Archive: Around Town

It's been over three weeks since John Summers drove from sunny California to icy Ithaca to become Cayuga Radio Group's newest news director. Before coming to Ithaca he was Regional Program Director and News Director for the Northwest News Radio Network, and has worked primarily on the west coast for decades. Summers brings that volume of broadcast experience, as well as a deep timbre voice, to Ithaca. He says he aims to put more focus on local and regional news.

"I foresee much more emphasis on local and regional news," he says. "That's what the area wants.  Research shows most people don't want to have more of a story on the radio.  That's what the Web and print publications are for.  On the radio they want more stories that affect them.  So we're increasing our story count so we're covering more and more local stories, and providing the information in a smaller content frame.  We want to provide more of an outlook for the community to make its voices heard, so we're more interactive."

Last month Summers and his wife arrived in Ithaca after three and a half days of driving from LA.  They had to stop to buy snow tires in Albuquerque, because snow tires are not readily available in southern California.  It turned out to be a necessary purchase, underscoring that weather is a more significant news item here, because we actually have weather. 

"Here I'm having to learn things that I've never known about weather before, because it does take up such a big part of our daily routine, and it does affect our life here," he says.  "I am rapidly gaining ground and learning about the community.  I love it.  I love the people I've met.  I'm really enjoying the environment in which I find myself in this community.  I'm dealing with the cold weather as best I can, coming from a place in Los Angeles where we have roughly 250 days of sunshine a year."

But weather was secondary to learning a new community, and getting up to speed in a new job with a new crew.

"I knew, leading up to this, that it is an awesome company," Summers says.  "I'd heard good things about Saga for many years in the industry.  I was looking for a place where I felt where I would be really used to the best of my abilities, and my talents would be appreciated, and where I would be working with a very professional crew.  And that, so far, has turned out to be the case."

You can hear Summers reporting local news, but while settling in he has left the anchor responsibilities to his staff.  Michayla Savitt anchors the Morning Newswatch and chats with host Lee Rayburn each morning, while Chris Hedden anchors the Evening Newswatch.  The shift responsibilities may change as Summers becomes more familiar with the area, but for now he is concentrating on the routine News Director responsibilities and learning more about Tompkins County and the surrounding area.

"Right now I am becoming familiar with the community and the societal mind set, so to speak, because every market is different," he says. "It's especially different from what I'm used to on the west coast, but I'm learning who and what and where.  As that fleshes out we'll see what the shifts look like down the road.  I have a really responsive crew.  They're very talented and they have a lot of potential.  I see, down the road, that we must become the news giant that the station needs to be and bring it back to its old glory days."

Originally from San Diego, Summers grew up listening to the radio in his parents' kitchen.  By the time he was 6 years old he knew he wanted to be a radio announcer, listening to his hero Happy Hare, a mainstay of San Diego radio, then coming home from school to practice what he had heard that morning.

"He was a legend on the old 1170 KCBQ in San Diego," Summers recalls.  "It was one of the original top 40 stations.  He was my hero as a kid.  He was on in the mornings.  He was a great entertainer.  He entertained half of San Diago, according to the ratings.  Then there was Wink Martindale.  He and I are both members of the Pacific Pioneer Broadcaster Association in Hollywood.  About every two months we meet to roast some entertainer, broadcaster, or TV personality.  He's still going strong in his 80s.  He was a legendary TV game show host and radio announcer in southern California for many years.  You can still hear him on the radio."

Summers' voice changed at 10 1/2.  That turned out to be fortuitous, because at 11 he got his first experience reading news on a local station.  He worked in radio through college, and started his career in earnest in radio journalism.  For a time he switched to hosting Top 40 shows, but returned to journalism, seeing more of a future in news.

Summers was also a voice actor in national and regional commercials, including ads for American Airlines, Jeep, various banks and restaurants, among others.  He worked his way up through the radio markets in Dallas, New Orleans, Chattanooga, Palm Springs, and worked in Los Angeles for 30 years.  He also worked in Reno, Topeka, the Pacific Northwest, and now Ithaca.  So far, except for the snow, he sees it as a good move.

"It's a very nice facility," he says. "Saga Communications is a great company.  It's all I've heard it to be over the years.  It's probably the largest facility I've ever worked in.  In downtown LA you have stories of studios and the networks, but not as large.  The equipment is in excellent condition.  The staff are awesome.  Corporate is very responsive to our needs.  They set the tone.   They set the guidelines.  They set the bar and we've got to live up to it."

While he quickly learned that Ithaca is a 'progressive' community, he says there is a place for the syndicated conservative talk shows that are a mainstay of the WHCU schedule.  He says they reflect the way the majority of people think in the United States, which makes it a needed element.  But local news is a completely different matter.

"As far as news is concerned, we have to stay impartial," he says. "We have to stay right down the middle.  We're just here to give the facts.  We're not here to be agenda-driven.  We're not here to present our own personal aspects of a story, because that's not journalism.  That's bias.  That's personal opinion.  And my personal opinion doesn't count.  The news is what counts."

Reflecting on his career, Summers says he was lucky to know what he wanted to be at such an early age, lucky to be able to pursue it, and get to know the people who inspired him.

"I love what I do," he says. "I'm fascinated by the ever-changing world of broadcast journalism.  As the old saying goes, 'the news never stops' so every day it's fresh.  It's new.  Our lives are constantly being affected by it. We're just here to try to process that and translate that into a non-biased, non-agenda-driven product.  Just lay the facts out and let the listeners decide."

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