Jay Weber said he tolerates winter, like most of us here in Wisconsin. It’s a long season which offers few respites for those not entrenched in outdoor activities.
Weber is a regular guy. A man born and raised in Oconomowoc, enjoys basketball and hunting–perhaps not as much as he once did.
“I used to hunt, but as I’ve gotten older it happens less and less,” Weber said. “My brother owned some land near the Wisconsin Dells for years and we went up there from our 20s to 40s. We get more enjoyment now watching our nephews hunt.”
As a kid, Weber said he had interest in just about anything and everything. Yet, there wasn’t a single passion or goal in life. He was able to identify a direction, despite it not emanating from a deeply-rooted dream.
“One of the reasons I got into journalism is I figured it was a good way to learn a little about a lot,” Weber said. “ I was told I had a good voice and I imagined I wanted to be a performer in some sense. Radio became more natural for me than working in print.”
He attended Kettle Moraine High School and later, UW-Madison.
At Kettle Moraine High School, Weber said he was a popular kid, playing on the basketball team.
“I got along with everyone in my class,” he said. “It was a great time to be alive. It was that whole Stranger Things era that we got to live.”
Weber’s parents both worked and were busy out of the house.
“I think that gave me more autonomy,” Weber explained. “It was a fun time to be a kid, both in high school, then college.”
When he attended the university in the 80s, Weber said it was a time when the university appeared to be letting too many students in.
“There just weren’t enough spots for that many students,” he said. “We had to run around campus trying to get into classes. We managed to fit in a lot of partying at school.”
Weber began his radio career as an intern for radio sports personality Steve True at WTDY, but he recognized the need for a change.
Veteran Milwaukee talker Mark Belling was news and program director at WTDY before he moved to WISN in Milwaukee.
“I graduated in the winter of 1988. Mark Belling hired me at WTDY two months before he left for Milwaukee,” Weber said. “I was going to school at Madison for an undergraduate degree in English and Journalism,” Weber said. “At that point I couldn’t afford to work as an unpaid intern, so I started to work at WIBA part-time as a reporter.”
Weber discovered he was no longer interested in working in sports.
At WIBA he started work as an evening reporter covering night meetings, school board meetings.
“It was a great experience,” Weber said. “I was able to cover the city, county and state government. A fantastic way to become a stronger journalist.”
WTDY and WISN are the only stations Weber has ever worked.
“I’ve been lucky,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate to be in Milwaukee for the past 32 years. I see it as I’ve had four different radio careers. I was a news reporter, a sidekick on a morning show, news director, then talk radio.”
Weber said he wanted to get into talk radio despite the fact he wasn’t really a political guy.
“I was always a conservative. I didn’t vote regularly. But WISN got rid of the newsroom for budgetary reasons and the station has been sold five or six times.”
While at WISN, Weber was promoted to news director and primary host of WISN’s Morning News. In 1998, Weber was teamed with Bob Dolan.
Dolan had previously worked as a sportscaster at WTMJ-TV, announcing Marquette basketball games.
“Bob was a good partner,” Weber explained. “We were essentially thrown together by our program director Jerry Bott, sort of a necessity. Our news shows had ended and we needed to put something together.”
The two had never met. Dolan was working in Green Bay and Bott teamed them up in 1998.
“Bob was hired cold,” Weber said. “Jerry figured we’d be a good match. I was more from news and it was a bit of a gamble. The first few weeks of the show were awful as we got to know each other.”
Dolan left the show in 2007. Weber and Dolan. Dolan has been busy with his Dolan Productions. It was then that Weber began his own show and never broke stride.
“At that point I’d had so much experience on and off the air. Doing my own show wasn’t that big of a change.”
Weber said during his career, the way we gather news today has dramatically shifted.
“Twitter is still a great breaking news tool, but you still have to be very selective, double check stories,” he explained. “It can be used in so many ways. To follow friends, meet up with people on knitting sites. Follow news sources and newsmakers. I go to many news sites every day. I try to double and triple check facts. I’ll follow the New York Times, some more conservative sites.”
As news gathering has changed, Weber said he doesn’t utilize callers on his show as much as he had in the past. One way shows have changed, Weber explained, was there are people willing to text, but not call into the shows.
“So many different news outlets are consumed with narrowcasting. I don’t want to be limited with echo chambers on both sides of the aisle. That’s one of the reasons I don’t follow Parler.”
Weber said some people still choose to live in their little bubble and be reinforced on their thoughts, dug into their positions.
“It’s easier to have your own set of facts than ever before,” he said. “That bothers me. That’s why you have to consider the source. We are flooded with talking heads on both sides of the aisle. When it came to being a journalist and news director, I always tried to play things down the middle. I knew if both sides were complaining about our coverage, we were doing something right.”
Some news sources are better than others, more accurate.
“I try to avoid exaggerations. If you consume as many sites as I do daily, 10 are on the left and the rest on the right. I do my cross checking, boiling it down to what actually happened.”
Weber said he’ll still bring callers into the show but said one of the interesting side effects of cellphones is people want to text, not call.
“I could beg for callers, but I don’t need them to validate my position. I don’t ask for them as much as I used to and fill my own time. I don’t read other people’s texts on the air either. We’re living in a hyper-sensitive time. I’m doing the same show I always have. I might be a little more apt to hold a punch, or keep a comment to myself. I figure it’s a bad situation when you can’t joke about certain things.”
Admittedly not a man interested in politics early-on, today Weber isn’t reluctant to share his affinities.
“I initially supported Trump’s agenda, but not necessarily the man,” Weber said. “Still, I did support Trump throughout his entire presidency. I voted for Trump largely because he wasn’t Hilary Clinton. He came on my show and told me he vowed to appoint a conservative justice. I told my audience if he did that, everything else was gravy.”
Weber said in his view, Trump was a great president, yet he admits Trump had an uncanny ability to get in his own way.
“It seemed at times he went out of his way to upset the American people.”
Jim Cryns writes features for Barrett News Media. He has spent time in radio as a reporter for WTMJ, and has served as an author and former writer for the Milwaukee Brewers. To touch base or pick up a copy of his new book: Talk To Me – Profiles on News Talkers and Media Leaders From Top 50 Markets, log on to Amazon or shoot Jim an email at jimcryns3_zhd@indeedemail.com.
