March 1998 - March 2000

Reporter and anchor for WIOD, Miami's top commercial, English-speaking news and talk station. I started as an afternoon reporter and evening anchor, later becoming the reporter for Miami-Dade County. I would spend my entire shift running from one story to the next, often giving live reports from sometimes rather volatile breaking events. I covered a lot of hurricanes, crimes, trials, demonstrations, as well as the international custody fight over Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez.

I had been reporting traffic for WIOD (and its predecessor WINZ, Newsradio 940) for six months while working at Metro Networks before I was hired at the station in March 1998, so I was already a familiar name on the air and to the staff. I had been talking with News Director Michael Woulfe a couple of years by then, sending him updated resumes and demo tapes periodically, starting when I was trying to get a job outside of Little Rock.

The first time I traveled down to south Florida was in 1995 when my old roommate Kevin Kilpatrick, who I worked with at KARN in Little Rock, got a job working for a production company in Fort Lauderdale. During that first visit I did a lot of scanning around the dial, listening to stations I had long heard about. I was immediately struck by the two news stations, WIOD-AM 610 and WINZ-AM 940. At that time they were still separately owned, had full news departments and were fiercely competitive. WIOD was especially interesting because it still had a full schedule of edgy local talk shows by the likes of Neil Rogers and Phil Hendrie. I made calls to the news directors, Jennifer Rehm at WIOD and Michael Woulfe at WINZ, who were both encouraging, telling me to send a tape and resume and that they would keep me in mind for future openings. In July 1996 I got a call from Jennifer Rehm at WIOD saying she would have an opening for a reporter soon and asking for another tape of more recent work. I sent one, but when I called back a week or so later she told me the staff had just learned the station was being sold to the company that owned WINZ and that she herself would be out of a job as the news operations would be merged together. The local news coverage was eventually moved from WINZ to WIOD, which had a better signal, but unfortunately most of the local programs on WIOD then disappeared.

When I was hired at WIOD in March 1998, I initially worked as an afternoon reporter and evening anchor. I would come in at 2 pm, often running out to cover stories or would chase news over the phone. Starting at 7 pm, I would anchor newscasts every half-hour during Sportstalk 610, WIOD's evening sports call-in show hosted by Kevin Courtney and later Phil Latzman. Below is an appearance I made on the show shortly after starting at the station.

AUDIO: Talking with upset Florida Marlins fans in April 1998 about star players being traded off to other teams after winning the 1997 World Series, runs 5:43. Download as MP3.

AUDIO: January 1999 newscast on a South Florida congressman grilling Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr during impeachment hearings for President Clinton, runs 1:40. Download as MP3.

AUDIO: In January 1999 I interviewed former President Jimmy Carter, getting his opinion of the impeachment of President Clinton. Runs 2:18. Download as MP3.

To the left is my business card from WIOD. Clear Channel had large business cards that folded in half, including the logos of all its stations in that market. More than half of these stations have since changed formats and identities. At that time five of the seven stations were located in the old Love 94 building, just off highway 441 in northwest Miami-Dade County. It was a cool building, with the WIOD newsroom located in what seemed almost like a loft on the second floor, with a line of production booths linking a back hallway, which had windows looking down into the open space in the building that was mostly made up of sales cubicles. After I left, Clear Channel moved everything into a warehouse in Miramar.

Within a year of starting at WIOD, my position evolved into being a street reporter for Miami-Dade County, spending my entire shift, 11 am to 7 pm, driving from one story to the next, filing reports over a cell phone. There was rarely a slow moment. My editor Bob Sandler always seemed to find another story for me to race off to. Most times I would provide live reports, sometimes giving extended coverage from breaking events. I covered crimes, dozens of trials of all sorts, political campaigns, demonstrations, as well as the occasional lifestyle or entertainment story.

I also covered plenty of hurricanes, hunkered down in shelters with people who had evacuated their homes or packed alongside reporters at the National Hurricane Center. Reporting on the projected paths and power of the storms was a real learning experience. I also quickly learned a lot about the politics and issues important to South Florida's Cuban-American and Haitian-American communities. While I had been living there a couple of years by then, being a full-time street reporter taught me a lot more about these people. It was also nice not being at the station, avoiding the often tense, unpleasant atmosphere there. I had a company-issued news car that I drove home each night, so I rarely had to go in, just kept filing spots over the phone and moving on to the next story.

AUDIO: WIOD and CBS reports on the trial of an airline maintenance company accused of causing the 1996 Valujet crash, killing 110 people. December 1999, runs 2:55. Download as MP3.

AUDIO: Report on a memorial service for beloved WIOD sports anchor Sonny Hirsh, March 29, 1999. This won a 2nd place Florida AP award for Short Serious Feature, runs 1:01. Download as MP3.

AUDIO: Lead story on a CBS hourly newscast on a massive wildfire in the Florida Everglades that burned more than 80,000 acres, runs 0:47. Download as MP3.

By far the biggest story I covered for WIOD was the international custody battle over Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez. I was working on Thanksgiving Day in 1999 when the five-year-old arrived, along with two others, on a raft. They were the only survivors of an accident at sea by a larger group, including Elian's mother, who were trying to get to the U.S. from Cuba. His Miami relatives were initially given custody of the boy, but Elian's father, who still lived in Cuba, wanted him back, although there was speculation that the Cuban government was really behind the demand for his return.

The incredible drama stretched on for months. In the photo to the right, I was part of a large media mob talking with attorney Spencer Eig, who represented the Miami relatives, after a meeting with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in December 1999. You can see me in the back, working to get my mic up close.

The story by then had become huge and was being reported on by media outlets throughout the world. It helped me because, midway through the saga in March 2000, CBS Radio News decided it needed to have its own reporter in Miami and offered me a position. I had been reporting for the network regularly for about six years by then, starting when I was at KARN, and was very excited to leave WIOD for a national position. The next couple of months would be nothing but the Elian Gonzalez saga, as U.S. officials eventually determined the boy should be returned to his father. The family refused to turn him over so early one morning, heavily armed agents raided the family's home, taking the boy. The community responded with widespread demonstrations that lasted for days. Below you can listen to a compilation of my reports on the Elian Gonzalez saga, including several where I'm in the middle of very raucous demonstrations.

AUDIO: A compilation of reports on the Elian Gonzalez custody battle from 1999 and 2000 for WIOD, CBS Radio News and the program America In The Morning, runs 25:07. Download as MP3.