Moving to Management (Members Only)

Moving On Up

By Sharon O’Malley

What's the next career step after being top news dog at various stations across the country? GM, of course. Meet some news directors who made the leap.

Onetime producer and news director Drew Berry is the first to admit that he "still wears a big ‘J' on my chest for ‘journalism,'" even though he has moved into a new role as vice president and general manager of WMAR-TV in Baltimore. "It's important because you have to understand news," he says.

But the view from the top extends far beyond the newsroom, notes Berry. "You have to think more globally now. It's not just the news department, but it's sales, it's marketing, it's production. You are responsible for a whole station of people, a whole business unit. It's a business. Even journalism is a business."

That, perhaps, is the hardest lesson for news directors-turned-general managers, who say their role as head of the news department prepared them well for their new jobs—except when it comes to sales and profits.

"Being a general manager isn't nearly as easy as I thought it would be," says Bill Payer, general manager of CONUS, a broadcast news

service in St. Paul, MN. "You need a different set of skills to manage the sales operation. You move from being very confident—not just of your skills but of your reactions—and now you have to develop a different set." (In September, CONUS announced that the CONUS All News Channel and the News Service would cease operations in the last quarter of 2002.)

He adds: "It's part of the challenge, but it's also part of the fun."

The second-hardest lesson is that the general manager can't run the newsroom.

"The news director has a very loud voice in a station, but the general manager has a much louder one," says Michael Kronley, vice president and general manager of KJRH-TV in Tulsa, OK, who says he stays away from newsroom meetings most days. "When the general manager suggests something, people tend to feel it's a commandment," he says.

"I miss being a news director a lot," admits John Butte, vice president and general manager of Ohio News Network in Columbus, OH. But he says his new job is better. "After 20 years, being able to have a different role with different challenges is more fun to me at this time."

And third, says Mark Antonitis, president and general manager of KELO-TV in Sioux Falls, SD, new general managers quickly learn that "you can never make all your dreams come true" even the ones you were sure you would play out in the newsroom the minute you took your general manager's place. "I find myself doing many of the things I abhorred in the general managers I worked with," he admits. "I have more empathy for the situation they were in."

Marci Burdick, recently promoted to vice president of TV group management for Schurz Communications, agrees. "A news director probably perceives it as nirvana to work for a newsperson, but in some cases it's worse," she says. "I know what I could do in a day, so when a news director says what he or she needs, I have a pretty good idea of whether that's accurate or not."

Still, working as a news director is good training for the next step up. "If you can run a news department, that really prepares you for the one million things you're going to have to do as a general manager," says Berry.

And, adds Wayne Godsey, president and general manager of KMBC-TV in Kansas City, MO, it's a step up every news director should consider. "Running a television station is the best job in the business," he says. "Not only do you stay in touch with news, which is your heritage and your history, but you also have an opportunity to go beyond what happens in a newscast."

Withdrawal Symptoms

Marci Burdick
WAGT-TV
Augusta, GA

Soon after Marci Burdick accepted her first general manager's job, but before she had a chance to hire a news director at WAGT-TV in Augusta, GA, a member of the local board of regents and his wife died in a plane crash.

Burdick's previous 12 years of experience as a news director kicked in, and she took over the story. Then she recruited a good news director and took a giant step away from news.

"I really had withdrawal symptoms," she says. "I realized how much I missed it."

In fact, she recalls, "In my first couple of weeks, there were a couple of breaking news stories, and I practically had to have someone put bars on my office door and keep me out of the newsroom. One of the rushes you get as a news director is a rush of adrenaline in the face of breaking news. In two years as a general manager, I haven't encountered too many situations that give me that feeling."

Still, concedes Burdick, who recently accepted a promotion as vice president of WAGT-TV's owner, Schurz Communications, "I do not miss the middle-of-the-night calls and having to rush out with a news emergency." As GM, her only after-hours emergency came when the building next door to WAGT's caught fire.

Indeed, she says the GM job affords her more flexibility in her schedule and gives her more control over station matters.

But it took Burdick about a year to settle into her new role. "I didn't know the secret handshakes in sales," she says. "I can stand in the middle of a newsroom and almost feel the vibes to know if it's a good newsroom or not. I didn't know the nuances of sales."

So once again, she drew on her journalism experience. "You fall back on your skills as a newsperson and become a researcher," she says, noting that she asked questions about the station, sales, finances, ratings and marketing of everyone involved in those areas.

"There isn't any facet of this job that's brain surgery," she says. "Whether you're a salesperson coming into it for the first time or a newsperson, you have to be prepared to do the research and appreciate that side of the business you don't know as well."

A Big Thinker

Mark Antonitis
KELO-TV
Sioux Falls, SD

Mark Antonitis started out as a news photographer, but by the time he was 25, he had his first taste of management—and he never looked back.

Antonitis, president and general manager of KELO-TV in Sioux Falls, SD, rose from manager of electronic journalism to assistant news director to news director, with an eight-year stint as an outside consultant along the way.

But he knew he wanted to run a TV station. "Sometimes in news, it's hard to look beyond what you're doing day to day," he says. "The general manager's job allows you to look at the big picture. I enjoy the big-picture part of being a general manager."

He often draws on his experience as a news director to help him solve management-level problems. "I have a more developed perspective on what the audience expectations are in a newscast and what we have to do as a TV station to succeed than I would have had if I didn't have the news director's experience," he notes. "A lot of the things [other general managers] get very concerned about—what the competition is doing, for instance—I don't get nearly as concerned about, because of my experience."

Still, he admits a "clear deficiency" in understanding the importance of sales until after his promotion. He had always relegated it to a second-tier position, behind news.

"All of us are sometimes a little bit too arrogant about our importance to a TV station's success," he says now. "There are other departments that are just as key to our success. I never fully appreciated that until I became a general manager."

A Different Beat

Roy Clem
TV Alabama Inc.
Birmingham, AL

When TV Alabama Inc. general manager Roy Clem talks to cops about reporters, he asks them to name the characteristics of a journalist. Their reply: nosey, prying, egotistical, arrogant. When he asks reporters to list the attributes of a police officer, they echo the adjectives.

And they're both right, says Clem, who ought to know: After starting his career in radio news, he joined the Denver Police Department, where he worked his way up to sergeant during a 12-year stint.

All the while, he kept a hand in the broadcast business, serving as on-air talent for the local Crime Stoppers spots. By 1986, television lured him out of his uniform and into an anchor's chair in Kirksville, MO, where he eventually worked his way up to news director. A move to Lynchburg, VA, in 1992 for a news director's job grew into a promotion to general manager, and in 1996, he moved one more time, to take his current general manager's job.

Just as being a reporter prepared him for his job in law enforcement, police work set him up to be a better journalist. "It helps you to look beyond the obvious," he says. "In any situation, you have to try to look deeper, to look through the prism of the person who's giving you information on a particular subject. It helps you be more discerning when you make decisions."

That's a skill that served him well as news director, a job that prepared him for his run as general manager. "I was dealing with the daily needs that occur in a newsroom: personnel management, budgeting, deadlines, decision-making," he says. "That helped me develop an overall management technique."

But his move to the general manager's office made him aware that a TV station doesn't begin and end in the newsroom. "The first thing I learned is that what we do is a business and we have business responsibilities, and as much as you may want to, you can't always do everything that you want."

Juggling Act

Paula Madison
KNBC-TV
Burbank, CA

Her personal goal as news director at WNBC-TV in New York was to make all of the station's newscasts No. 1 in the market for the first time in 16 years. In the four years it took Paula Madison, now president and general manager of KNBC-TV in Burbank, CA, to accomplish that, she had to pass up a few invitations from other stations to pitch for the general manager's job—another personal goal.

By the time she was reveling in her station's No. 1 status in 1999, the chairman of NBC threw a monkey wrench into Madison's plans: He asked her to become the network's vice president of diversity, a job that sprouted from a multinetwork effort to promote diversity in the media. "Diversity leader was not my career goal," she says flatly. "My career goal was to be a journalism leader for NBC."

But when the boss asks, says Madison, a onetime newspaper reporter, it's wise to say yes. So she struck a deal with him: She would take on the diversity role but keep her job as news director. A year and a half later, she was promoted to president and general manager of KNBC-TV

in Los Angeles, but continued her diversity work. When the network bought the Telemundo network of TV stations and made her regional general manager in addition to her KNBC job, she finally stepped out of the diversity role.

Doing more than anyone thought she could is what landed her in the plum position she now holds at KNBC, Madison says. "It really is an indicator to management," she says, and her training as news director was key to her being able to rise to the challenge. "News directors know how to juggle. We do 95 things at the same time. We prepare budgets. We make decisions about capital purchases, we stay on top of new platforms like digitization, we groom managers behind us. We're very good in most instances with an awful lot of jobs."

So logically, she says, "the general manager's job is the next step."

—Sharon O'Malley is a freelance writer in College Park, MD.

Been There, Done That

What does a news director need to do for a promotion to general manager? News directors-turned-general managers share with Communicator some secrets for success.

"Be a star at what you're doing. Focus on the job you have first rather than spending a lot of time looking beyond it and trying to get another job. People who get promoted are people who excel in the responsibilities they have."
—Wayne Godsey, president and general manager, KMBC-TV, Kansas City, MO

"Ask a lot of questions. Learn what all those other folks in the department-head meeting are doing and why. It will make you a better news director. And if you want to be a general manager, you're going to manage those people."
—Bill Payer, general manager of CONUS, a broadcast news service in St. Paul, MN

"Get the word out that you're interested in becoming a general manager. Tell your boss what you want to do. Ask him to help you get there. He's not going to be offended."
—Drew Berry, vice president and general manager of WMAR-TV in Baltimore

"Take every opportunity to walk in other people's shoes…even if there's no training program at your station. Take every opportunity you have to learn other parts of the business." Marci Burdick, vice president of TV group management, Schurz Communications"Think outside the newsroom. Think: How does what I'm doing affect the whole station? Look at the person who has the job you want. How did he or she get it? What did they do?"
—Michael Kronley, vice president and general manager, KJRH-TV, Tulsa, OK

"Always be willing to step up, take a harder assignment, go for the stretch job."
—Paula Madison, president and general manager, KNBC-TV, Burbank, CA

"Learn and work and understand the revenue side of the business. News directors need to learn how to put their product into perspective with the revenue of the business."
—John Butte, vice president and general manager, Ohio News Network, Columbus, OH

"Try to break down those walls [between news and sales]. Develop the best relationships you can with sales, engineering and promotions. Understand what they do and why they do it."
— Roy Clem, general manager, TV Alabama Inc., Birmingham, AL