
(32:45):
the standard Revere massacre was one of the first big
mass shootings in America. And what they were their their
their excuse for it was, this is so above and
beyond even the normal mayhem in our society. We wanted
to get across the gravity of how much different and
worse this is, and we thought that this photo achieved that. Again,
(33:05):
they took a lot of grief for that. But it
is interesting, all these years later look back on this
and think of what would like today. You would never
people lose their minds. They'd lose their minds on TV.
They'll say, I just want you to be warned. This
video is disturbing, and it'll turn out it'll be a
(33:26):
puppy with a thorn in his paw, Like, are what
are you talking about? Are we that soft? I mean,
you can't tell people the truth. Every time in the room,
I'm going over my scripts and I come across that
we have to warn you about this video, and I
would pop my head up, say the producers, what is
so graphic and disturbing about this video? In some cases
(33:47):
I go over and look at it and I'd be like,
are you serious? This is not disturbing to even one
percent of the population, Like all we have to do it.
I did see photos online of the driving down Bourbon
Street New Year's Day. Yeah, killed people. I hate to
say it, but I think that there's there's importance in
(34:09):
the reality that has foistood upon people. So they realized
the trauma, the drama, the pain, the agony and the
degradation of society. When when it comes to something like that,
by just showing blurrs all the time, are we really illustrate?
(34:29):
Are we telling the truth? We're telling enough? And when
you're That's why I would never want to be a
news director, because when you make those decisions what you know,
how much to censor, et cetera, you're that's shaping public opinion,
like the you know what I mean, like there are
a lot of people that would look upon something completely
different if they saw the reality of it. The I
(34:51):
was sharing with you a short time ago, the I'll
never forget. One of my first interactions with this was
that there was a war in Bosnia back in the nineties,
and and all all the coverage had been so soft sold.
And one day, I don't know why, but there was
a bombing of a bunch of people in a soup line,
and all the network news stations decided, for whatever reason,
(35:14):
that's enough, we have to show people what's really going on.
And they showed the real, non blurred video of all
the people blown away in the soup line, and it
completely changed the entire American narrative on what to do
about that war, and things changed fast all the way
up to the president. I mean the case study in
that's the Vietnam War, right, yeah, yeah, when they started
(35:37):
showing what was really going on, and look what happened
to public opinion, embedded reporters. So yet see that actually
happening and showing the real film at the time of
what was going on. I mean, the opening thirty minutes
of Saving Private Ryan is so graphic, but I think
so much more helpful in detailing the atrocities of what
(35:57):
war is and looks like as opposed to the stuff
we saw when we were growing up or being somebody
shoots somebody and they just fall down. And that's My
father in law was in the D Day Invasion and
he told me that first twenty two minute clip is
exactly what it was like exactly. And that's not news,
that's a creation from Steven Spielberg, but it does speak
(36:18):
to this. Yes, you show people the reality for reality
so that society grows from it, right and betters itself. Now,
it's kind of you are kind of there's not much
censorship now because it'll end up on Twitter somewhere else,
you know what I mean. So you can still see
the stuff. But then there's all the other kinds of
(36:40):
censorship and social media that we just learned about with
Zuckerberg and with Muscaea, that they were jacking around with
what people saw correct and the algorithms. And yes, but
people are there so incredibly sensitive. Now, if I show
a picture of a cheeseburger, somebody in the thread will say,
do you know what happened to a cow for you
to have that cheese? Be better? Do better? What do
(37:03):
you know that? When I did the hot dog eating contest,
we got a people are starving in this world and
you choose to partake in gluttony. Yeah, well, it's just right, Okay,
I'm glad we're solving some of the problems that we're
going to be able to button up our We we
both love journalism, we both love media. I want us
(37:24):
to survive. Journalism is gonna win the derby. I saw
that the journalism. Everybody in our business is going to
bet on that horse. Yes, uh, now, there there's still
a place for good journalism. Just I mean, you gotta
you gotta wash it. It's there was a there was
a story last week. I won't name the network. It
(37:45):
was a reporter package, so we couldn't get in there
and change anything. But in the package there was a
sentence that said, uh, something like Musk and Trump accuse uh,
the administration of wasteful spending, and then the end of
the set said but provided no proof, but provided no proof.
(38:06):
I literally got on doge dot gov every day for
a couple of weeks where they provide the proof, where
they post the receipts and the bills and the contracts,
all the proof. I got in there every day until
I got so mad. The headline and the headline writer
and the editor are just angry that Trump's the president.
Apparently that's just sad, though. But the thing is they
(38:29):
could have found all this stuff. I'm sure in Trump's administration,
in Barack Obama exactly right, every one of the bush.
But my point is to literally put in a network
news story but provided no proof, like they're doing it
every day. We're in a tight space there, bro. I
am so happy for you that you don't have to
(38:51):
answer a thousand emails a day. Nope, I can now
sit back and watch it all unfold. Go fishing. I'll
talk to You're gonna go fishing. Thanks for having on
her John Bowl, now retired from the local media. Like
I said in that piece that ran on your station,
he'll be back. You think I'm wrong. The overunder, they said,
(39:12):
ed waves three years the Vegas old runners. I'll be
back in news and within three years, I told Shannon Cogan,
by the end of the first week, you'll be begging
her take me back. Love you, brother, Love you too.
Your brain gets hot, but your head gets down.
Are we just going to break into the middle of
a conversation? Is that how that works? Yes, because whatever
you want to do, I at your disposing. John Bull,
longtime friend, media killer. I mean he's he's just a
pillar of the media community here, recently announced for retirement
and uh, I just want to have him back just
to have another chat again. So we now that I'm
(00:22):
not constrained by any contract. Right were constrained before? Did
they say? No? No, no, no, no, no, nobody ever
said anything. But let's be real, I had to watch
what I had to say, always worried about getting fired
when I'm on the radio. Really, yeah, what for just
(00:42):
because we're in an era where everyone gets offended at everything. Yeah,
but there are so many people who are in they
call it journalism when really they're they're opinionators. Well hello,
not you, not me, No, because you stick to the
news principles I do. I'm a I'm a They always
(01:03):
ask people, you know, would you want to be your
own juror? Like, I'm a independent, totally independent too, not
just not just saying it, try to approach life like
what would Jesus do? I voted for lots of Democrats
and lots of Republicans over the years, so I'm I
think I bring an element of fairness into the table
(01:25):
that a lot of people don't share. I always feel
like my job is to go thirty thousand feet anyway,
see everything from a wide lens, and people getting mad,
they call me names and write horrible things. You go
through the same thing. You're You're such a boot liquor
for filling. Oh my god, I did. I did a
police use of force investigation about ten years ago. I
(01:48):
opened records request at every all four hundred or five
hundred use of force incidents in LMPD and did a
whole in depth examination of it all. And then I
was weaving race into it as well, and and I
came out of it and I got destroyed by one side.
(02:08):
I forget what it was. It was like your your
pro police, your pro police. And a week later there
was a high profile police involved shooting and the station thought, wow,
John just did an investigation on this. Let's rea air this.
We rear the same piece with no changes in it.
And I got destroyed. Your anti police, anti police, anti police,
(02:29):
the same exact story. It's fascinating because people don't realize
it's their mental illness. They're holding on to this one thing,
it's their whole life is based on holding onto the
flagpole of politics. Everybody has burrowed in. Everybody has burrowed
into their foxhole, and they view everything through that, and
if they don't like what they're getting, they switch the
channel or switch the radios. But they don't realize how
(02:51):
nuts they are. And if they if you could just
show them the email that they sent you, where they
talk about hoping you're dead soon, if you'd show them that.
My main tweet segment, we did a whole mean tweets.
I saved a bunch of them and Myra had me
read them, and it was fantastic. They were so mean,
and that's okay with me. It was beautiful. I've saved
(03:13):
some of mine. I framed one I had up. We're
not allowed to have personal things in this building, but
in our old building, I would keep things framed that
I thought were hilarious. People just ripping me a new one.
I just thought it was funny. I think it's funny too.
It makes me laugh, it makes me happy. It makes
me happy too, And I admire good a good mean tweet,
(03:34):
right like I was saying on the segment, A good
mean tweet is short, you know, it uses words that
you don't normally use, and and this is the key,
there's a granule of truth in it. Like one of mine.
I just remembered, was you flabby efing goon, right amidst
some other stuff. And I went home and I got
(03:56):
on the scale, and I was two forty. I always
ballooned up every year after iron Man because iron Man
was always late summer, and every year, like around Halloween,
I'd be like I'd get up to two forty. It's like, Wow,
I'm a flabby, I'm by goon. But he's right. I
like goon though. That's a good's a good word, words
that we don't normally use, right, goon and an element
(04:19):
of truth flabby. Yeah, he's right. Goon is good though,
because it means that you actually emit some fear to
other people. They feel like, I can't get through that thing.
Here's another one, Lummox, Lummox excellent. Yes, but a lot
of people that you deal with are morons, and they
don't they have the IQ of you know, that's of
(04:42):
a radish, and they don't know how to argue whether
they're just they're just lashing out at people because they
won't try hard, they won't read and learn. One of
the things I used to do for all those years.
I'd do all these intense investigations, and when someone would
call to complain, I would make sure I had a
printed copy of the script right next to me. I'd
be like, okay, real polite, I got it right in
(05:02):
front of me. You tell me what I got wrong.
And then they start going and I read the corresponding statement,
and no, I didn't say that. No, I didn't say that.
Here's what I said there. And then it always would
come down to, once I've completely eradicated and disemboweled all
their arguments, it would always come down to, well, it
(05:23):
was your tone. It was your tone. That's it. Well,
come on, I can't remember how many years ago I
quit caring about it. You know, I used to try
and answer people, Oh my god, this person is offended.
I need it now. It's like I'd like to sit
on your head for about an hour. Well, I have
(05:45):
to care about it. I was a news anchor, like,
now do you know I don't care? But you I
got called well, I got in trouble one time and
my news director called me in because I said something.
I can't remember what I said. It was like the
day of the big Kentucky Indiana a rivalry game, and
I said something that might alienate half the crowd out there,
(06:05):
the Kentucky fans or the Indiana fans. And I got
calling the news recer's office and he said, John, what
is the most important part of being a news anchor?
And I said, I credibility, saying facts truth. He said, no,
it's it being liked by people. Do people like you
(06:27):
and saying stuff like that is going to make a
certain segment not like you, Whi's wrong, which I found
fascinating because I just did a I was just telling
you off off air. I just did an incredible zoom
interview with a with a mentor of mine, an idol
of mine, a guy that just retired up at WCCO
TV A long time. They're Ron Bergundy up there. The
(06:48):
reason why I became a news anchor and investigative reporter.
Guy's name is Don Shelby. Is that Minneapolis, Minneapolis, And
he was really instrumental in my recovery, and so he
did this whole thing about recovery and all that. But
but he we got to talk about news after that,
and he said where news has gone wrong is news anchors.
Now it's all about whether they like you or not.
(07:08):
And he said, that's that's that's then you're not doing
your job. We're so shallow, we're so lost. When people
are just they only want to hear their things echoed
back to them. Yeah, they don't dare let somebody else's
opinion come in without them raging on tiptok like this guy.
The other thing this guy said that was I thought
was really profound was he said, our job as journalists
(07:31):
is to be a watchdog, not an attack dog. A watchdog.
It's our job to bark outside the home of the homeowner,
let the homeowner know something's up, and then if the
homeowner wants to do something about that or not, it's
up to them. It's not up to us to then
take another step and take another step and get the
person fired and whatever. He said. That's why he said,
(07:53):
half of my investigations I did ended up in nothing
being done because people just like, we're okay, but you
got to keep being a watch dog, which is what
I think. He's right, that's what our role is being
a watch dog. Now, we apply for awards at the
end of the year, and they always on the investigative categories.
They always say, and what change did you get enacted?
And I always thought that's weird because like agenda journalism,
(08:15):
I don't set out with an agenda to get something changed.
So twenty two year old wrote that question. Yes, because
they all feel like they're activists. Yeah, we're not to
be activists. We're to be the watch dog, barking when
something's amiss. I saw some of our news anchors, the
younger ones, posting things that were activism on Twitter, and
(08:37):
I've thought, you are a complete idiot. You're ruining our business. Yes,
that's correct, you're just chipping away at any credibility that
we have. But they don't get it. It's all about
they just want to get some clicks, some affirmations. I care.
My heart is so much bigger than everyone else's. Can't
you see how good I am so to that end,
(09:02):
I'm getting out at a really good time because I
got to be me. I got to be a watchdog.
A lot of my stuff I did it resulted in nothing.
A lot of my stuff I did resulted in an
incredible change to all the animal shelter investigations I did
back in the nineties, creeping around animal shelters, gunshot, euthanasia outlawed,
and millions of dollars approved to upgrade animal shelters and
(09:24):
different things like that. Over the years, I helped enact change.
But again that there's a lot of things I've done
that nothing happened, and that's okay. Media is going to survive.
Obviously it takes on new forms. I'm worried about it,
but it is. Yeah, it's also splintered off that it's hard.
You know, there's one Joe Rogan. Yeah, and there's one
(09:46):
caller Daddy if that's what women feel drawn to. But
it's still it's it's just so menacing and rude that
they're the great of life has like wafted away. People
don't give each other any patience at all. No, and
(10:07):
it's they get more joy out of berating and drilling
somebody down until they're exterminated, until their job was taken
from them or whatever canceled. What kind of joy is
that you and you put your head on a pillow
late at night and go I got the guy fire.
He wouldn't salute my pronouns. It's because people are are
(10:28):
living hard and in some cases miserable lives and they
just take it out on others looking to be mean.
The on that topic that I had kind of an
eye opening experience that made me worry about the future
of TV news. Anyway, the night that Donald Trump, the
first assassination attempt of Donald Trump happened, it was a
Saturday night. I remember I got somebody texted me right
(10:49):
after it happened, and it was like six o'clock at night,
and I was grilling, and I came in and I
sat there with my wife for the next five hours,
flipping around. It was mesmerized. I was flipping around all
the stations, mostly NBC and and I came to a
discovery because I had my second screen in front of me.
I got on Twitter, and Twitter had all of the
(11:12):
major developments in that story two hours before TV had them,
because TV has a protocol you got to get it
doubly confirmed, et cetera. Whereas Twitter is posting the video
of the guy up on the roof, and you know
what I mean, like, you're his name his name, Although
that night, oddly we haven't learned a lot more about
that guy since you guests, well, all true, isn't that interesting?
(11:33):
That's very bizarre. But anyway, it made me think, now
that's an issue, right, yeah, because we have to adhere
to protocols and TV news, but but as as we
open up the free flow of information and now you're
going to get duped a lot on Twitter, you've got
a problem. You got to really watch it because there's
a lot of idiots on there that are posting false
(11:53):
stuff and they're good and they're slick presenting something and
they'll say breaking in all caps and you're like, what
you can't you can't go overboard. You get a vet it.
But in a situation like that that I just described,
a big breaking news event like that, and you have time,
you can see what ends up being true and what
doesn't you know, and it's it really opened my eyes.
(12:14):
I contend though, my biggest thing in I would be
a terrible news director because I'm not big on censorship
of any kind. And then you always got people coming back, well,
the kids are watching, well, I'm sorry, we're not a
babysitting service like I don't. I'm really big on no
censorship at all so I would let things go, and
because it's important to report the truth right, And I
(12:39):
just think the two most important developments here over the
last several years were when we found out on Twitter
and then Zuckerberg came out on Facebook and admitted what
we all knew, which was the censorship that was going
on on COVID and other things bizarre. All right, we're
out of time in this segment. We got more time
(13:00):
to do it. I'm here, I got to take a break.
Come back. We're to talk more about some other issues
coming up to but we're trying to save the world.
That's what John Bowle and I are doing. Could do
that one click at a time. Back in a few
on news radio. Wait forty whas free well out over her.
I love her too, Alum fish, I spend all day.
(13:22):
That's for you, John boll a phishing song. I already
went Monday night. I can go on weeknights now and
I went and I kept thinking I had to go home,
and I thought, why do you have to go home? Right?
John Bowles here, he just retired. Where we're kind of
working out the world's problems. You know, we were talking
about some of the challenges we have in our media business,
and we don't know everything where we just only live.
(13:44):
You know, a problem we have in our society is
everybody judges everybody else. You don't understand my pain. You
have privilege of this or whatever fill in the blank.
But whatever one doesn't understand is of the seven billion
people on the planet, everybody's got a pack of sticks
on their back carrying the number one thing I came
away from this whole retirement process and all the beautiful
(14:06):
notes I got, I just sat down yesterday and read
them all finally for the so I could make sure
I covered them all. And it's the little things I said.
I can't tell you how many times the biggest takeaway
in life changing thing I did for somebody was a
little comment I made that I don't even remember at
a time when, of course I didn't know that they
(14:26):
were going through something, and it helped them immensely. So
if there's any lesson in that, it's to do it
even if you don't feel like doing it, because you
never know what somebody's going through. Just constant encouragement. It's
so true and so valuable to so many people who
send you notes and update you on things in their life,
how they're doing, you have seen them in twenty years
(14:47):
or whatever. I couldn't believe it. All the little encouraging
things I said to people that I don't even remember,
and to be honest with you don't really sound like me.
I mean, I have been a different person after rehab, fortunately,
so credit rehab with changing my character. But we're in
a business where we're on stage, and so we have egos,
(15:10):
and it is different than someone who works at a
job that's more nondescript and not certainly not public. So
you know, we've got exaggerated egos. Yep. You know when
you and I walk into Kroger fourteen people are going
to say something to us and they're all friendly. Yes,
And a good lesson I got on that one time.
Was I was I was walking through church with my mom.
(15:32):
She was in town, and several people had stopped and
tried to talk to me, and I wasn't being very
nice and she grabbed my hands. She says, Johnny, you
need to be nice to these people. They're your viewers
and you're not being nice. And I thought, you're right,
Like that's that's terrible. But yeah, we all have egos.
I just this Don Shelby, retired anchor up in MINNEAPOLISID.
(15:53):
I was just talking about he was talking about. He said,
my advice for you in retirement is to say no
to everything for two years. And I said why and
he said, because a news anchor works a job where
you feel relevant and special all the time, and that
now that you're not going to be doing that, you're
going to want to feel relevant and special. So you're
going to start saying yes to all these things. And
(16:14):
he said, don't do that, like find yourself. But I
thought that was profound because I can see where that
would happen. Yeah, you want to fill up your dance card.
And you also want to feel that thing that when
somebody pulls you on a sleeve in a grocery store
and says, I enjoy your work. Yes, it's nice to
feel that again. And it's kind of click bait for
(16:35):
us emotionally because we're we're fragile anyway, because we're in
this business. I told you this long time ago, Well,
the funniest things has ever happened to me. I like
to tell people this and speeches, but it's got a
curse word in it. So I got to limited. I'm
in Bashford Manor Mall. That's how long ago that was.
I'm looking at some shirts on a table and a
guy touches me on the back of my hand because
(16:56):
my face is down. I'm looking at shirts and I
turn up and look and there's a man standing there
and he says, you're full of fecal matter. You know that?
And then he spun and walked away. And I thought,
I'm going to take that as praise. I still laugh
about that. I just had a guy yesterday came in.
I was at a consignment store trying to get rid
(17:19):
of all my Derby suits. I'm not gonna be neating anymore.
And he he comes in. He goes, John Bowl, please
don't retire. We really no one does what you do.
Who's going to go undercover now in the most dangerous
neighborhoods and do? And he went on and he started
reciting the different stories I've done. That story you did
at Fourth and Oak, and the story on this and that.
(17:39):
I thought, wow, like, I'm not going to get that
up in Wisconsin. But we've gotten to do really touching
things too. A woman and her family are standing on
Breckenridge Treat the home burned. People saw it all over
the news. I happened to work for a foundation quietly
that was run by Patino. I call him an hour later,
(18:03):
I got ten thousand dollars. Yeah. I walk over and
this woman doesn't know me from Adam, walk up, slide
a check in her hand and say it's looking out
for you. And the way she started shaking over that,
and we were just trying to help her, just give
her a little boost. I did that so many times,
delivering money or letting someone know that they were going
(18:24):
to get something from that Daniel Patino foundation. It was like,
that's the difference is when you get a chance to
do those types of things. I didn't do anything. I
was just a messenger boy. But that's okay. Yeah, I
did a story and I got a call from a guy.
You know. I used to get thirty forty story pitches
or complaints, you know, per day, And in a market
(18:46):
size of like a million people, a lot of so
everybody was coming to me with their problems. The one
guy came to me with he he had a problem
with he had a son with severe disabilities, and the
way the Kentucky system was working there wasn't a place
for him. Essentially, they couldn't accommodate, and I just did
the story and boom, he called me back crying like that.
(19:07):
The second that thing hit the air. You know, Uh,
they're going to do right by him. They found a place.
It's just all worked out, thank you. Now. A lot
of times that doesn't happen. But and the other thing
that's kind of the funny flip side of that is
a lot of times just the mere call, hey, John
Bowle's working on this, getting ready to do a story
on this. You'd be amazed how that happens. Just the
(19:31):
pull that lever once or twice too. But for everyone,
service is the greatest thing you can do in your lifetime,
service to others. That's why it's the twelfth step or
the twelfth step process in recovery. Yeah, to to continue
to carry the message and to be of service to
(19:52):
other people. No one cares about the stories you did,
they interviews, whatever it is. It's the it's the lives
that you've in packed it and helped mentor yeah, or
you just helped somebody who was in a pinch. And
then you know, I've had some challenges in my life too,
and then people pop up and they just they throw
you a life raft and you're like, where did this
(20:15):
come from? What came from heaven? That's where it came.
You know what's interesting about that is I had a
you know, anybody who's read either of my books knows
that every chapter is really just a mini life lesson.
And I just lived a mini life lesson, like the
day of my retirement as I looked out to address
the people or just mingle with the people who showed up.
(20:36):
What's the first thing that popped in my mind when
I saw different people, Like when I saw Doug Prophet,
it wasn't oh, that's the competing news anchor guy I've
been battling with, who's just a great journalist. The first
thought in my mind was, Wow, that's the guy that
wrote me a letter when I was in rehab. Right,
and it just goes. It was down the line, don g.
(20:56):
It's not for all the community stuff she does. It
was first thought that popped in my mind was her
wheeling up a cooler full of drinks when I was
in intensive care with my daughter after she got hit
on hersborn land. Like every single thought, the first thought
that I had about the people in that room had
nothing to do with what they do for a living.
It was how they came through for me in a
(21:19):
time of crisis. That's what you're remembered by. I'm worried
about our society. You and I've had this discussion before.
We've run enough miles together. We've had discussions about everything.
I'm just worried about the unwinding of I've already used
the word grace earlier, where people don't look out for
each other, and it's so easy to do. But it's
(21:41):
just like they say, the simple rules are finish high school,
get married before you have kids, and help raise your kids.
Don't run away. It just seems like a simple path
to at least having some stability, and of course that
(22:03):
lesson that is talked to the kids you bring up
and their kids and so forth. It's it's very simple.
It's really simple. But so many other, so much other
messaging comes in. You don't need this, you don't need
you need to be in Vegas, you need to be this,
you need to have this purse that costs eight thousand dollars,
and none of that means anything. No, when we uh,
(22:23):
when I get in discussions. You know, inevitably in a
newsroom especially, you get into the what is wrong right,
what's wrong with Louisville, what's wrong with the country? What?
You know, what? What? What's what's when you're doing the
homicide stories, and it's it's really simple. It's it's it's
three things. It's, uh, we don't value life anymore, right,
we don't value life. They've legislated that right out. And
(22:46):
now there's just that's why these guys are just going
around hitting people, shooting people fourteen years old whatever. Parenting
which you just touched on. Parenting is trash largely and
there and there's no accountability, like there's I don't know
where accountability went. There's no shame either. No, people don't
feel shame about anything. There's no we had it. You know,
(23:09):
It's funny when reporters start in the newsroom and they
we do a lot of shock probation here. They've never
heard of the term shock probation. Then I have to
explain it to them. That's you get a long prison sentence,
but then you can petition after sixty or ninety days.
I can't remember which one it is to get out
of jail and the reason being, well, what I did
wasn't that bad, but I learned my lesson. Okay, I'm good.
(23:32):
And so many people get shock probation. Fine, whatever the
argument is. We did a story on a guy who
robbed and shot a dude in a public park in Louisville,
who got shock probation. I'm like, what, mind boggling. Yeah,
and some people listen to us and say, well, those
are just old guys talking. Well, I'm talking about this
(23:53):
is the way the human race stays together from the
beginning of time. Yeah. Just raising your kids and being
there for them. There's nothing different about this from the
year one hundred BC. I mean, if you could wave
your wand and change one thing about society at least me,
(24:13):
if there was a genie in a bottle, to me,
it would be fathers being fathers. Yeah. Do I have
time to tell a quick story? Okay? So I was
doing a story on this great guy. I even remember
his name. This is in the late nineties. Andre Barnes
was doing something in Smoketown to try to turn around
(24:34):
the wayward kids. And I went to his Bible study
and he held his Bible study in a school. I
remember that I think was at Mosique because kids don't
trust churches. He thought he was right. So I go
in there with a camera cameraman and there's like sixty
or eighty kids in the bleachers getting ready for this,
(24:55):
and mostly girls. And he told me most of these
people are gang members. And he starts talking and he
opens up for discussion about the pain they're feeling and
all that, and I thought, no way in the world.
You know, how kids are you get a camera up
in their face. They're not gonna bear their soul with
a camera in their face. And one after another after another,
to the point where I was crying myself. They started
(25:18):
just divulging these horrible stories about their dad's being absent
in their life, all of them. That was a common
denominator in all of it. And then how their lives
had gone sense and they're now in gangs and blah
blah blah. It was so it was one of the
most eye opening things I ever witnessed as a journalist.
That's the human race, though, I mean, it goes to
the beginning of time. Yeah, but people talk about, oh, well,
(25:40):
you're just old school now years it's really simple. Yeah,
structure is what parameters is what helps someone stay within
a limit, and you know, you let people express themselves
to a degree, and it's really easy to get out
of that structure. Like how many times I'm guilty of this?
Like like have the value of the family sitting down
(26:01):
for dinner, right, and like I'm the one who is no,
I want to get take it in front of the TV.
My wife, God bless her, is no. We're sitting down
as a family and that has carried on to my
kids and I've seen it reap all the benefits. Yeah,
we don't have any much time left here unless you
can have time for another segment. You're going fishing. I'm
not going fishing. Just sit tight. We're gonna talk after
(26:23):
the top of the hour. Yeah, John Boll retired news anchor,
because we have a few other issues to get to
because we have to save journalism. Let's save journalists. We're
going to do that before it's so all right, we
talk fishing later back in a minute. But look at
that John Boll is hanging on for extra innings. It's
(26:43):
good to have you here. I love you. You are a
fantastic love you too. Thank you. This is great. We're
solving all the world problems. We've helped each other through
tough times in our lives, and it's just good. It's
good to have friends that you can consult. Henry sad
Loos another one. This is somebody that we talk to
each other every week, at least once a week. He
has just helped me out with a health issue recently.
(27:04):
Is fantastic. Oh good, But but you know, there's just
a few. There's a handful of people I can talk
to anytime anywhere. Three in the morning, three in the afternoon,
doesn't matter. You were one of them. Yes, that is correct,
and same goes for you. I know you'll be at
the house in a minute if we have an issue.
And that's that's what you need in life. I think
that's we're lucky. Some people don't have those types of relationships.
(27:26):
I feel sorry for him. I don't know what to
say because I can only be me, you can only
be you. No, And I didn't have a relationship like
that pre rehab. I was, you know, all shutterered in
on myself and not a kind person and not inviting.
Didn't have very many friends like that's the way I was. Well,
you're pretty immersed in your work. But I could call
(27:47):
you and say, dude, I'm training for a marathon. Oh yeah,
I got to run fifteen miles and say, okay, i'll
be here in the morning, and then we'd go do it.
And you were just helping me. Yes, you didn't need
to do that, and you just helped me. Right, So
I appreciate that. And I never forget that either. Well, good,
my memory is as sharp as ever, and I never
forget people to help me. Well, I'm the same way.
I'm always there and I do so far. I think
(28:09):
that's the best, the best gift. All right, So I
have to ask you. Yeah, I went to your party Saturday.
You retired last Friday. When you woke up on Sunday,
you went to church, I'm sure. Then Monday, Tuesday. Here
it is Thursday. What was it like yesterday morning? You
haven't been in news for three news days business day
(28:29):
the first The good news. The good news is I
used to wake up and by the time working night shift,
by the time i'd wake up, I would have thirty
to fifty emails, all people asking me for something. And
then through the course of the rest of the day,
I would have another hundred and I'd have to be
on my phone fourteen hours a day because you work
news and you get story tips that even when you're
not at work, that's gone, and that is that is
(28:50):
a good development, Okay, I don't have to stress and
worry about all those things. The downside of it is
like I still feel like I have to be somewhere,
I have to do something. I just feel like I
have to have duties. And then I remind myself why
you don't like you're free right now to do my
(29:12):
Like right now, my wife has a long list of
things to get the house ready to sell it. But
you know the ten thousand hour rule. You do something
ten thousand hours, you're kind of an expert at it.
You've done one hundred thousand hours. I did sixteen thousand
hours of anchoring. I totaled it up, oh sixteen. I
went through year by year and the number of hours
per day I was anchoring just in Louisville, and it
(29:35):
was fifteen thousand and nine to ninety. So you throw
in a few derbies, and it's sixteen thousand hours on
the air. That's on the air a couple thousand stories exactly.
But think of the prep time that goes along with
that one, right, right, I do that four hours on
the radio forty five. I'm at year forty at nine. Now, right,
let's think about how much mock has been given to that.
(29:55):
But that's okay. I just wondered how it is okay,
And like a lot of like when I was doing
my going away speech at the retirement lunch, and a
lot of people, when they're at the end, they look
back and I start thinking of all those weekends I
spent in the edit bay, all the vacations where I
took my notes with me for stories I was working on,
and all the extra hours I was putting in. And
(30:17):
a lot of people then apologize for that to their family. Right,
that's time I took away from my family. But you
know what, I come at it from a little bit
of a different angle on that. I don't apologize for
that because what we do, what I did was important,
It was important. That makes sense. We both love the
(30:38):
news business. We know it's reshaping, and that's good because
it's reshaped from the time we were babies. That's just
all part of it. Everything just changes. And if you
don't accept change, your loss. Yes, so we all know
everything's on digital platforms, all these other ways people reach out.
It's all splintered off broadcasting as a word that means
throwing it everywhere, But really it's narrow casting, is what's
(30:59):
going on now. Yes, people just narrowly points a beam
of light and just the people that care about it
fly into the broadcast to your foxhole, and your foxhole
followers stay there. I'm afraid that it's going to be
hard to put it all back together and get people
unified like you do on Super Bowl Sunday, for instance,
(31:21):
that's one hundred and twenty five million people. I mean,
that's a unifying event. News is tougher now just because
of so many different things. People say, Hey, I'm I'm
free to be me, and I only want to hear
things about me, And it's like, it's odd we haven't
had a unifying event news wise since nine to eleven.
(31:41):
Think about it. Good point. It's a long time, sad
and horrible and tragic. Speaking of such, the rules have
changed drastically. I know that you brought in that Courier
journal from nineteen eighty nine that shows the Standard Reviewer massacre.
One of the victims is in the photo on the
front page. You know, you can't find that online anymore.
I know. So I brought this in to Terry here.
(32:03):
I used to I'm going through my stuff, getting ready
to move and pairing things down, and I came across
this because I used to carry this to speeches to
students to show them what news used to be when
it comes to censorship and what it is now in
the to describe it, how would you describe it? The
front page of the Courier Journal on September fifteenth, nineteen
(32:23):
eighty nine literally showed a worker slumped back over a
conveyor belt, blood all over the ground, blown away. That's
somebody's dads. And so I even back then the Courier
took a lot of grief, I remember, but the I
do also remember the next day of the Career put
out an explainer that if people don't realize now, but
(32:45):
the standard Revere massacre was one of the first big
mass shootings in America. And what they were their their
their excuse for it was, this is so above and
beyond even the normal mayhem in our society. We wanted
to get across the gravity of how much different and
worse this is, and we thought that this photo achieved that. Again,
(33:05):
they took a lot of grief for that. But it
is interesting, all these years later look back on this
and think of what would like today. You would never
people lose their minds. They'd lose their minds on TV.
They'll say, I just want you to be warned. This
video is disturbing, and it'll turn out it'll be a
(33:26):
puppy with a thorn in his paw, Like, are what
are you talking about? Are we that soft? I mean,
you can't tell people the truth. Every time in the room,
I'm going over my scripts and I come across that
we have to warn you about this video, and I
would pop my head up, say the producers, what is
so graphic and disturbing about this video? In some cases
(33:47):
I go over and look at it and I'd be like,
are you serious? This is not disturbing to even one
percent of the population, Like all we have to do it.
I did see photos online of the driving down Bourbon
Street New Year's Day. Yeah, killed people. I hate to
say it, but I think that there's there's importance in
(34:09):
the reality that has foistood upon people. So they realized
the trauma, the drama, the pain, the agony and the
degradation of society. When when it comes to something like that,
by just showing blurrs all the time, are we really illustrate?
(34:29):
Are we telling the truth? We're telling enough? And when
you're That's why I would never want to be a
news director, because when you make those decisions what you know,
how much to censor, et cetera, you're that's shaping public opinion,
like the you know what I mean, like there are
a lot of people that would look upon something completely
different if they saw the reality of it. The I
(34:51):
was sharing with you a short time ago, the I'll
never forget. One of my first interactions with this was
that there was a war in Bosnia back in the nineties,
and and all all the coverage had been so soft sold.
And one day, I don't know why, but there was
a bombing of a bunch of people in a soup line,
and all the network news stations decided, for whatever reason,
(35:14):
that's enough, we have to show people what's really going on.
And they showed the real, non blurred video of all
the people blown away in the soup line, and it
completely changed the entire American narrative on what to do
about that war, and things changed fast all the way
up to the president. I mean the case study in
that's the Vietnam War, right, yeah, yeah, when they started
(35:37):
showing what was really going on, and look what happened
to public opinion, embedded reporters. So yet see that actually
happening and showing the real film at the time of
what was going on. I mean, the opening thirty minutes
of Saving Private Ryan is so graphic, but I think
so much more helpful in detailing the atrocities of what
(35:57):
war is and looks like as opposed to the stuff
we saw when we were growing up or being somebody
shoots somebody and they just fall down. And that's My
father in law was in the D Day Invasion and
he told me that first twenty two minute clip is
exactly what it was like exactly. And that's not news,
that's a creation from Steven Spielberg, but it does speak
(36:18):
to this. Yes, you show people the reality for reality
so that society grows from it, right and betters itself. Now,
it's kind of you are kind of there's not much
censorship now because it'll end up on Twitter somewhere else,
you know what I mean. So you can still see
the stuff. But then there's all the other kinds of
(36:40):
censorship and social media that we just learned about with
Zuckerberg and with Muscaea, that they were jacking around with
what people saw correct and the algorithms. And yes, but
people are there so incredibly sensitive. Now, if I show
a picture of a cheeseburger, somebody in the thread will say,
do you know what happened to a cow for you
to have that cheese? Be better? Do better? What do
(37:03):
you know that? When I did the hot dog eating contest,
we got a people are starving in this world and
you choose to partake in gluttony. Yeah, well, it's just right, Okay,
I'm glad we're solving some of the problems that we're
going to be able to button up our We we
both love journalism, we both love media. I want us
(37:24):
to survive. Journalism is gonna win the derby. I saw
that the journalism. Everybody in our business is going to
bet on that horse. Yes, uh, now, there there's still
a place for good journalism. Just I mean, you gotta
you gotta wash it. It's there was a there was
a story last week. I won't name the network. It
(37:45):
was a reporter package, so we couldn't get in there
and change anything. But in the package there was a
sentence that said, uh, something like Musk and Trump accuse uh,
the administration of wasteful spending, and then the end of
the set said but provided no proof, but provided no proof.
(38:06):
I literally got on doge dot gov every day for
a couple of weeks where they provide the proof, where
they post the receipts and the bills and the contracts,
all the proof. I got in there every day until
I got so mad. The headline and the headline writer
and the editor are just angry that Trump's the president.
Apparently that's just sad, though. But the thing is they
(38:29):
could have found all this stuff. I'm sure in Trump's administration,
in Barack Obama exactly right, every one of the bush.
But my point is to literally put in a network
news story but provided no proof, like they're doing it
every day. We're in a tight space there, bro. I
am so happy for you that you don't have to
(38:51):
answer a thousand emails a day. Nope, I can now
sit back and watch it all unfold. Go fishing. I'll
talk to You're gonna go fishing. Thanks for having on
her John Bowl, now retired from the local media. Like
I said in that piece that ran on your station,
he'll be back. You think I'm wrong. The overunder, they said,
(39:12):
ed waves three years the Vegas old runners. I'll be
back in news and within three years, I told Shannon Cogan,
by the end of the first week, you'll be begging
her take me back. Love you, brother, Love you too.
Your brain gets hot, but your head gets down.
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