For all the tuition money I paid to NYU, I've always said I learned more about the news business from some special people I met along the way. High on that list is Dick Spencer, who left us far too early at 61 on Jan. 11, 2013.
Dick Spencer--Spence, I always called him--wasn't on the radio, but he was responsible for some of the best things that came out of the speaker. If you were a writer, he made you a better writer. When I ran a desk, I always tried to do it with professionalism worthy of Spence. He made you think about--and care about--what you were doing. And if you were an anchor, he made you a better anchor, as some of the best told me.
"In my career of more than 30 years in broadcast news, I never worked with any producer better than Dick Spencer," said Cameron Swayze, a WCBS legend. "He was a consummate pro from the old school, and so it was easy for me to relate to his keen news judgment."
Long before becoming an afternoon drive fixture, Wayne Cabot anchored overnights on WCBS.
"Tired and weary from working all news, all night, I worked extra hard to put together a good show when I knew Spencer was driving in to produce mornings," Wayne said. "His judgment meant a lot to us, and every so often he would say, 'You, sir, put together a fine rundown--even for 1:00 in the morning.' He made us rise to the occasion--even at 1:00 in the morning."
WCBS anchor Debbie Rodriguez remembered Dick as the newsroom's equivalent of Sgt. Joe Friday. "As a writer and a producer, he 'got it': nothing long-winded or extraneous, no backing into the lead," Debbie said. "Just the facts, with a lead to grab your attention and make you keep listening."
photo by Rita Sands
But there was more to Dick than what we saw in the newsroom. For one thing, he was a deacon in his church. While he was studying to be a deacon, Dick began his WCBS workday at 1 a. m. Deacon class ran until 9 or 10 p.m. because, as Dick pointed out, people working normal hours could stay up that late. I'd roll into Black Rock around 3 a.m., and Dick looked like he'd slept an hour, which was about right. But before I could even get the old NewStar computer turned on, there was Dick, holding a rundown and a stack of carts, asking my opinion on stories. That was just part of what made him a great desk man.
He started at WEEI Boston in the 1970s, when it was CBS-owned and still the company of Cronkite and Murrow. When I met him in the late 1980s, CBS was morphing into a different place.
Dick moved with the times--grudgingly, you sensed. He knew the silliness of running stories about how hot it was in New York in August, or how cold it was in January. How many times did I hear him tell Doug Spero or Fred Fishkin something like, "The LIRR is raising fares. Go down to Penn Station and get me some shock and outrage." Shock and outrage became a standing joke with Dick. Years later, when I ran AP's Washington Metro Desk, I'd tell reporters things like, "D. C. is raising parking meter fees. Go downstairs and get me some shock and outrage." It always made me smile.
WCBS meteorologist Todd Glickman knew Dick longer than many at WCBS, having met him at WEEI in the late 1970s. "Dick was 'at the editor's desk' on weekend mornings, as I recall," Todd said. "The radio station was on the 44th floor of the Prudential Tower, and the newsroom was the noisy, chaotic place typical of the pre-computer/pre-digital age. Somehow, Dick molded the chaos into a wonderful air product."
Someone else who knew Dick in Boston was Peggy Noonan, who would become a speechwriter for President Reagan. In one of her books, Noonan wrote of meeting "a talented young writer named Dick Spencer" at WEEI. I found this out from someone else; Dick certainly wouldn't have mentioned it.
When Dick was on the desk, nothing could upend him. He once told me of being at WEEI when the station's traffic helicopter crashed, killing the pilot and a reporter. He had to calm the pilot's wife when she ran screaming into the newsroom. But that was Dick, the calming influence on us all. At AP on 9/11, I thought of Dick Spencer more than once.
If you wrote something Dick liked, he told you--and it meant a lot. One day he pointed to a building across the street and told me that if it was on fire, people in the newsroom would be standing at the window talking about the flames leaping and the people screaming. "And then they'd go back write, 'There was a fire today on Sixth Avenue,'" Dick told me. "You'd write about the flames and the screaming." That still means a lot to me. Whenever I speak at one of Doug Spero's media writing classes, I share that story--not to brag, but to make a point about how to write for broadcast.
Cameron Swayze understands. "Because I had such regard for his judgment," Cameron said, "when he told me 'well-done' it was more rewarding than any praise one could receive."
I'd lost touch with Dick in recent years. When his son studied at George Washington University, I was working four blocks away at AP, and urged Dick to tell me when he was in town. But he never did. Eventually the emails stopped. Later, I hoped he would come to one of the WCBS "Board" lunches. That didn't happen, either.
Whenever Wayne Cabot and I met for dinner, I would always ask about Dick. The answers in the last couple of years were unsettling. That's why word of his death wasn't a shock for very long.
Several of us wish there were more we could have done. There's no need to dwell; it's not how anyone wants to remember him.
"Our craft has lost a gem," Cameron Swayze told me.
As for becoming a deacon, whereas others in his situation might have given up, Dick saw it through. He was forever known in the newsroom as "Deacon Dick"--once joking that it beat his old nickname in Boston: "Dammit Dick." That was Dick.
I had to laugh when Debbie Rodriguez reminded me how he would say something out of the blue like, "339 days 'til Christmas." During his deacon studies, I once jokingly told Dick, "Why bother? You're going to hell with the rest of us for working in this business." I know that's not the case--far from it. Rest in peace, Spence.
Michael Kahn was a writer and editor at WCBS from 1988 to 1996. kahnmail@cox.net
