PORTLAND, Maine — When Pat Callaghan started as a reporter for NEWS CENTER Maine at WLBZ in Bangor in 1979, the equipment was state of the art.
He would have shot his interviews and footage on film, which had to be developed before a frame of it could be broadcast; updated the newsroom by pay phone or two-way car radio from out in the field; banged out his story on a manual typewriter while sitting in an office in which it was perfectly fine for anyone to light up a smoke; and, if the story were a big one and had to be sent from Bangor to Portland, hustled to either the Greyhound bus station or the Bar Harbor Airlines desk at the airport to get the finished product shipped to WCSH.
What hasn’t changed is what’s at the heart of the job: vigorous reporting, crisp writing, a sense of why a story matters. There aren’t many people in local television news who have combined those indispensable elements with professional longevity, and that’s why Pat is being inducted today into the Silver Circle of the Boston/New England chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. No one else from northern New England is receiving the award.
This is a real honor, a recognition of broadcast excellence that comes from peers. To be chosen one must have worked at least twenty-five years in the industry and made “significant contributions to television, the Academy, their community, and to people training for careers in television.”
Over the decades Pat has covered some remarkable stories. He was at Cape Canaveral reporting live when the space shuttle Challenger blew up. He walked the streets of Northern Ireland with former senator George Mitchell to capture the impact of the historic Good Friday peace agreement that Mitchell brokered. He stayed in President George H.W. Bush’s bedroom. (It was a hotel room that was Bush’s legal residence in Texas.) He has interviewed every Maine governor, senator, and U.S. representative from the past forty years.
If Mainers feel as if they know Pat as a friend, it’s because he’s been telling them the news as the anchor of WCSH’s top-rated 6:00 o’clock newscast since 1989. Only recently did he step away from the 11:00 o’clock news and take on the noon. It’s a remarkable run in a business where long careers are the exception, and it’s one he’s done with integrity, high standards, kindness and good humor.
All of this, interestingly enough, might never have happened if a different path had remained open. Just a couple of weeks ago Pat—whose affection for and knowledge of popular music are absolutely extraordinary--was reminiscing about his days as a disc jockey in college. He was at the University of New Hampshire and the campus radio station had no music format—the DJs could play whatever songs they liked. “If someone would pay me for that,” he said rather dreamily, “I’d still be doing it.”
Lucky for us it didn’t work out that way.
Pat’s induction into the Silver Circle will—no surprise—be done virtually. You can watch it live at 7:00 p.m. Tuesday evening (December 16) by clicking here.