Reporter's Notebook: January 6 hearings are a summertime TV bonanza — a bit like Iran-Contra in the 1980s
Fox News
Washington D.C. has a penchant for blockbuster summertime hearings, from Iran-Contra in 1987 to 2022's Jan. 6 commission hearings — but Congress' production quality has improved.
Fresh out of high school, I got to anchor the overnight newscasts on the weekend at WKRC-AM in Cincinnati back in those days. But I worked in the newsroom during the week. And 1987 was my introduction to how Congress sometimes conducts major, summertime hearings.
The TV networks blew out "As the World Turns" and "Ryan’s Hope" to air the Iran-Contra hearings. And at 35 minutes past each hour, my job was to sit by a vertically-mounted tape machine in the newsroom and make sure that two, tri-hole, TASCAM metal reels were rotating. I punched a couple of buttons and turned a dial. This was the setting for our dedicated feed from ABC Radio News in New York. My job was to record and dub the hourly "news call" of reports and soundbites which ABC would feed to local stations all over the country. We would then use them in our local newscasts at WKRC.