Gil Gross (Senior Correspondent, ABC News Radio, former WCBS anchor) 3/19/07
Don... Long time. I stumbled on your site while looking for something on one of the 12 million authors you managed to bring to the airwaves. You did the Lord's work on Book Beat. I'm glad it survives. As I'm glad you have chronicled WCBS. They [WCBS] tried to bring me back last year, but after spending a day there I became convinced it is now too trafficked and too commercialed to be what it needs to be to work. I hope this finds you well. You have brought back many good memories. We moved to Los Angeles. After Philadelphia we moved here where I resumed being Senior Correspondent for ABC News Radio. I used to go back to NY whenever I had a story to cover in Washington DC, but now that my mom has moved to Tucson I rarely get back. As for broadcasts, they [CBS] did the same thing with me [attempt to destroy archives of historic broadcasts]. I had 7 years of interviews from the network talk show I did for CBS. I figured they'd want them for obit purposes for many of the figures that were on the show. They said they had no way to catalogue it all and just to take them or throw them out. I took 2 days culling the material which was all on DAT and left with it. Some day I'll edit some of it down and put it up on a website as well, though yours [Don Swaim's] is far more valuable because the people you brought to the airwaves just don't get interviewed that much and rarely by anyone actually literate.
I hope all is well. It was a wonderful time. I'm glad to see some of WCBS' better days live on in some form. It was always a pleasure to work with you and meeting John Gardner [late controversial American literary figure interviewed on WCBS] remains a well remembered thrill for me. Gil
