Two States. Three Counties. One Community. While Allegheny Mountain Radio mostly plays music they carry NPR’s top-of-the-hour news and essential local news to their community. “I’m very passionate about [news] now and take pride in what I do. To educate the community about what’s going on,” WVMR reporter Tim Walker told BNM over a Zoom call.
“Sometimes I walk into a store and as soon as I start talking, they’ll say, I know you.”
Walker is not your average reporter. Beginning in 1971, Tim Walker worked in law enforcement.
“I got an extensive law enforcement career. I actually started out with the Baltimore City Police Department when I lived in Maryland.” In 1973 he moved from local law enforcement to Federal Law Enforcement. “I spent about ten years with the federal government. Left there in 1983 and then fiddled around in some private security for three years and then joined the Anne Arundel County Sheriff in 1986. Retired from there in 2011.”
Retiring as a Lieutenant from Anne Arundel, Walker moved to his home on Droop Mountain, West Virginia. “I built the house on it in the early 80s. And I spent a lot of time down here, and I really love it down here.” He later added, “I spent the first three or four years pretty bored to death in here because I was single at the time. I heard an advertisement for a reporter job on Allegheny Mountain Radio and I put in an application and they interviewed me.”
In January 2015, Tim Walker received the job offer and accepted. “You know, I’ve gotten to know people in the community that we’ve never gotten to know, and I’ve gotten really involved in local politics here as far as the reporting of it.”
One of his most memorable stories is covering issues in local schools. “I thought the county commission treated the head of a local nonprofit — that does a lot of good for the county — poorly. [The non-profit] asked the county commission to share some of their COVID money because they were losing money. [The non-profit] run a food bank and everything else and one of the county commissioners just gave this gal a hard time.”
Tim Walker continued by saying, “I mean, she almost left the room in tears and I ended up doing several interviews with her to get her point across. Then, at the next county commission meeting, there was a strange item and it was the same Commissioner that nobody really knew what it was. And he said, ‘Well, look, this is really about — it’s fake news’ and he turned to me and accused me of fake news.
“Now we laugh about it. Now, I get along with him fine but he didn’t like the fact that I seemed to be wanting to get her opinion across when he had given her such a hard time, and I think I brought out the fact that she was given a hard time in that story. So, that was one of the more memorable stories that I did, I think. Then, of course, I had fun doing the story on that meeting where it was called fake news.”
As for Walker’s police training, he said it has come in handy. “At one point, I was in charge of the community relations section for the county police, and although I wasn’t one of their normal media people, sometimes on a weekend, I would be asked to cover the media stories.
There are a number of times dealing with some of the Maryland TV stations that were new or major newspapers that we would be talking and I would say I thought we were just talking and I would say some things, and then next thing you know, that was reported in a negative light.”
Walker added, “And I said, ‘Wait a minute now. I thought we were off the record.’ They said we did not specifically say that this was off the record. So, one of the things I learned from that was, I tell people now that, ‘Hey, we’re chatting, and unless we agree that it’s on the record, it’s off the record. When we go on the record, I’ll tell you we’re now on the record.’”
A second thing Walker’s police training taught him? “I think writing skills help a lot. That, I picked up in the police department, believe it or not. As a supervisor lieutenant in the police department, I began to see the quality of writing of the new recruits going downhill. And, I guess maybe it has something to do with the rise of social media where they’re not reading anymore. And if you don’t read, you can’t be a good writer.”
Tim Walker believes the most important thing for those working in local news is, “they have to be respectful of the person that they interview. Well, we’re talking and they have to really get to know all sides of an issue, because there’s usually three or four different sides to every issue. And sometimes that can be hard to do.
“I think the trick is you really have to get to know your community. If you’re a local reporter, it’s probably a good idea — if you’re a local reporter and strictly stick local — you don’t try to bring too much national.”
In his spare time the 75-year-old volunteers as an announcer for the school football team. “I think we only won one game last year. But it’s a very small school here in Pocahontas County. It’s probably one of the least populated counties east of the Mississippi.”
Despite the losses Walker loves announcing for the team. “It’s fun because I interview the coach the day before the game, and we talk things over. Hopefully, they’re going to have a better team next year.”
Walked added “It was mostly all freshmen and sophomores or hardly any juniors and seniors. So if that group sticks together, they may have a better season next year.”
As for work, Tim Walker loves his politics beat and told Barrett News Media, “I enjoy covering it but I don’t get involved in politics, you know? I’ve had people I know who are very far to the left and people down here that I know that are very far to the right. They’ve asked me, you know, what is your politics? Because we, you know, we listen to your stories and we can’t tell. And I said, well, that means I’m doing my job right.”
Krystina Alarcon Carroll is a news media columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. She has experience in almost every facet of the industry including: digital and print news; live, streamed, and syndicated TV; documentary and film productions. Her prior employers have included NY1 and Fox News Digital and the Law & Crime Network. You can find Krystina on X (formerly twitter) @KrystinaAlaCarr.
