I've been on the news staff at WTAM 1100 since January of 1995, when we were still known as WWWE or "3WE". Hard to believe I've been here so long!
The Cliff's Notes version of my story: I've been in radio over 30 years, and have lived in a number of places, but I've been a Clevelander the majority of my career.
Now, the slightly more detailed version:
Radio has been my passion since I was a kid. I fell asleep every night listening to the radio. My radio career started in 1974 at Central Michigan University, where nearly every year since 2000, I've been involved in the annual Alumni Takeover of our old student station. I also serve on the alumni advisory board for the School of Broadcast and Cinematic Arts at CMU.
The first ten years of my radio career took me through Michigan, Delaware and Maryland. Then in the fall of 1987, I suddenly had the desire to look for work in Cleveland. Cleveland? The town they called the "mistake on the lake?" The town with a tower that's Terminal, a lake that's Erie and roads that are Marginal? At the time, I had my reasons for coming here, but I'm glad I stayed.
My first job in Greater Cleveland was a year spent as news director of the former WBKC in Painesville. From 1988 to 1993 I was an anchor and reporter at WERE until the one-time home of "People Power" abandoned local news and broke up its award-winning news department. In between WERE and WWWE/WTAM, I spent a couple of years as public information director for the non-profit Substance Abuse Initiative of Greater Cleveland, a drug abuse prevention agency (if the timeline doesn't match up, I joined 3WE part-time while still doing my PR duties).
I'm married to Karen, a native Clevelander. I'm an active member of St. Angela Merici church in Fairview Park as a lector and PSR teacher. My musical passion is 50s and 60s oldies, such as the ones played on iHeartRadio.com's Real Oldies channel. The music file on my Android phone is filled with oldies from that era, including a lot of "one hit wonders" like "Michael (The Lover)" by The C.O.D's, "May I" by Bill Deal and the Rhondels, and "The Cheater" by Bob Kuban and the In-Men. Songs that truly fit the definition of "moldy oldie."
My favorite food is steamed Chesapeake Bay blue crabs, best served "all you can eat" at my favorite crab houses near Salisbury, Maryland, the Old Mill in Delmar, Delaware, and the Red Roost in Whitehaven, Maryland. If your travels take you to the Delmarva Peninsula, here's a lesson in how to properly pick crabs, so that you can look and act like a local. Sounding like a local out there is a different story. My wife says that when we visit Delmarva, my accent changes, but it goes away when we get back to Cleveland.
I love baseball. My philosphy about the game is best summed up in the speech by James Earl Jones near the end of "Field of Dreams":
You can't say that about football or basketball, but when it comes to football, I am very passionate about my Central Michigan University Chippewas.
Since I was a kid, I have loved reading newspapers, and I mean the real kind made from paper and ink. At this link, you can see PDF files of today's newspaper front pages from all across the nation and around the world, courtesy of the Newseum in Washington, DC. It's a fascinating way to look at how local news coverage is done in other cities.
I have enjoyed meeting and interviewing celebrities, including Bob Hope, Charlton Heston, James Brown and Chuck Berry, and even Lorain native Don Novello as Father Guido Sarducci. The funniest interview I ever did was with perennial presidential candidate, comedian Pat Paulsen. If there was one interviewee over whom I gushed, it was Bob Keeshan, who I grew up watching as "Captain Kangaroo."
Other highlights of my career: I broadcast emergency information about Hurricane Gloria in 1985 to the Delmarva Peninsula, and information about the Blizzard of '78 to listeners in Southern Michigan. I described the beauty of dozens of tall ships as they passed up the Delaware River to Philadelphia, and I broadcast live from the "Ground Zero" of a locked down, downtown Cleveland, as the KKK ralled on the same day as the first game at the new Browns Stadium. Making "lemonade out of lemons", I once did an award-winning series about car theft prevention, after my own car was stolen.
I have been honored by the Ohio Associated Press Broadcasters and the Society of Professional Journalists as the state's best large market radio news anchor. I have also won the Achievement In Radio (A.I.R.) Award as Cleveland's best radio news anchor. In addition, I have won the Press Club of Cleveland's award for doing Ohio's best radio newscast.
Here are answers to a couple questions about me. I'm not really "five-foot-four" as WTAM 1100's Mike Trivisonno nicknamed me years ago ("Five-foot-four Tommy Moore"). I'm really closer to five-foot-seven, but that doesn't rhyme. As for the deliberate "I'm Tom Moore," in newscasts, it started when our newscasts ended with the anchor saying "I'm (anchor name) on Cleveland's only Newsradio..." I decided to deliberately separate "Moore" from "on," as my mother didn't raise a moron.
By the way, I LOVE to keep up old blog entries. They were once in chronological order, starting with the newest. That was until late January of 2011, when corporate decided that no copyrighted photos could be posted on any web site. As a result, photos were taken off my blog, unless they were ones that I took myself, and that changed the dates everything was posted, and mixed up the order.
Enough about me. I'd like to hear from you. E-mail me at tommoore@wtam.com.
So, When Am I On The Air?
These days, you'll hear me on WTAM 1100 mostly at 5:30 and 6 p.m. I spend the rest of my day anchoring newscasts for our sister stations, Newstalk 570 WKBN in Youngstown, and FM Newstalk 104.7 in Pittsburgh.
Drivers in Los Angeles are getting ready this weekend for what they’re calling “Carmageddon.” What is the problem out there on the left coast? Why, it’s the closure of a freeway!
For two days this weekend, they’ll close I-405 – “The 405” as they say out there – through the mountain pass north of west L.A. to start demolition of a bridge. It’s all part of a project that calls for widening 405.
OMG! The nation’s second-largest city is going into a panic because of the closure of a freeway!
But then, I started to think. Aren’t we Clevelanders going into a panic because of all the lane changes and closures related to the work on the new Innerbelt bridge?
No we aren’t. Yes, some drivers are having a hard time dealing with it, but we are not calling it “Carmageddon” when the westbound lanes of I-90 are closed for an entire weekend, or when the E. 22nd and Carnegie offramps can be accessed only by traffic on northbound I-77 merging into I-90.
Why aren’t we panicking? Well, of course, there are far fewer drivers here than in L.A., but I also like to think there are good alternate routes.
But what if, and I say, what if, every freeway crossing over the Cuyahoga River in Cuyahoga County were completely closed, forcing you to go all the way to the Turnpike to go from east to west? Now, that would give you an idea of the panic that’s facing drivers who want to go from west L.A. to the San Fernando Valley.
I found a funny piece from Monday’s Los Angeles Times that made me think about how the folks at ODOT could help us get across the CuyahogaRiver during the multiple years of Innerbelt work. I want to give credit to L.A. Times writer Steve Lopez, as I have adapted some of his ideas.
Southwest Airlines could offer flights from BurkeLakefrontAirport to HopkinsInternationalAirport. Flight time would be about two minutes. Cost, as low as $19, depending on when you buy your ticket.
Goodyear can send its blimp, the Spirit of Goodyear, up to Cleveland to ferry people from the east to the west.
Bring back the Holy Moses, the ferry boats that used to take people from the east bank to the west bank of the Flats, before the east bank shut down.
There’s a company called Water Car. They make cars that can also be driven into water and go just like a boat. All you need to do is just drive into Lake Erie and you can easily get from the east side to the west. Their Python model starts at only $200,000.
ODOT should have crisis counselors handy to deal with people who are disoriented and suffering from anxiety.
Actually, if there’s one thing about all this, it makes me glad I live in Cleveland and not in L.A. If a city is panicking over having a freeway closed for two days – and a weekend at that – it’s not exactly where I’d want to be. We Clevelanders are having a tough time dealing with the Innerbelt being narrowed and having lanes closed, but in the long run, we’ll end up with a bridge replacing the one that is over 50 years old so it’s worth some minor inconvenience.
