I don’t think I personally know anyone in broadcasting who went to a TV or Radio station out of college and then stayed there for years. Mostly it’s a question of starting out at a small place and working your way up.

It is true things are a bit more stable in a place like Charlotte. We are the 27th TV market and salaries are generally good enough to raise a family and settle down if one chooses. Still, even in a market this big you will see a lot of people come and go. It’s the nature of our business. Almost all of our people have worked at two, three or more different places.

Which makes Glenn Counts very remarkable. Glenn last week celebrated his 18th year as a reporter for WCNC. He has been in our newsroom longer than anyone else here. (I don’t count Larry Sprinkle in this instance because he does weather and everyone knows Larry has been around here since before there was TV or Radio, indeed before Charlotte became a city or North Carolina a state. He was an honored guest at George Washington’s inaugural).

Glenn is the kind of reporter around whom successful newsrooms are built. Those of us who anchor, get the “face time”, may be recognized more and get asked for our autograph more, but we all realize that if it wasn’t for Glenn Counts and others like him, our anchoring would mean very little. We don’t kid ourselves that we do the most work, or even the most important work in the newsroom.

Glenn is our “crime specialist”, which means he is reporting much of the time on murders, rapes, robberies and home invasions, among other things. But in his time here, he has reported on everything. You name the subject and Glenn has probably done a story on it at one time or another.

He can remember when WCNC barely did news, when this station was barely a blip on the local radar screen. He can now look, as the rest of us do, with pride on a newscast that is competitive and award winning and he’s had a lot to do with it.

The importance of someone like Glenn Counts is well known to those of us who work here, not as well known to those who watch. Experience is a key factor. You can say that about any profession, but in broadcast journalism, experience translates to “contacts”. A young reporter coming to Charlotte may have intelligence, writing skills and a good work ethic, but it would take him or her a couple of years to develop the sources that allow them to break stories or give them more depth, which, in turn, makes the newscast better.

It’s not just Glenn, of course. Tiffani Helberg, Mark Boone, Maria Kotula, Anna Crowley, Ann Sheridan, Tony Burbeck, Janelle Martinez, John Romero, Lisa Rantala, Diana Rugg, Coretta Robinson, Nicole Konkal, Jeff Sonier, Stuart Watson and Mike Redding are among the best. We are lucky to have them.

When they are reporting outside in cold weather, we are warm in a studio. When they are frying in the North Carolina heat, we are cool inside. And when they are being blown hither and yon by bad weather, we are in a safe place. In short, we ride, to a very great extent, on their shoulders and we are fortunate to do so.

To Glenn Counts I say congratulations on 18 years and to him and the others who do what he does, I say thank you.

BOOK OF THE WEEK

“Flags of our Fathers” 2000, by James Bradley.

You are not likely to read a better book about war, about courage, about heroism and what all those things can do to people. It’s the story of the six men who raised the flag on Iwo Jima during World War Two. That picture was the most famous of the war; some have said it’s the most reproduced photograph in history. Of the six who raised the flag, three were killed before the battle ended; two others lived shortened lives of sadness. Only one, Thomas Bradley, the author’s father, lived to die of old age. It’s a great book, made even greater by the fact it’s all true. It will soon be a movie directed by Clint Eastwood.

MOVIE OF THE WEEK

“Inherit the Wind” 1960

The movie is 46 years old, but the issue it raises, the teaching of evolution, is as alive today as it was then because the debate over the teaching of evolution is still very much alive.

Starring two film giants, Spencer Tracy and Fredric March, the movie is the telling of the so called “Scopes Monkey Trial” of 1925 when high school teacher, John Scopes, was convicted of teaching evolution, which was against the law in Tennessee.

Tracy stars as Clarence Darrow (Henry Drummond in the movie) the great trial lawyer and March as William Jennings Bryan (Mathew Harrison Brady in the film), who three times ran for president. They were on opposite sides in the courtroom. Much of the courtroom dialogue is taken from the original trial transcript. Watch for the closing shot when Tracy leaves the courtroom with two books under his arm. It’s a great American film and the questions it raises will stay