Inside “Sunrise”

I wrote a piece about “Sunrise” on Sept. 20, 2008, revising it on May 11, 2009 with parenthetical updates. That piece remains below this posting, but much has changed since then.

The “Sunrise” program marked its second anniversary in September 2009, and a few weeks later there were big changes as KGMB and KFVE swapped programming and call letters and KGMB quit its half century old studios on Kapiolani Blvd. to move in with KFVE and KHNL in the larger and newer facilities on Waiakamilo Rd. The economic downturn that forced former rivals to work in alliance with each other also led to layoffs, and some changes to the “Sunrise” crew, though not many.

Jeff Booth, the original weather forecaster on the show, had already decamped in the spring, moving back to Ohio so his new daughter could be born and live near his wife’s parents. That has happened and they’re all doing fine. Dan Cooke, who had worked in Hawaii radio and television for years, moved back from Los Angeles to succeed Jeff, and we also hired Ben Gutierrez, who had been laid off from KITV in its own round of cutbacks. Ben mostly works evenings but still joins us when he can. Malika still joins us pretty frequently. All of us on the morning crew think of Malika and Ben as cast members even if they’re not with us all the time.

In the fall cutbacks, Ramsay Wharton left the program, to be succeeded by Lisa Kubota, and guest wrangler Jen Cravalho left, to be succeeded by Terri Inefuku (with whom I worked at Pacific Business News), and Linda Siu took a job in San Diego, to be succeeded by Carolyn Julian from KHNL. Ward Bray, who made the cameras move and knew all the lights by heart in the old studio, moved back to the Big Island. Byron Furokawa, the guy on our report on stuff to do on the weekend, makes the cameras move now. A few other people behind the cameras have come and gone since the program launched, like producer Cari Cast, who moved to the Midwest.

Yet for all these changes, of roughly 20 people who regularly work on “Sunrise,” three quarters of the positions are filled with the same people who were there on the first day in 2007. And we can tell you that moving from the Kapiolani Blvd. studio to the one on Waiakamilo Rd. has been as much of an adventure as the original launch, or the first show in January 2008 when we expanded from two hours to three and a half.

The old studio was very long and narrow, with the weather and traffic work stations at one end, then the big anchor desk, then the interview set and the big weather map facing each other, and finally the open area where bands could perform. We had to shout to be heard from one end to the other but because of the narrowness we usually could see a TelePrompTer that was close to us. The new studio is more squarish and, if not quite intimate, it’s a little bit in that direction from before. The anchors can see the interview set to their right and the traffic and weather work stations to the left with me sitting over on the left as well. The “weather wall” is in front of them and a little to one side. We don’t have a space for a band to play yet but there is a suitable space nearby. Because of the squareness of the studio, the cameras are in different positions, and I have trouble reading the TelePromptTer on a pretty distant camera. I’ve started writing my scripts in all capital letters, which everybody else was doing already.

Both the control room and the newsroom are closer now. The control room is through a single door next to the weather wall. It looks like they could launch the space shuttle in there. The newsroom is immediately behind the anchors without doors. We can hear Scott Humber, the executive producer, breathing fire from time to time. If he can’t get his message software to work fast enough he can yell to us, what we call BellowNet. The director, in the control room, is Michael Harris. Harris is the Antihumber, cool and quiet no matter what is going on. A good news show needs both kinds of people. One can calm us when things are dicey and the other can spur us when things are dull. Magically, Humber and Harris get along perfectly.

There are two things I love about “Sunrise.” The first, and probably obvious to any viewer, is that I’m allowed to cut up. The second, maybe less obvious but equally important to me, is that I’m allowed and even encouraged to rip up what I’ve prepared to get a new story on the air. I go on the air having prepared every word I intend to say, but throw much of it out as new stories come in. Sometimes it’s not even about business. The day guitarist Les Paul died, I was the one who wrote the obits for Steve and Grace, with covering fire from Joel Ugay, one of our photographers and video editors, who was working in the newsroom that morning. Joel plays in a band and made sure the producers understand why the story mattered.

(Below is the original article in this space, posted on Sept. 20, 2008 and revised on May 11, 2009. Most of the revisions are in parentheses. HMD)

I make more than 50 public speaking appearances a year and most of them are speeches followed by questions. After people are done asking about the economy, they sometimes ask about what it’s like to work on “Sunrise.”

On the occasion of our one-year anniversary, here are some of those questions and the answers to them:

Do you guys get along as well as it appears on the air?

Yes. Our founding air crew — Steve, Grace, Jeff, Ramsay and I — got along well from the start. We could tell we would from even before the show went on the air, when, before my start date with the company even, we gathered on several occasions for photo and promo shoots.

We also get along with each other’s spouses, children and dogs, and with our colleagues Taizo Braden, Malika Dudley, Billy V, Amy Kalili and the large off-air component of the crew. It’s a cordial, kidding, collegial crew — very helpful at four in the morning.

Jeff Booth was exactly the same off-camera as he was on the air!

How many people work on the show anyway?

A lot! Scott Humber, Anna Gomes and Linda Siu put the show together (Scott, Anna and I collectively put in hours of work online from home the evening before, and all three of the others are at work before I get there) and Jen Cravalho is the principal guest coordinator. Malika is in a lot. Taizo was a full-time Sunrise staffer even before we put him on the air, researching traffic information behind the scenes.

Even that only scratches the surface, because I haven’t mention Ward and Byron, who controls the studio cameras and TelePrompTer, or John Yasunaga, who shoots Ramsay in the field, or Joel Ugay and Paul Omengkar, who edit video on the fly or fly out to stories with cameras, or, in the control room, director Michael Harris, technical director Peter Chien, and sound director Craig Kaleikini.

Who do you like best?

Hah! I love them all! But my relationship with each one is different.

I really feel in tune with Steve’s wit, which tends to be self-effacing and yet also sometimes edgy. I can’t feel close to someone who doesn’t have a vibrant sense of humor. As for Grace, I don’t know if it’s because I have four sisters or because I’m an experienced husband, but she and I get along so naturally, it’s as if we’ve known each other forever. I don’t know how else to explain it. Jeff and I learned early we had to be careful not to get into too many intellectual discussions because we could talk forever instead of working. Ramsay and I have the easy comradery that comes from sharing the first half hour and having parenthood in common. Billy V and I are the old radio hands and both of us have a kid-in-the-candy-shop attitude about doing television. Joel Ugay, Craig Kaleikini and I usually talk about music. I could go on but you get the idea.

The only people on the crew I knew before are director Michael Harris and assistant producer Anna Gomes. Anna, I knew from the Gridiron satirical revue that the Society of Professional Journalists does annually to fund newsroom internships. Michael and I worked previously at KHON and PBS Hawaii and are old friends.

Is it unusual for a newsroom to be so happy?

I’ve worked in happy newsrooms before but never one as uniformly cohesive as this one. And I try to keep it that way. Good morale is too important to leave to management. Fortunately, however, both our news director and our general manager work hard for good morale.

Chris Archer, the news director, worked in the ranks in San Francisco and vividly remembers how important esprit de corps in the newsroom is. Chris is supportive, low-key and has confidence in his hires, which means we don’t get micromanaged.

Rick Blangiardi, the general manager, is an athletic coach who found that managing like a coach is an effective way to run a company. I’ve worked for non-coaches who tried doing this and bungled it utterly (one imbecile I worked for on the mainland in the 1980s thought coaches yell a lot, so that’s what he did) but as a real coach Rick understands how to play to people’s strengths and benefit from their self-improvement.

Are you really in the newsroom when you do the reports with the cat in the background?

Yes. That’s the real newsroom, adjacent to the studio. I can hear Scott Humber hollering to people in the field while I’m on the air! And let me tell you something about that. The microphones we use are little tiny ones that clip on the shirt. I fish the cord underneath my shirt front. There is a different one at the anchor desk for the history feature or Crisis at a Glance, and still another one for the interview couch, and yet another one for standing with Ramsay and Jeff at the end of the first half hour of the show. That’s four microphones in one show, all of which have to be fished underneath my shirt.

(After I returned to the air from my hospitalization in March 2009, it was decided to move me out to the anchor desk, working more closely with Steve and Grace. I prefer the new arrangement.)

How do you decide what we see behind you?

I always put the bearded cat behind me (now, at the anchor desk, it’s in front of me) because everyone seems to like it. Grant Kageshiro made that years ago and sent it to me as a kind of welcome present.

And I choose something that represents some of that morning’s news, a plane or ship from a company I’m talking about. If there’s nothing that appropriate, I look for something that hasn’t been displayed in awhile.

Do you write all your own stuff?

Yes. Or tannya it, if there’s no time to write it. I spend two hours online at home every evening writing stories for the morning. There is enough time in the morning to write up breaking stories but I were writing it all from scratch I’d have to get up even earlier and write faster, increasing the chance of mistakes.

The other big difference between writing it at 5 p.m. and writing it at 4 a.m. is that I can contact someone or do some online research to confirm a story that some other media outlet got first. Also, a lot of business news is self-announced by the companies involved, and press releases often leave out details that can change a self-congratulary blurb into a genuine story. Finally, though people think I have an eidetic (photographic) memory, I don’t trust it to work all the time. I take time looking up facts to make sure I remember them correctly.

Is everything written for Steve and Grace?

You would be surprised how much they do write. Mostly their stories are written for them, since you can’t anchor and write at the same time — and yet they both have computers just below the anchor desk, visible through clear spots on the desktop, and I’m astounded at how often they are working on stories during commercials.

They also use those computers to spot bulletins and “urgents” from the news agencies, which appear automatically in the software we use to write stories.

You look thinner in person

I’m 5′10″ and 250 lbs. That makes me equal to any two regular television people so I have double the work load. I look fatter on the air because the camera lens makes you look bigger (and makes people look farther apart from each other than they really are). I look slightly less heavy in person but still stocky.

Fatness is common among earlybird radio people because sleep deprivation increases hunger and caffeine stimulates appetite. I’ve known several 400 lb. disc jockeys.

Do you wear makeup?

Not on KGMB9. PBS Hawaii insists on it. They have different lighting.

Is Steve really such a big eater?

No, it’s just a running gag. If you think I look thinner in person you should see Steve with his jacket off. I think Jeff Booth came closer to being obsessed with food than Steve and even he fell short of being manic about it. (Jeff said when he returned to Ohio he would find a way to make musubi there.)

What kind of dog is Sunny?

A Rhodesian Ridgeback. No, actually I have no idea. But “Sunny,” which is her air name (in real life she has another name), is a delightful little cur. Any time you see me holding her on the air, it’s because she ran up to be held at that moment. Some of us have noticed, however, that she seems to prefer girls.

Are Steve and Grace a number?

No, though they adore each other. Grace is spoken for, and Steve spends his spare time working out and thinking of relationships that didn’t work out. His memories are hazy so he also thinks of what might not have been. He sobs quietly to himself a lot. Grace pretends she doesn’t hear. This is a writer’s embellishment.

Were Steve and Jeff a number?

If they were, it would be an irrational number.

Were Jeff and Taizo a number?

Okay, now you’re scaring me.