Anyone — in news/talk radio or otherwise — remember the name Mark Haines? He was a longtime anchor at financial news network CNBC who passed away in 2011.
When I got there as a general assignment reporter in 2007, he was co-anchoring a morning show called Squawk on the Street with Erin Burnett, who’s now at CNN. During the financial crisis, he famously called the stock market bottom in 2009.
Mark Haines was a legend on Wall Street. Heavyset, confident, and sometimes disinterested, he would sit on the New York Stock Exchange television set with a suit jacket and sweatpants. Yes, sweatpants.
Business on top, party on the bottom.
He would take smoke breaks during commercials, and his breakfast often was a bag of Cheetos dipped in ketchup.
Legend.
Mark Haines also had no idea who I was when I began as a reporter. The first few times I met and worked with Haines, he never even said my name, and I don’t think he even said hello until the fifth or sixth time we interacted.
He was intimidating, brilliant, and completely unique.
To me, what made him special as a journalist was not his market prognostication, experience, or comfortable on-air demeanor.
It was his ability to ask great questions.
Once I showed up often enough for him to acknowledge my presence, I worked up the courage to start a conversation. We started talking about interviewing styles as I so admired his ability to get people to talk beyond talking points.
At one point, Haines lost patience (I probably cost him a cigarette and a bag of chips) and turned to me, bluntly telling me that he simply asks whatever he’s authentically curious about, even if it seems stupid, basic, or unrelated. He had seen basically everything there is to see on Wall Street, and he said, more often than not, what you are naturally curious about is usually what the viewer is thinking as well.
He was right.
Or maybe he was right because his natural instincts and interests were so good.
Either way, that conversation always has stuck with me, and I’ve tried to honor that approach as much as possible.
What does that have to do with radio life in late spring of 2024?
Good question!
We are now basically in summertime. Oftentimes, talk radio audiences wane a bit when school is out and much of our audience is on vacation.
Maybe we should adopt a bit of a vacation mentality, too. The phrase “a bit” is the operating element of that sentence. It doesn’t mean loaf on prep work, booking, and execution. For the sake of this column, it means two things: Follow your instincts, and secondly, do some experimenting. Maybe you already follow all your instincts, but if not, go in one day and do exactly what you want and not just what you think you should do.
Throw some spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.
If it crashes and burns, no harm no foul. If it’s fun and/or garners positive feedback, go with it.
We get a whole bunch of flak for sometimes doing too much sports during our morning show in Connecticut. I began my journalism career in sports, and it’s part of my identity. I can’t avoid it. My producer: Same thing.
I’m somewhat self-conscious about it, but on a day when basketball/broadcasting great Bill Walton dies and MLB umpire Angel Hernandez seemingly gets booted out of baseball, we followed our instincts and blew off a bunch of harder news and had some fun with both.
We’re past Memorial Day. Why not?
The most personal with me was the passing of Walton. I loved the Celtics as a kid, and the 1986 team was my favorite. I also interviewed him twice, and always admired his Mark Haines-ian way of doing exactly what he wanted.
So, I told stories, ran soundbytes, and had guests on to discuss him.
I loved it, and things even got emotional. I have no idea if it worked. Dare I say, I don’t care? Maybe I won’t go that far, but I went with what naturally interested me and made me curious, and I loved it.
The hope is that if I enjoyed it, others may, too.
My next effort isn’t proving as easy. I am having a massive booking challenge right now. The prospective guest keeps asking for topics and then blowing me off. It’s frustrating, doubly so since it’s my best friend.
He’s nuts in a good way, and smart and funny … and we used to have our own show in college called “Cuzzi Convo”, except it never made the radio.
We spent the summer after college back in 1994 at his folks’ condo in California. We often ended the night in the condo complex’s jacuzzi, doing a fake sports radio show. I had just discovered sports radio, and we both loved it. Sitting there, half drunk at 1 AM, we thought we were brilliant, but it probably just sounded like two frat boys being idiots … or both.
He now lives an hour away, and I am so curious to see what our conversations might be on a real radio show. Right now, he’s balking, but I’ll let you know the date when I can nail down the booking.
