Ready to Broadcast
LMU’s Stan Chambers, who has worked in L.A. television for 60 years,
talks about what he loves about his job and the changes he has seen in
TV news.
Stan Chambers is a television journalist who has spent
his entire six-decade career with KTLA, a Los Angeles TV station.
Throughout his long career, Chambers has filled many roles: reporter,
assignment editor, anchorman, host of a skating show and announcer of a
game show. He has seen TV news go from a 15-minute nightly broadcast to
today’s 24/7 news programming. Many of his experiences are found in his
recent book, “KTLA’s News at 10: 60 Years with Stan Chambers,”
published by Behler Publications (www.behlerpublications.com).
Practically an L.A. institution, Chambers has won Emmy and Golden Mike
awards as well as the Television Academy’s Governors Award, and he has
a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Chambers attended
Loyola University after graduating from Loyola High School in 1941. A
Lion for three years, he also joined the Navy Reserve Officer Training
Corps and was ordered to transfer to USC as a senior for special
courses. This past May, he completed a term on the LMU Board of
Regents.
In 1947, Chambers was working in radio when he
heard that a new television station intended to increase its
broadcasting schedule from two to six nights a week. So, he called from
a phone booth to suggest a few program ideas, and the rest, as they
say, was history. He was interviewed at the KTLA studios by Joseph
Wakelee-Lynch.
What is the biggest difference that you have seen in the news media since you began working at KTLA in 1947?
There is so much more news now, and the definition of news has widened.
What we considered news then is only a small part of the panorama now.
When I started, news broadcasts on television were only five minutes or
15 minutes long. Gradually, the daring people went to half an hour! In
the beginning, we couldn’t imagine what you would put on for half an
hour.
Now, we have one-hour news shows, and some stations
have all news all the time. That’s a wonderful thing, but it’s another
weight on your shoulders because you’ve got four hours to fill, whereas
for years we had a half-hour to fill.
Do the reporters feel that pressure?
I don’t think so. You’re pressured by the story you’re assigned to, and
you don’t look at those other things that are going on. The only real
pressure you have as a reporter is that the crew that has been assigned
to you to help get your story is going to go with someone else at 4
p.m., so you better be finished.
Another thing that is very
different is the idea of “being there” — having the video cameras and
equipment available to go anyplace, do anything and see anybody. In the
early years, that was just technically beyond us. Imagine putting a
camera in a helicopter in 1945 — that was unheard of. The equipment was
still pretty primitive. Now, it’s sophisticated and advanced, and you
can do miracles. Now, you can do stories with a camera that isn’t much
bigger than a hand-held tape recorder. A camera can do an entire motion
picture. You’re shooting the best possible quality on news stories.
It’s equipped with the ability to record sound. We used to go out into
the field with silent Bell & Howell 16 mm cameras, so you talked
over the video you took. We didn’t know that one day we’d have sound.
You work with what you have. All of a sudden someone has a sound
camera! That whole era of the beginning of television was filled with
surprises you couldn’t believe. That’s part of the enjoyment I’ve found
in this business: There’s always something new out there.
So, the technology has improved dramatically. Have there been changes over the years in what is defined as news?
I don’t think there is any change in what is defined as news. It’s just
that the whole horizon has broadened. You can do things that we
wouldn’t have tried years ago because of the technical difficulty.
Do you prefer going out into the field to get a story or the assignment
editor’s job of shaping a whole broadcast from inside the walls of a
studio?
My favorite, which I did for 30 years, was going
to the scene with a live camera. You would arrive in the pitch of
night, with no idea of what’s going on, and see the fire trucks, the
lights, the police and this and that. Then you find out what the story
is, and try to get some eyewitnesses and see what damage was done. All
of this is pouring into your head, and you have three pieces of video
that will augment you, and then “Cue!” You go on the air and tell the
story and at one point you lead into the police and at another you lead
into the firefighters. Then you put it all together, and when it’s
over, it’s over.
Sometimes I see you reporting from a snow
storm in Frazier Park or Big Bear and I think you must have the meanest
bosses in Los Angeles. I think, “Why don’t they send a 25-year-old who
is trying to break into the business out there to report in 20-degree
temperatures and 10 inches of snow?”
You’re assigned a
camera crew for a period of time, and it isn’t a matter of sending the
young guy out there. In the studio, they say, “Here’s where you are and
here’s where he is, so you go to the mountains.” All of those decisions
are made each day, and that’s the exciting part.
How do you deal with the truly sad stories, such as a murder of a 10-year-old while walking home from middle school?
I have the technique of keeping an arm’s length away. I never let
anything get closer than that arm’s length. It’s hard at times. If you
are reporting what’s going on, you can’t get too close or you’ll get
wound up in the terrible losses. You feel them, but you’re not
overwhelmed by them. It’s hard to explain, but I just don’t allow
myself to get involved in something that I have to do. It’s a little
like doctors going into the operating room: They know what they have to
do.
Also, for the reporter, the terrible accident is “over
there,” in a sense. The camera lens reaches there and shows it, but I’m
not the one pulling the people out of the car or onto the stretcher.
What is your advice to a young person who wants to go into television news today?
Today, with universities specializing in television news and
journalism, the best thing to do is go to the university of your choice
to take those courses. With the training that’s available now, you can
go learn the business. It’s like playing minor league baseball. You’re
doing the same things that they’re doing at the networks. With a couple
of years at the Loyola [ROAR Network], you will go through a lot of
that. All of the actual experience you can get is great.
The
other thing is to keep contact any way you can with local stations,
especially through internships, and get the opportunity to work at a
station. It is creative at every level, and it’s very demanding. And if
you can work that blend of knowing how much you can take and how much
you want to take, it’s a wonderful field.
You spent three
years at Loyola University, and you remain very involved in the life of
LMU, most recently as a member of the Board of Regents. What are some
of the differences you see between Loyola then and LMU now?
When
I was there, there was just the Jesuits’ building and one faculty
building. There were rolling green fields, and we had the baseball
stadium up in the corner. That was really it. There were small Quonset
hut-type structures for engineering and such. So, it was a very small
campus.
I had attended Loyola High School, and Loyola
University was really, in many respects, like an extension of Loyola
High School. We were very much a part of the university. I know that
people still feel the same way. Of course, your perspective is
different at different ages in life, but I was very much at home there.
I just can’t believe it when I go on campus now. LMU is so
beautiful, and the most beautiful view in the whole world is from a
top-floor window of University Hall. From there you can see the harbor,
the bay and nearby playgrounds. LMU now is a huge, beautiful
university, and it’s among the best in the whole country.