Free Number Two by Jay Onrait Page B

and it didn’t result in any of the offending parties getting fired,but it did serve as a reminder that as long as your microphone is on and a camera is pointed toward you, you have to really watch what you say and do in this industry. And you have to treat people well, especially the people responsible for editing the holiday filth reel.

Chapter 8
Road Trip
    W hen I arrived in Saskatoon in the fall of 1999 for my first job at Global Television, I felt ill-prepared for the task at hand. On-air presentation? I was barely adequate. Luckily, I hosted my first show on a Saturday afternoon when the only people watching were a bunch of seniors gathered around a television set in an extended-care home. The first broadcast went well enough, the second even better, and from there I got into a decent rhythm.
    As sports director, I was expected to run a department that included three additional people: my co-anchor on Sportsline , our weekend solo anchor, and an intern from a broadcasting school, who would likely do as many interviews and file as many reports as anyone because, hey, it’s Canadian TV and free labour was what made it all work. All three individuals in these roles were older than me and yet somehow I was expected to supervise them. I’d barely gotten my feet wet in the industry and already I was required tocorrect writing mistakes, assign stories, and tell guys when I thought their on-air performance was lacking—even though I was clearly no expert. It was something I was never completely comfortable with, but the guys in the department were so laid back they made it easier. I mentioned Derek Bidwell, my co-anchor on Sportsline ,in Anchorboy ,and R.J. Broadhead, who was the weekend anchor. Both guys were easy to get along with and true professionals (Bidwell is laughing reading this because no one in his life has ever called him a true professional). I didn’t socialize with either of them too much, however, because I didn’t think it was my place. I quickly realized how difficult it was to be a young boss with colleagues your own age or older—people you would normally hang around with but who were suddenly off-limits because you had crossed over to management. This is especially true of interns, who are supposed to be learning from you and taking guidance. But for whatever reason I hit it off with our intern that year in Saskatoon, and it had nothing to do with his looks—which are hideous.
    Reid Wilkins was born just a few months before me in 1974 and grew up much like I did in a small Alberta town about an hour from Edmonton called Evansberg. Reid’s dad was principal at the local school, and the family lived on an acreage about ten minutes outside of town. He was the school valedictorian, so obviously much smarter than I was, but he also loved sci-fi and comics and all the things I liked. Like me, Reid went to the University of Alberta after high school, but unlike me he actually completed his degree. Then, while working at an Edmonton Blockbuster Video, he decided his lifelong love of the Edmonton Eskimos, Montreal Canadiens, and Montreal Expos was a great reason to dive into the broadcasting business. He enrolled in the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology School of Broadcasting and a year later successfully nabbed an internship at my station, just a few months after I arrived.
    We hit it off right away, often spending afternoons in the office doing a rather diabolical Chris Cuthbert impression where Cuthbert, one of our favourite broadcasters, had actually turned into a violent sociopath and was now verbally abusing his colour commentator John Davidson in the broadcast booth. Cuthbert’s voice always had to be very high pitched to exaggerate the slightly higher octave his voice took while calling the CFL or NHL.
    CHRIS: Well, JD, it looks like the Leafs’ defence is easy to penetrate, just as your home will be easy for me to penetrate when I invade it tonight and