My Life in Radio

Radio - Flag Burning, Play-By-Play

Early in my career, I enjoyed success in radio as a field reporter and I worked with some very interesting characters notably Doug Driggot and Barry Turnbull. Although I enjoyed it, there were station format changes at KVEN 1450AM. I recall the day Doug called me in and told me, "You've done pretty good telling a story....can you play music too?" Shortly thereafter, I left my internship and KVEN news radio became the home of "The Boomer."

I was at KVEN for 6 months and I learned a lot about news radio especially the antics that went on behind the scenes. My first reporting duty was one I will never forget. I was assigned to report on a story at the Ventura County Government Center. Two young men had decided to demonstrate their First Amendment Rights and burn an American Flag as an example of their Freedom of Speech rights. I was the only reporter in the newsroom when Doug got the call and he was about to go on the air...so, Doug turned to me and said,"How long will it take you to pick up 'Hick'?"

Hick was Jack Hickey, a seasoned reporter for over 8 years at KVEN at the time. I gave Doug this look that just about pierced right through his skull. Doug was not terribly confident that I could cover such a huge story on my own but he didn't have a choice. As he made his way to the booth, he began telling me the "angles" to cover and suggested some questions that would help build up the story. I jotted down some notes, picked up field pack #3 and proceeded to find a driver for the live, breaking news feed.

Radio - Flag Burning, Play-By-Play
Early in my career, I enjoyed success in radio as a field reporter and I worked with some very interesting characters notably Doug Driggot and Barry Turnbull. Although I enjoyed it, there were station format changes at KVEN 1450AM. I recall the day Doug called me in and told me, "You've done pretty good telling a story....can you play music too?" Shortly thereafter, I left my internship and KVEN news radio became the home of "The Boomer."	Some stories are visual others are made for radio. Someone was playing a trick on me and suddenly I found myself doing play-by-play of a flag burning.
I was at KVEN for 6 months and I learned a lot about news radio especially the antics that went on behind the scenes. My first reporting duty was one I will never forget. I was assigned to report on a story at the Ventura County Government Center. Two young men had decided to demonstrate their First Amendment Rights and burn an American Flag as an example of their Freedom of Speech rights. I was the only reporter in the newsroom when Doug got the call and he was about to go on the air...so, Doug turned to me and said,"How long will it take you to pick up 'Hick'?"
Hick was Jack Hickey, a seasoned reporter for over 8 years at KVEN at the time. I gave Doug this look that just about pierced right through his skull. Doug was not terribly confident that I could cover such a huge story on my own but he didn't have a choice. As he made his way to the booth, he began telling me the "angles" to cover and suggested some questions that would help build up the story. I jotted down some notes, picked up field pack #3 and proceeded to find a driver for the live, breaking news feed.
We arrived at the Government Center in about 5 minutes and I quickly assessed the situation. There were a group of about 7 demonstrators who were walking around with signs about "Freedom Of Speech." I identified the men who were planning to burn the flag and even the person who called in the story. The plan was simple. I would begin my story shortly before the men began to burn the American Flag. My hope was the police would arrest them before the flag actually burned. So ...I began my story ...I made a few comments, asked the police some questions and two men began to light the American Flag. As the police approached the men, I began to describe the event as Vin Scully would describe a baseball game. Play-by-play, comment after comment until the story became not the flag burning but the inability of the men to burn the flag. Unknown to them the flag had been treated with some type of fire retardant. They tried time after time to burn the flag to no avail and finally the police had the men in custody. My interview (as the men were being arrested) went as follows: Reporter: It looks like you had a hard time trying to burn that flag, do you think they made them that way on purpose? Man #1: Yeah, I think they put something on them to make it hard to burn. Reporter: Don't you think that's a good idea so that flags don't get burned? Man #1: It's not fair, it's not right to do that. We don't have freedom of our speech!! Man #2: But it worked pretty good, we couldn't burn the flag. Reporter: So, by telling us your feelings about this event you did get to express yourself after all didn't you? (Man #1 & 2 looked at each other and did not say another word.) Reporter: Well as you can see Doug, alls well that ends well....this is Robert Guzmán reporting LIVE from the Ventura County Government Center, back to you in the KVEN newsroom. Yeah, I did say "see" and I did end that story with that corny line. Later I would find out the reason Doug really gave me the story. As Barry told me, there are two types of stories; one type is merely factual, that is, a story that you can read the facts and the listener would understand it, the other one is mostly visual and is hard to portray over the radio because it needs images a listener needs to see to understand. Doug had intended to send me out on this story all day but knew if I were pressured, I would do a better job. Till this day, I can't believe my first news story was a play-by-play of a flag burning.