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Newsrooms are accustomed to telephone calls from crackpots, eccentrics and people who vent their emotions. Most callers are harmless and many can be calmed with a kind voice and symphathetic words.
WZZM-TV is still reeling, however, from a call the station received on the night of Jan. 29.
The call came about five minutes before airtime for Channel 13's 11 p.m. newscast. It was the first night of the Michigan Republican caucus. The political armies of George Bush and Pat Robertson were both claiming victories. WZZM was preparing for a live news report from the battleground, the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids.
The caller was Robert Price, head of the corporation that owns WZZM. Price, an avid Republican, demanded a personal report on the GOP caucus.
"I don't care whether you're on the air," yelled Price. "When I call, you excuse yourself from the audience and take the call."
At the time, the final outcome was unknown. So TV-13 staffers gave Price the latest delegate counts from the Associated Press wire. But Price wanted a different count. And he wanted it NOW.
Via telephone from New York City, Price threw a temper tantrum of legendary proportions. For hours, he continued to rant and rave. He ordered the news director out of bed and into WZZM's offices. In an effort to give Price his personal delegate count, the station kept a reporter on duty at the Amway until 3 a.m.
Price accused the news staff of incompetence without seeing any of WZZM's GOP caucus coverage, which included a four-part special report and a half-hour prime-time program.
Then Price threatened to fire the station's entire news department.
Eleven days later, Price followed through with part of his threat. He fired Jack Hogan and Jim Riekse, two key employees who worked at WZZM for a total of 41 years.
Hogan was WZZM's news director for 25 years, one of the longest tenures in the history of television news. During that quarter-century, he started WZZM's news department from scratch and guided it to national respect and recognition.
For 16 years, Riekse played a major role in WZZM's rise. He was responsible for many of WZZM's award-winning documentaries, editorials and investigative reports.
It was a sad end to...