Podcast Transcript
Speaker 1:
Taking a Walk with Buzz Knight.
Buzz Knight:
Well, hi. I’m Buzz Knight, the host of the Taking a Walk podcast series, and we’re in lovely Marblehead, Massachusetts. Here with a guy who has really a lengthy list here. It’s going to take me days probably to go through his storied career. Mr. Jim Coppersmith, one of Boston’s most admired television executives for many years, most remembered for his time in Boston as leader of Channel 5 WCVB, where he was the vice president and general manager, 1982 to 1989, also the GM from 1990 to ’94. But also worked at what is now WHDH (TV) for a number of years. Many awards, so many awards, Mr. Coppersmith, that would take me days to go through it. If you want, I’ll go through every one of the awards. Would you like me to?
Jim Coppersmith:
I don’t like you well enough to spend days. So just do the reader’s digest version.
Buzz Knight:
All right. Past chairman of the board of Emerson College.
Jim Coppersmith:
Guilty.
Buzz Knight:
Guilty as charged. Are you still currently vice chairman of Boston-based public relations and marketing company Rasky & Associates?
Jim Coppersmith:
No, I’m completely retired. I did serve on a lot of boards of public companies. Today, I have one very small but a very enjoyable consultancy with a company called Reflex Sliding. I just make myself available to the chief executive for whatever he wants to talk about. He thinks it’s of some value and I let him continue to delude himself that way.
Buzz Knight:
So you don’t feel it’s of any value what you’re giving to him?
Jim Coppersmith:
Oh, anything he’s ever asked me, I would tell him for nothing, but he is of the ethic that someone should be paid for their wisdom, so I let him.
Buzz Knight:
That’s nice. I like that. Well, it’s so nice to meet you. I appreciate the time here and-
Jim Coppersmith:
Well, you’re very welcome. I’m here to answer whatever questions you have with the caveat that if I can’t tell you the truth, I just won’t answer.
Buzz Knight:
Well, we had a nice lunch, first of all, and a nice tuna sandwich, delicious sandwich from some deli. I don’t know. Some-
Jim Coppersmith:
Evans. Evans is very near my house and it’s a very good New York style delicatessen. Yes, it was delicious and I enjoyed it a lot.
Buzz Knight:
Would you say we had some what you potato chips? Do you consider Pringles actually potato chips?
Jim Coppersmith:
Well, not really.
Buzz Knight:
Thank God.
Jim Coppersmith:
Potato chip should kill you, and Pringles, no one’s ever died from eating a Pringle.
Buzz Knight:
That we know of.
Jim Coppersmith:
That we know of. Right.
Buzz Knight:
But it needs to be stated. Anyone who would accept Pringles as a potato chip needs to get their head examined, don’t you think?
Jim Coppersmith:
Well, I don’t buy them as a rule unless there’s nothing else, but I like Lay’s potato chip, if you want know the truth. Another one, I forget the name of it, Quisp or Quasp or something. It has a very short name. They’re very good potato chip, particularly their extra crispy ones.
Buzz Knight:
I’ve thought it maybe doing a podcast just on potato chips. Can you give me some business advice on that idea?
Jim Coppersmith:
Well, I’d have to do a lot of research at your expense.
Buzz Knight:
Let’s do it.
Jim Coppersmith:
Okay.
Buzz Knight:
I like it. So I want to walk through your career before you came to Boston. You started out, obviously, you come from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Jim Coppersmith:
Actually. I grew up in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, which when I was a kid was a very thriving steel mining, steel mill town where Bethlehem Steel mills worked three shifts a day and everybody was working and it was a great place to grow up. Now, it’s just been devastated. It is a blighted town of maybe 20, 25,000 people. It was just designated the poorest small city in America. But my dad owned a parking garage and I worked there before school, after school, on Saturdays. If the night watchman didn’t show up, I did it. That’s where I developed the work ethic.
Jim Coppersmith:
I went to the University of Pittsburgh and served in the Navy for two years. Came out and went to work at a Pittsburgh advertising agency and did that, well, until I was 30 or so. Then I met my wife, fell in love, got married and realized I was going to need more money. A fellow who called on me from KDK Television was shocked when I asked him how much he made, because I was making $600 a month. Well, he said, “Last year I made 17,000 and this year I’m going to make 22,000.”
Jim Coppersmith:
I knew I was smarter than this guy. I said, “Well, how do you make so much money?” He said, “Well, it’s very simple.” He said, “Every time I sell something, they give me some money.” I said, “So that’s how it works.” So I tried really hard for a long time to get a job in television as a salesman. Finally, I got a job at WTTG in Washington, and as a sales trainee at age 32. I was paid the princely sum of $165 a week to learn the business. I was thrilled to get it. We moved to Washington.
Jim Coppersmith:
I’ll tell you an interesting story. First week on the job, I was wandering around introducing myself to agencies. I went up to an agency and a woman said to me, “I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve got an order for you.” This is Rader. That was her name, Rhoda Rader. I said, “I don’t know even how to take an order.” I said, “I’m new.” She said, “Don’t worry. I’ll fill it out for you.” She filled it out for me. It was $5,000 a week for 13 weeks. I brought it back to the station. The general manager’s name was Larry Fraiberg. A man who is to this day one of my heroes.
Jim Coppersmith:
Her secretary said, her name was Cheerful Thornhill, “Mr. Fraiberg wants to see you.” I thought, “Oh my God, I’m going to get fired.” I walked in his office and he said, “Jim,” he said, “this is quite unusual.” He said, “To get an order of this size first week,” he said, “tell me, what was the genesis of that sale?” I had a moment of decision making to do and I said, “Mr. Fraiberg, let me be honest with you, I was wandering around K Street, Mrs. Rader threw it out the window and it hit me on the fucking head.”
Jim Coppersmith:
He came out from the behind his desk. He gave me a kiss and he said, “You’re going to be great.” Long story somewhat shortened, he became a very good friend and a very good mentor. He then moved to New York as general manager of WNEW in New York. I progressed through the company where I was sales manager at our Los Angeles station. He brought me to New York as his sales manager. I left that job to come to Boston as manager of Channel 7 here in Boston. He became president of Metro Media Television and hired me to replace him as general manager of the flagship station for Metro Media, which was Channel 5 in New York.
Jim Coppersmith:
When the Metro media bought WCVB, John Kluge who was the chairman asked me if I would consider going up there to run it and come in to Channel 5. It was then the premier station in the United States. I mean, I got a lot of credit I didn’t deserve. All I did was I didn’t mess it up. But Bob Bennett, who was my predecessor there was the guy who really made that station what it was and what it is, which is I would have to say a crown jewel of American television stations. I was involved with some of the stuff. Chronicle is now in its 40th year and most successful local program in America. Of course, that was back in the days when the news was the news and they had very fine news.
Jim Coppersmith:
One incident that I recall was the Boston Marathon. We always carried the Boston Marathon. John Hancock was the sponsor. One day the then CEO of Hancock called me up and said, “I’m giving exclusive rights to the marathon to WBZ.” I said, “You can do whatever you want, but we are covering the marathon.” He said, “No, no, I’m the sponsor.” I said, “Fine. But the marathon starts on public streets. It’s run on public streets and it concludes on public streets. It is nothing more than a parade at a faster pace and we are going to carry it.” He said, “No, you’re not.” We sued him and prevailed. We had as always the great Chet Curtis and Natalie Jacobson hosting it. We did our own version of it and it finished a strong number one in the ratings.
Buzz Knight:
So you had a knack for knowing how to stay out of the way and let people do the job. Is that what I’m really hearing?
Jim Coppersmith:
Yes. I also had an knack for getting in trouble because the day after the marathon, that fellow canceled the $250,000 order that he had with us. But-
Buzz Knight:
Small point.
Jim Coppersmith:
Yes. Well, actually, it’s a blessing that comes from working for good people. They understood and approved of it. In the long range, it was very… I’ll tell you another old story. We were carrying the World Series. One of the games that in the World Series was on the same night as the Boston mayoral election. I called up ABC and said, “You’re going to have to find somebody else to run the game because we are covering the mayoral election. Jim Duffy was the president of ABC. He said, “Come in to New York. I’d like to see you.”
Jim Coppersmith:
I flew into New York. He said, “The only reason I asked you to come in is I wanted to see in person the,” and he used a term that you really can’t say, “who would cancel the World Series for an election.” Well, I said, “You’re looking at him. We’re doing it. We have a reputation for news and politics. Frankly, we think the world, my world will remember this election a lot more than they’ll remember the World Series.” So channel 56 carried that game. I wear it as a badge of pride, if not honor the fact that we dumped a World Series game to carry a local election. I don’t think there are too many guys going to say that.
Buzz Knight:
I doubt that there’s anybody who could. It just shows the confidence they had in you obviously. How did you build that confidence? Was it because of your revenues that were always on top or?
Jim Coppersmith:
Well-
Buzz Knight:
Or was it just your handsome looks?
Jim Coppersmith:
No, it certainly wasn’t that, but I was a very good operator. I had many, many virtues. Modesty is not one of them, but I was a very good operator and I never worried about losing my job because my phone rang a lot. So I liked my job. I was running the place. They let me run it.
Buzz Knight:
You backed it up with the results. That was really-
Jim Coppersmith:
Let me put it this way. We did $100 million worth of business and 60 million of it was profit.
Buzz Knight:
Wow. Don’t you have chills saying that now? Isn’t it fun to say that?
Jim Coppersmith:
No, I feel I wasn’t paid enough. But it was a great life and I wouldn’t have had any other career. I could have done better, but I could have done a hell of a lot worse. No complaints.
Buzz Knight:
Did you always have a pipeline to the big cheeses in the companies that you worked for. The people at the top, did you always have access to them?
Jim Coppersmith:
John Kluge the chairman liked me a lot. Because he always got a straight answer from me. I’ll never forget one time he asked me to come to lunch. He had this doctor he wanted me to put on one of our shows. John hardly ever spoke above a whisper and he said, “I had this terrible pain in my hip and he cured me.” I said, “Well, he probably told you you were sitting on your wallet.” Nobody talked to him that way.
Jim Coppersmith:
So yeah. I mean, look, I had the gift of personality and I have this theory about managers and leaders. You can go in any library you want and there’s hundreds of books on management. I defy you to find one book on how to become a leader. There are books about leaders, but leadership is not a science. It’s an art. Management is the science of getting things done. Leadership is the art of getting people to do things. It was said that when Neville Chamberlain spoke, everyone applauded. But when Winston Churchill spoke, everyone marched.
Jim Coppersmith:
So if you’re a leader, you just do a couple of things nicely. One of the things that I learned is the best investment you can make in a human being is to give that person a compliment. Catch them doing something right. It pays huge dividends. It costs nothing. If you’re the type of manager who goes around catching people doing things wrong, they’re not going to like you. If they’re not going to like you, they’re certainly not going to love you. If they’re not going to love you, they’re certainly not going to respect you. So if you have vision, you have to recognize that the reason you have vision is because you stand on the shoulders of giants. I always try to hire giants.
Buzz Knight:
You crisscrossed with an old boss of mine over time when you were working for Mr. Kluge and that was a gentleman by the name of Mel Karmazin.
Jim Coppersmith:
I got to tell you a great story about Mel.
Buzz Knight:
He knew the things very well that you just described in terms of getting people to do what was necessary.
Jim Coppersmith:
I was general sales manager of WNEW Television when Mel was general sales manager WNEW Radio. We used talk on the phone all the time. He said to me, “I can’t stand this place.” He says, “I’m quitting.” He said, “I’m quitting. I’m going to start my own. I’m going to get a radio station.” I said, “Mel, are you crazy? Are you sick? I mean, you get paid a fortune. You have a beautiful office. You have a secretary. They pay your country club dues. They give you a free car. You have this huge expense account.”
Jim Coppersmith:
I said, “Why would anybody want to leave that?” He said to me, “You are the dumbest man I’ve ever spoken to in my life.” Well, he became Mel Karmazin who started Sirius Radio and owns Howard Stern. I guess Mel is probably worth 300 or $400 million right now. He realized the one thing that I never realized and that is equity is more important than income. He went for equity. But he’s a great guy. Matter of fact, Mel donated $10,000 to my scholarship funded Emerson. So I like him a lot.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. He’s a good man and you always knew where you stood with him. There was never any gray area whatsoever.
Jim Coppersmith:
Listen, I have a friend who worked for him and when he was head of the CBS Stations. This guy said to him, “Mel, I’m sorry, there’s just no activity in the market.” Mel said, “Were there any ads in the Boston Globe today?” He said, “Of course.” He said, “Well, then you’re not doing your job.”
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. He knew how to get to the core.
Jim Coppersmith:
He was a tough bastard. He really was, but a great guy and very smart.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. I’m very, very grateful for having time with him, for sure. So let’s talk about the era though in the time that you were managing, which was such a tremendous era of big personalities in this marketplace, sensationally big personalities. You mentioned two who were just remarkable in their work in Chet Curtis and Natalie Jacobs, as an example. You had many others that I’m sure can-
Jim Coppersmith:
Don Ellis was huge, nice guy. There was a lot of very, very big personalities. Dick Albert, Harvey Leonard. I brought Harvey Leonard to Boston. If I have to watch news on television, I’ll watch Channel 5 News because it’s my home. I watch David Muir at 6:30 which I think he’s the best of the network newscasters. I love Shepard Smith because Shepard Smith gives you the news. I used to go into our newsroom and scream at them and tell them, “Nobody cares what you think. They want to know what happened today. If you’re going to give your opinion, make sure it’s clearly labeled opinion.”
Jim Coppersmith:
Today, the lines between opinion and news are so blurred that you don’t know what to believe. You watch Fox, you think the whole world is a Republican. You watch MSNBC, you think the whole world is a socialist. You watch CNN or NBC, you think the whole world’s a Democrat. I mean, no matter what you think about Donald Trump, and God knows he had his flaws, when he talked about fake news, he wasn’t lying. The news is, with certain exceptions like Shepard Smith, the news is pretty fake today. It’s a point of view. I find it unbearable to watch it. So I watch a lot of sports and a lot of movies.
Buzz Knight:
But let me ask you about though the way news ultimately has shifted and specifically the notion whether with, obviously with a news story, a breaking news story or an impending weather story, this notion obviously to drive ratings of sensationalizing many things in an over the top fashion. Let me get your reaction to how over the top it is in your opinion.
Jim Coppersmith:
Well, I used to have to reign them in on that a little bit. I mean, I can remember when one of our reporters would not divulge a source and she was in danger of being sent to prison because the judge ordered her to name her source and she wouldn’t do it. Well, I was watching the news and the whole news cast was devoted to this poor Channel 5 reporter who because of her wonderful ethics was going to possibly have to go to prison. They must have done 20 minutes on it, showed her at home with her husband and crying and weeping and never divulged her source to which, I mean, on and on and on. I mean, obviously it was interesting television. But I talked to the news director. I said, “Are you telling me that’s the only thing that happened yesterday?”
Jim Coppersmith:
One other time when Michael Dukakis was running for president, the networks were all covering the convention. I was watching at home and we had our crew there and they were not staying with the network. They were showing local coverage and it was all Mike Dukakis because our news wanted Mike Dukakis to become president. Finally, I called up the control room at the station. I said, “Go back to the network or you’re fired.” They went back to the network. It is a business where you can allow your ego to overpower your brain. In any endeavor, I don’t care what it is, once you allow your ego to overpower your brain, someone’s going to knock you off. I wasn’t going to let anybody knock me off.
Buzz Knight:
How much research was a part of things back then?
Jim Coppersmith:
Lot. News research.
Buzz Knight:
Yes.
Jim Coppersmith:
It was a lot. We used a company called Frank Magid, which was really a think tank in the cornfield in Iowa. He was pretty good. I read his reports. A lot of the times we did what he recommended and a lot of the times we didn’t because as I said to him, “Frank, I live here. You live in Des Moines.” So there was a lot of research that was done. Of course, we lived and died on the ratings. Fortunately, Boston is a market where quality counts. That was as big an ingredient as popularity.
Jim Coppersmith:
But I will tell you something, when Natalie Jacobson had her baby, that was front page news in the Boston Herald. They got thousands of baby gifts. I mean, she was a goddess. If you don’t believe me, ask her. I believe that if you had quality as a major ingredient, that eyeballs and earlobes would follow and they did. I mean, you must remember, in those days there was ABC, CBS, NBC. There were the few independent stations. Cable was just getting started. There was no internet. There was no streaming. There were no podcasts. There was no fractionalization that has occurred. There was no direct broadcast satellite. We are drowning in the sea of entertainment and information technology today. Before, a lot of people wanted to get home at 6:00 to watch the news.
Buzz Knight:
It was a destination time. Yeah.
Jim Coppersmith:
Yeah. It was appointment viewing.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. Well, back to the research question again, you made me think of this. So when we’ve had these storms over the last few years and suddenly new terms emerge such as bombo cyclone, and you think of that and you start thinking, and I’m asking you from your history, do you think that’s just a term that was researched that they think they need to throw at the audience?
Jim Coppersmith:
Remember Dick Albert?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Jim Coppersmith:
Dick Albert used to say gobago. People loved it. It means goodbye and good luck. He had all kinds of goofy terms. We did a lot of research on the news. One of the things that I seem to recall, I do recall, weather in this market is very important. Sports, there’s a recent sports was on last. We think of ourselves as a great sports town because of the Patriots and Bruins and the Red Sox. Sports was the lowest of interest things. All people really want to know is if they weren’t at the game, if they didn’t watch the game, give me the score. Sox 3, Jocks 2. That’s all people want. But we had some great sports people. We had Michael Lynch, another guy that I hired. He was playing records when I hired him. I always thought he was terrific. Don Gillis when we replaced was truly the dean of Boston sportscasters.
Buzz Knight:
So for stations that you managed, what was the biggest story one of your stations ever covered?
Jim Coppersmith:
Oh boy, I would have to say when Ronald Reagan was shot was a huge story. A couple weeks later, the pope was shot. That was a big story. This was after I had retired, but I would say the biggest story so far was 9/11, when those planes flew into the World Trade Center. That caught the world’s attention. It was the last time that the country was ever united. I see the politics of America is a carcinoma from which I hope we will recover because right now people hate each other because of the party they belong to.
Jim Coppersmith:
Politics are supposed to end at the water’s edge. They don’t. Until we can realize that as a great nation, as an American people, that no matter what our politics are, we are Americans and that we have a higher allegiance. When Jack Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” I was very moved. I was also very moved when Ronald Reagan described America as a shining city on a hill. I always thought that Kennedy and Reagan were two of the greatest orators that I was ever, ever privileged to meet, to hear, to admire.
Buzz Knight:
So most compelling conversation in your history with a celebrity, politician?
Jim Coppersmith:
Five minutes I spent with Bill Clinton. All I can tell you is I thought I was the most important person in the world to him. I hardly remember what we spoke about. He had the lowest threshold of amazement of anyone I’ve ever known in my life. He’d fix those baby blues on you and you could have told him that, “I just murdered my mother,” and he would say, “Oh my God, that’s wonderful.” Yeah. I mean, he had it, whatever it is.
Buzz Knight:
Conversation that you had with a notable celebrity that you regretted the way it turned out, that you wish you could have done it again?
Jim Coppersmith:
Well, before I do that, I will tell you a conversation that I had that ended up in a book. I’m in this house one night, worst storm I’ve ever seen in my life and the phone rings and it’s Roger Ailes whom I knew from way back. “Roger, how are you?” “Jim,” he said, “I need a favor.” He says, “As you know,” he said, “I’m running George Bush’s campaign. We got the New Hampshire primary. I’ve got a commercial that I know will turn the tide in New Hampshire. I can’t get it on the air because of the weather.”
Jim Coppersmith:
I said, “Let me see what I can do.” I called a guy who had a four wheel drive, an all wheel or whatever. I said, “There’s a commercial at the station. It’s for Bush. It’s ready to be president on day one, get it on the air.” He called me back an hour later, “I’ve been to the station. It’s in the system.” I called Roger back and I said, “Roger, first one’s going to run at 10. They’re going to go two an hour until further notice.” He said, “Well, you just saved America.”
Jim Coppersmith:
I said, “Well, okay.” He said, “Would you like to talk to the vice president?” I said, “Are you kidding? I’d love to talk to him.” He’s on the phone, “Hey, Jim, how you doing? George Bush here.” I said, “Mr. Vice president.” I said, “It’s such an honor to talk to you.” He said, “Well, anything you want.” He said, “What can we do for you?” I said, “I’d love an autographed picture.” Then I said to him, “Let me ask you a question.” I said, “I have an unlisted number. How did you get my number?” He said, “Let’s put it this way. You got a hell of a Rolodex in the white house.” An absolute true story.
Jim Coppersmith:
Years later, I was at a dinner where Mitchum, the editor of Time Magazine was who wrote the biography of George H. W. Bush. I said, “I want to tell you this story.” I started telling him that story. He said, “You don’t have to tell me.” He said, “He told me that story.”
Buzz Knight:
Wow.
Jim Coppersmith:
He was in my view the best, am not talking about his son, I’m saying that George H. W. Bush was the best one-term president we’ve ever had. It hadn’t been for that what was his name, the guy with the big ears, he would’ve had another term because-
Buzz Knight:
Perot?
Jim Coppersmith:
Ross Perot, yes.
Buzz Knight:
The guy with the big ears.
Jim Coppersmith:
He’s he only guy that George Bush ever hated.
Buzz Knight:
Is that right?
Jim Coppersmith:
Yeah. Because he cost him the presidency. Yeah. Anyway-
Buzz Knight:
Imagine being known as the guy with the big ears.
Jim Coppersmith:
That was big ears.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. Yeah. So conversation with a notable that when you replay it, you go, “God, I wish I had a second chance at that conversation”?
Jim Coppersmith:
Oh, something I would do over again?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. A do-over.
Jim Coppersmith:
Will you marry me? No, I’m only kidding. I guess there were times when I should’ve said yes and I said no. There were times when I should have said no and I said yes and I regret those times. I won’t go into them. But by and large, you’re follow your instincts. Life is a crapshoot. I’ve got a lot of lucky sevens.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah, there you go. I love that. So one of the things from the era were the heyday era that my understanding is you were a master of is what I call the art of holding court. At a restaurant or at a bar, at a club with a group, could be friends, coworkers, strangers. Define for me in your eyes how you learned the art of holding court.
Jim Coppersmith:
Well, you don’t learn it. It’s a gift. It’s a gift that somehow you don’t slice it too thin, you don’t slice it too thick. You walk into a room and people are glad to see you because they’re going to have a good time. You know that they know that. You’re not there to make trouble. You’re there to make the room a little brighter. You don’t think of it. You just do it. It just happens. It’s a gift. I believe there are three things that cause us to act the way we act. One is your personality, which you always return to. Second is your behavior, which you alter to determine what you want to accomplish. The third of course is passion, which is the strongest of all and is the most brief of all. But in the end, we always return to that thing called personality.
Buzz Knight:
So you mentioned now, and the way there’s different media platforms that exist, there’s streaming, there’s social media, there’s other ways for people to get news. What’s your opinion of those platforms as someone who came from where you came from in the business?
Jim Coppersmith:
Well, it’s mixed. I mean, if they’re going to censor you, then I don’t respect them. I think Twitter kicked Trump off of their platform ostensibly, because they said he wasn’t truthful, but really because they didn’t agree with him. I think a news carrier or an information disperser should allow the listener or the viewer to make up his or her mind as to whether something is true or false. In the great recipe of information that the media is, there will be balance. There’s a reason they did away with the fairness doctrine because there was so much proliferation that it was all points of view were expressed.
Jim Coppersmith:
I happen to like Facebook. I’m not saying I like the guy who started it, but I like the fact that it gives people a platform. It’s, it’s the London Hyde Park of the world now where anybody can get up on that soapbox and say, “My grandchildren are wonderful. My wife is beautiful. I love my dog.” I use it all the time. So I like Facebook. I don’t know much about Instagram or whatever, some of the TikTok. Look, I think that anything that is available, that is not hateful, if something is hateful and picks on somebody because of the accident of their birth or what they believe in, what they honestly believe in and it’s destructive, then I’m opposed to it.
Buzz Knight:
What about misinformation around a pandemic?
Jim Coppersmith:
I don’t think it’s can be avoided. I don’t think misinformation around a pandemic can be avoided. What should have been avoided was politicization of that information or misinformation? I mean, the president of the United States now blames and half the people believe him that it was the pandemic that caused the failure of his presidency, the fact that we have inflation. Whoa, wait a minute. What about the fact that the Keystone Pipeline was killed on the first day, that drilling rights were halted on the second day? We end up having to beg Iran and Russia and people who hate us for oil.
Jim Coppersmith:
What about the fact that gasoline at the pump was $2.60 is now $4.30? Believe it or not, we’re going to see it go to 6.50 a gallon in this country. In my view, since I’m an American, I’m entitled to my view. I think the president is going to be a one-term president because of all the things that ever came out of the Clinton administration, the term it’s the economy, stupid is as valid today as it was then.
Buzz Knight:
So I want to close on your prognostication on the news business, where you see it heading, where you see it as times and platform shifts and consumption shifts and all of that. So where’s the face of news going to be over the next few years down the line? What can we expect?
Jim Coppersmith:
I think it’s going to be electronic more than print. People’s attention span are diminishing. I know my own attention span has diminished grammatically in this electronic age, because this little thing that I’m holding in my hand on my telephone, all the knowledge in the world is in there. There’s more computer in this little thing than there was in the refrigerator size thing that they used to send a man to the moon. You could shave with magazines. That’s how thin they’ve become. There’s no such thing as classified advertising, or very little of it in newspapers. They’re all losing money. What’s making money is electronic media, radio, television, social platforms, and direct broadcast satellite.
Jim Coppersmith:
Television stations were hurting badly until payment for retransmission became the law of the land. Now, local television stations are profitable in the extreme, I would say. So I would say a select group of electronic media will become even more prominent. Newspapers, magazines, certain forms of electronic media will be lucky to be alive. Books, I used to read a lot of books. I mean, I grew up reading books as a kid and I devoured them. Steinbeck, O’Hara. I have Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Shakespeare. I haven’t read a book in years. Everybody’s double part today. Does that answer your question?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. That’s a brilliant way to put it. Everybody’s double parked and their ability to digest is shifted. The business hasn’t shifted to adapt to that enough, in your opinion?
Jim Coppersmith:
Certain of them have and others have not. Certain people, I mean, I’m sure you know people that speak slowly, think you’re interested in every detail. Sam, I don’t care if you had corn flakes for breakfast. I don’t give a crap. Get to the point, will you? You’re beginning to bore me. There are people like that. Then I went to the grocery store and I stopped at the bank and the teller was a very pretty girl. I don’t care.
Buzz Knight:
Well, hopefully I haven’t been that person.
Jim Coppersmith:
I would never say that you were that person while you’re in the room.
Buzz Knight:
Thank you, Mr. Coppersmith.
Jim Coppersmith:
You did a great job. If there was a hall of fame for interviewers, you’d be in it.
Speaker 4:
Taking a Walk with Buzz Knight is available on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
About The Author
Buzz Knight
Buzz Knight is an established media executive with a long history of content creation and multi-platform distribution.
After a successful career as a Radio Executive, he formed Buzz Knight Media which focuses on strategic guidance and the development of new original content.
