Archive: Around Town

There's a new News Director at Cayuga Radio Group.  After Greg Fry left in November to become Marketing & Development Associate at Challenge Workforce Solutions, Kyle Robertson was tapped to head the WHCU Newsroom.  But the new News Director isn't exactly new -- listeners are already familiar with Robertson's voice because he worked under Fry as a reporter for the past two years.  After Fry left he filled in for a few weeks while the company searched for a replacement, then officially took on the responsibility just after Thanksgiving, when a search was concluded and he was offered the job.

"It's been a crazy couple of weeks since then," he says.  "We've had a lot of different events.  We are currently one person down in our newsroom, so we're trying to hire a person.  It's been a little difficult, but I feel like we've all stepped up and gone above and beyond the call of duty to keep things running.  And I really think we have."

Fully staffed, the newsroom would have a news director and two reporters to cover all of Tompkins County, broadcast live and prepare recorded newscasts for all nine of the Cayuga Radio Group stations, and man the newsroom between 4:30am and 7 or 8pm.  Robertson and reporter Jamie Swinnerton have been holding down the fort for more than a month while a search is being conducted for a new reporter.  It is that third staffer who typically goes out to conduct interviews or cover events, press conferences and municipal meetings.  It's a lot for two people, but listeners probably haven't noticed a difference, except that Fry is no longer broadcasting. 

"My favorite part of the job is doing Morning Newswatch every morning," says Robertson.  "I know a lot of people listen to that show.  I know a lot of people really enjoy it.  And it'd absolutely fun, and working with Lee is pretty interesting because he keeps you on your toes.  When you get to know the guy, he's a great guy.  He cares so much about this community.   It's a real treat to work with him."


That means being up to date with the news and being able to talk about it extemporaneously, which, of course, is part of the job.  But he confesses that Rayburn is more tuned into what is trending on social media than he is.  And he says the new position has made him wary about posting online himself.

"You have to be careful about your public image," Robertson says.  "I rarely post anything on Facebook, and I never talk about my opinions on anything, unless it's about a movie I just saw.  I feel like that's a safe topic."

Originally from Audubon, PA, Robertson became a journalist because of a long standing love of writing.  He participated in his high school's morning TV homeroom broadcasts, and even wrote a screenplay for a student movie that won five out of seven awards in the high school film festival, including 'Best Writing'.  While he enjoyed writing fiction he began to think about a career at which he could both use his love of writing and take home a paycheck.  While taking a journalism class in which he worked on the school newspaper, he decided journalism was for him.

 "I like a lot of things about it," Robertson recalls.  "I like meeting new people.  I like learning new things I didn't know.  I like sharing information with other people.  I like going out and talking to people.  I was a theater kid back in the day and I like the performance aspect of broadcasting."

He came to Ithaca College because of its journalism program.  He worked as a newscaster at the radio station there, doing several newscasts per week, and later as a music DJ on WICB.  He eventually became News Director.  While he studied many facets of journalism, the medium he gravitated to was radio.

"I've never been a huge fan of TV news," he says.  "Too often the image of what's going on and of the personalities themselves gets in the way of telling the story.  I like radio because you don't have a camera pointed in your face.  You can be anyone you want to be behind that microphone.  It adds some amount of anonymity which adds a little self confidence."

Soon after he earned his degree in journalism he was offered a job at Cayuga Radio Group as a reporter, where he worked for two years under News Director Greg Fry.  That continued what may be becoming a company tradition -- Fry had worked as a reporter under his predecessor Geoff Dunn.

Robertson is at work at 4:30am each day.  He prepares the morning's news and broadcasts live on Morning News Watch from 5:30 until 9, reporting the news and chatting with host Lee Rayburn.  After that he continues working on the day's projects.

"There's always work around here, he says.  "There's always something to do.  On a good day I work a normal 8 hour day and go home around 12:30, 1 o'clock.  Most days I end up staying later than that because you never know what's going to come up, and there is a lot of stuff to do here."

In his spare time Robertson enjoys writing, sports, board games, and is teaching himself to play guitar.  His first novel, 'The Showstopper!' is a thriller that plunges a New York City janitor into a plot to destroy Broadway, which he must help a theater owner, an actress and a rookie policeman to thwart.  He is working on several ideas for new novels, if he can only find the time to write them.

While Robertson is a young news director, he brings six years of local contacts and reporting experience to the job.  He also has an established listener-base and a good working relationship with Rayburn.  While any major shift means some bumps, that should assure the smoothest possible transition.  His short-term goal is to keep the newsroom on an even keel while filling that empty reporter position.  Once that is done he doesn't expect the job to be less time consuming, but it will allow time to become more involved in the community and events around the county.

"It is exciting," he says.  "When I was a reporter there were occasional slow days when I would just be sitting at my desk, but as News Director that's never the case.  There's always something to do.  There's always something you could be doing better.  Always something you could be working on."

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