Remembering my friend Jim Barroll (02-09-2024--Hour3)

This episode is presented by Carolina Readiness Supply – My old friend and mentor, Jim Barroll, passed away this week. He was a great broadcaster and even better human being.

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[00:00.000 --> 00:10.440] Howdy, what's going on? Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. It is hard live [00:10.440 --> 00:14.720] every day, by the way, from noon until three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want [00:14.720 --> 00:19.440] exclusive content, invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep [00:19.440 --> 00:25.480] with links. Become a patron. Go to thepetecalinershow.com. This podcast is also supported by North Carolina [00:25.480 --> 00:29.640] businesses. So please consider supporting them. Try not to skip through their short [00:29.640 --> 00:33.400] ad. Make sure you hit the subscribe button to get every episode for free right to your [00:33.400 --> 00:40.200] smartphone or tablet. And thanks so much for your support. So I think it was Monday. Was [00:40.200 --> 00:47.900] it Monday? Was it Monday when I found out? Yeah. So I was on the air. It was the very [00:47.900 --> 00:54.660] last segment of the program. And I got an email from listener John Longtime listener, big [00:54.660 --> 01:00.460] fan of the station. And he had sent me a message saying he was sorry to hear that Jim [01:00.460 --> 01:08.660] about Jim barrel. And I did not know what he was talking about. So I did a quick search. [01:08.660 --> 01:16.260] And I went to my Facebook page where I'm friends with Jim barrel. And I read the posts from [01:16.260 --> 01:24.380] his daughter and his sister that had and they said that he had died. He was 71 years [01:24.380 --> 01:31.940] old. Jim barrel was a longtime news anchor. 31 years he worked here at WBT. He was the [01:31.940 --> 01:39.380] afternoon news anchor when I started as a part timer. And I worked directly for him in the [01:39.380 --> 01:45.420] WBT newsroom. And I admit on Monday when I read this and I was going over some of this stuff [01:45.420 --> 01:55.940] like obviously I had no prep work obviously for any of that. And I was in shock. I was [01:55.940 --> 02:01.420] stunned. I kind of I didn't know what to say. It was still trying to kind of comprehend the [02:01.420 --> 02:10.620] fact that like I because I we had just sent him a birthday card. And I noted that he hadn't [02:10.620 --> 02:18.100] sent me a Dilbert cartoon that day. He he subscribed to Dilbert cartoons. He would get [02:18.100 --> 02:21.580] them in his email and he would forward him over to me. I don't know if he paid for them or not. [02:21.580 --> 02:28.860] I'm sorry Scott Adams if we were depriving you of income. But but he always enjoyed the the [02:28.860 --> 02:34.380] comic strip. So he would send him over. And and that's when I realized Monday, whatever. [02:34.380 --> 02:40.700] And like I hadn't I hadn't gotten any of his emails for a couple days. And I and I should have [02:40.700 --> 02:47.060] known. But you look back on that stuff and you don't realize that at the time. It only becomes [02:47.060 --> 02:56.940] clearer afterwards. He had a he had a very aggressive form of lymphoma called mantle cell lymphoma. [02:57.900 --> 03:06.140] And it just came out of nowhere. He started feeling tired. And they went in and they found as his [03:06.140 --> 03:10.460] T cell counts were like all out of our white blood cell. I guess it was what the white blood [03:10.460 --> 03:16.940] cell count was all out of whack. And and he went into the hospital and and he died within days. [03:18.220 --> 03:22.220] Which is it was shocking because he had just run a half marathon. [03:23.100 --> 03:31.740] He placed third in his age group. In the right up, by the way, his memorial service is going to be [03:31.740 --> 03:39.020] on Sunday. And it's up in Hendersonville, which is where he and his wife Robbie retired after he [03:40.540 --> 03:47.020] I mean, he was let go here at WBT. Right. I mean, he retired. It was 62 at the time. But [03:47.580 --> 03:53.980] we had been sold WBT had been sold for like the I don't know what 30th time in in two years or [03:53.980 --> 04:01.420] something. No, I mean, I kid, but it like this was what's kind of amazing is that WBT had been [04:01.420 --> 04:06.780] owned by a single company for so long, Jefferson Pilot. And then when JP got bought by Lincoln [04:06.780 --> 04:12.300] Financial and another insurance company, they were both insurance companies and Lincoln Financial, [04:12.300 --> 04:15.660] they didn't have any experience running any kind of media operations. [04:16.700 --> 04:22.940] And so they like immediately sold just us, just the Charlotte properties. And then after that, [04:23.660 --> 04:28.460] there, there was a succession, there was a pretty, you know, of the of the station getting [04:28.460 --> 04:32.540] sold to different companies than those companies getting sold to other companies and stuff. So [04:32.540 --> 04:37.900] there was like decades where WBT was owned by one company and then a quick procession [04:38.460 --> 04:45.980] of flipped ownership. And eventually when was it greater media, we got swallowed up by somebody, [04:45.980 --> 04:53.900] I forget who. And then they got picked up by the stage got picked up by intercom. I think is [04:53.900 --> 05:01.340] at that point, that's when they they let go gym. And Jim just decided to say, you know what, [05:01.340 --> 05:06.860] retire. And he talks about this, by the way, I've got this audio. He did an interview [05:07.980 --> 05:15.260] on a YouTube show called incredible stories hosted by Nathan Mackey. This was done about six years [05:15.260 --> 05:20.300] ago. And so I appreciate that Nathan had Jim on to talk about this stuff because I was able to [05:20.300 --> 05:27.420] listen back and listen to my friend talk about, you know, his career and the places that he had [05:27.420 --> 05:34.300] worked. Columbia, South Carolina, where he originally started like Trenton, I want to say in New Jersey, [05:34.380 --> 05:39.100] but he was just like an intern up there. He went to because he bounced around. See, people don't know [05:39.100 --> 05:47.740] like Jim lived in so many different places growing up. He, and I never made this connection. I was [05:47.740 --> 05:54.940] reading the write up at the his obituary. And I never made this connection, but it makes sense [05:54.940 --> 06:01.260] that he could get along with anybody. And he had a wonderful sense of humor, perhaps aided by the [06:01.260 --> 06:07.100] numerous moves that he experienced as a child. He was born in New York City, spent three years [06:07.100 --> 06:12.460] of his childhood, then in Princeton, New Jersey. Then he went to Austin, Texas, then Cincinnati, [06:13.100 --> 06:19.580] then England, then Nashville, then Montclair, New Jersey, and finally graduating high school [06:20.220 --> 06:29.900] in Columbia, South Carolina from Dreyer High School. He then went to USC. He majored in broadcast. [06:30.540 --> 06:40.460] And then he went to work at WIS Radio in Columbia. And from there, he then made his way to WBT [06:41.420 --> 06:48.860] in Charlotte here. And 2016, I believe, is when the ownership change happened. [06:49.820 --> 06:54.860] He was forced out, quote, retired. And that's when he moved up to the mountains in Hendersonville, [06:55.660 --> 07:04.300] which is where I was, because when Greater Media bought BT, that's when I was forced out. [07:04.300 --> 07:08.380] Well, they did not renew my contract. Okay. So they didn't renew the contract. And so I [07:09.020 --> 07:16.620] I was out. And then I ended up in Asheville. And when he retired, he's next door in Hendersonville. [07:16.620 --> 07:22.700] And so I was like, do you want to come and do some fill-in work when we need some fill-in work [07:22.780 --> 07:35.340] in our newsroom? And, and he did. And I mean, yes, like he was the pro. You know, he was awesome [07:35.340 --> 07:43.340] at doing news. He had a great ethic, a journalism ethic. But he, you know, his delivery was always [07:43.420 --> 07:53.660] impeccable. He had this crisp and clean and clear voice, a completely unremarkable accent that was [07:53.660 --> 07:59.580] like, because he bounced all around. But he also was just one of the nicest people you would ever [07:59.580 --> 08:03.740] want to meet. And maybe that had something to do with the fact that he had moved around so much [08:03.740 --> 08:10.620] that he had to meet new people all the time. And it, it, it made him into the person he was. [08:10.620 --> 08:14.620] And that's somebody that I wanted to be able to work with again. And so when he got up to [08:14.620 --> 08:18.700] Hendersonville, I was like, come work at the station again. And so he did. And so it was great. I got [08:18.700 --> 08:24.140] that, you know, I got to have him in my life up there, which was fantastic. And [08:26.540 --> 08:33.180] one of the things that I told my former co-workers up there, Mark Starling, he does the [08:33.180 --> 08:40.700] morning show up there. And I was talking with him about Jim on Wednesday. And Mark had not ever [08:40.700 --> 08:48.940] heard that Jim was, he was essentially at one brief period of his life. He was a hitman. He was a [08:48.940 --> 08:55.500] hitman for hire, not kidding. I mean, he didn't kill people. He would throw pies in their face. [08:57.900 --> 09:02.540] I'm not kidding. This, like he, I don't know what you call this particular line of work, [09:02.540 --> 09:06.780] a pie assassin or a pie assassin. I don't know. But [09:08.060 --> 09:13.820] it's true. If you don't believe me, I have audio to prove it. The memorial service [09:14.700 --> 09:21.180] for Jim Barrel is going to be Sunday, two o'clock Church Street funeral chapel that is [09:21.180 --> 09:31.260] on Church Street, South Church Street in Hendersonville up the road. Jim was the 31 year news veteran [09:31.260 --> 09:37.740] here. He was my friend and he was my mentor when I first started in the broadcast news business. [09:38.620 --> 09:43.900] I worked for a couple of years down in Rock Hill and then took a part time job here, [09:43.900 --> 09:49.740] which turned into the full time job as a reporter. And Jim was the anchor on the desk in the after [09:49.740 --> 10:00.060] noon. And so I worked directly for him. And his view on news is mine. How, you know, [10:01.100 --> 10:06.300] he taught me how to be a good reporter, an ethical reporter, a fair reporter. And [10:07.580 --> 10:15.500] I did not know at the time that he actually had a side business back in college where he was paid [10:15.500 --> 10:22.620] to pie people in the face. I did not know that. So this came out. I want to say about 20 years [10:22.620 --> 10:28.540] ago, he came out somehow or another. I think somebody in the news had been pied and then Jim [10:28.540 --> 10:32.140] admitted that he had done this and apparently had been paid to do it. I think he pied the [10:32.140 --> 10:37.980] chancellor of USC at some point, like the leader of the school. I think he got paid to pie the guy [10:37.980 --> 10:42.860] in the face. And so here's the proof. Now, this is not the interview that he did with Keith [10:42.860 --> 10:48.380] Larson because I think that audio is lost. But later on, this would have been, I think what year [10:48.380 --> 10:53.740] was this roughly? John Moore found this audio 2016. So 2016. So right before they were both [10:53.740 --> 11:00.380] actually purged after one of the ownership changes, they had this exchange where Keith is mocking the [11:00.380 --> 11:06.220] weather guys report because he was talking about the Carolina Panthers facing off quote unquote [11:06.220 --> 11:12.300] facing off against the Seattle Seahawks. So he was given the weather forecast for the game. [11:12.380 --> 11:18.940] Would you say, what do you say? The Panthers and Seahawks will tip off. Would he say that? [11:19.980 --> 11:26.540] No, wouldn't say that. You know, one of those phrases started the game phrase kind of saying [11:26.540 --> 11:34.060] meet each other. He wouldn't say tip off. We shouldn't say face off. [11:34.060 --> 11:43.660] Maybe maybe he's not that familiar with football. Maybe. I'm just saying, you know, let him know. [11:45.580 --> 11:51.660] It's he's a weather guy. That's why he's not a sports guy. Oh, wait, Jim Barrow, ladies and gentlemen, [11:52.380 --> 11:57.500] disin out the weather guy. Well, you know, face off, if you're going to get into other sports terms, [11:57.580 --> 12:04.780] it's probably the most transferable of the, you know, tip off first pitch, whatever expressions [12:04.780 --> 12:09.420] that you use to start a game because you're facing each other. And you know, you could say [12:09.420 --> 12:13.820] kick off, but face off here. They're looking at each other. They're facing each other. Right. [12:14.620 --> 12:20.380] Why do you always have to be such a decent man? Such a such a kind, decent benefit of the doubt [12:20.380 --> 12:25.980] kind of person? Why do you always have to be there? And yet there you were with with an actual [12:25.980 --> 12:31.020] business of hitting people in the face with pies. That was a different time. [12:40.940 --> 12:42.860] I didn't care about people that much. [12:42.860 --> 12:51.820] Oh my goodness. The way he just said that. [12:53.660 --> 13:02.460] This is what politicians need to do. They need to hear what Jim Barrow just said and exactly how he [13:02.460 --> 13:09.020] said it because when they come up like last night, Ted Cruz, pounds Donald Trump over stuff he said [13:09.020 --> 13:15.740] in the past about Manhattan values are right. This comes up all the time. Somebody said something [13:15.740 --> 13:20.620] before they did something before. And then they always go off in these long ridiculous [13:20.620 --> 13:25.740] explanations. They just need to do what Jim Barrow just did. That was a different time. [13:26.300 --> 13:29.740] Or you could do what, you know, today's sports figures do, you know, they're accused of something [13:29.740 --> 13:36.140] the day before and I said, I'm ready to move on. That's a say it every time. It's like their [13:36.140 --> 13:41.340] agent says use that expression. Oh my God. Save that one, John. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, [13:42.140 --> 13:49.660] Jim Barrow, he'll be back again at 11 o'clock. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. [13:50.940 --> 13:55.500] Right. Well, John did save that one. And I'm glad he did. And I'm glad he found it and sent it over [13:55.500 --> 14:00.780] to me. And so I share it with you. All right. Do the current world events have you wondering [14:00.780 --> 14:04.860] whether we are teetering on the edge of catastrophe? Are you concerned? It's going to reach our [14:04.860 --> 14:10.860] shores. Okay. So what are you doing about your concerns? Let me help. 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It runs about [15:02.460 --> 15:09.260] nine minutes. I think Vince cokely played the, the tribute as well. [15:11.660 --> 15:18.540] Because when Jim started at WBT, he was started off as a reporter and he covered a whole bunch of [15:18.540 --> 15:26.620] stories on the Jim Baker trial, Hurricane Hugo, the crash of flight 1016, the wind shear that, [15:26.620 --> 15:34.460] that slammed the plane down into the neighborhood near the airport. And so he started as a reporter [15:34.460 --> 15:41.980] and when I came on as a reporter, he was always very patient and informative and educating me on [15:41.980 --> 15:48.780] how to do the job and how to do it well. And even if you messed up, he wasn't a screamer or a [15:48.860 --> 15:55.740] yeller. He was just a decent guy and very calming influence and really patient with all of us. [15:56.780 --> 16:03.180] And so I could not have asked for a better place and a better person to learn how to be a reporter. [16:03.980 --> 16:08.860] He did an interview about six years ago with a fellow by the name of Nathan Mackey, [16:08.860 --> 16:16.140] who's got a YouTube show that he, that's called incredible stories. And so he talks with Jim Barrow [16:16.140 --> 16:23.180] and Nathan is a fan of WBT, did he listen to WBT like his whole life, remembers the Hurricane [16:23.180 --> 16:32.220] Hugo coverage. And he talks with Jim about the power of, of radio. And here's what Jim said. [16:32.220 --> 16:40.460] I tell you radio, it's still a relevant medium. You know, you talk about social media and radio [16:40.460 --> 16:46.300] still is a theater of the mind. It's live, a bit more civil than social media. And you can always [16:46.300 --> 16:54.140] rely on its spontaneity. Sometimes social media suffers from sort of, it's less like a conversation [16:54.140 --> 16:59.500] really than radio. But you know, having worked in the radio business all my life, I know the [16:59.500 --> 17:05.900] advantage is not to say that it doesn't have lots of challengers in the media marketplace today. [17:05.900 --> 17:11.820] But it is still a unique medium. And I think one that is around to stay unless I'm wrong. [17:12.620 --> 17:16.460] What are you most proud of from your career and radio, Jim? [17:17.580 --> 17:22.860] It's funny because I'm sort of biased towards myself. But you know, and the things that I would [17:22.860 --> 17:27.260] say I'm proud of, I don't know that they would mean anything to other people, but surviving [17:27.260 --> 17:34.380] my career in radio without being fired, except right up at the very end, when I was a result of [17:34.380 --> 17:39.580] downsizing, just so happened, it was right at the end of my career. So I don't, I sort of look at [17:39.580 --> 17:45.580] it as like, oh well, okay, at the end somehow. But it's a volatile business. A lot of people don't [17:45.580 --> 17:50.540] make a career out of it. They spend some time there and then they move on to other maybe related [17:50.540 --> 17:55.660] fields, public information, that sort of thing. But I guess I took pride in the fact that over [17:55.660 --> 18:00.940] all those years, close to 40 years, I managed to survive ever having just being fired for [18:00.940 --> 18:08.300] various reasons, came close early on and managed to survive many different management changes [18:08.300 --> 18:13.020] where people would come in and I would watch people who I worked with disappear for various [18:13.020 --> 18:18.300] reasons, not always because they were not good employees, but just, but with nature of the [18:18.300 --> 18:22.780] business, people come and go and they get, they let people go for various reasons. But I was, [18:22.780 --> 18:27.340] I guess I was just proud not to have been fired all those years. I could have been me. It's just [18:27.340 --> 18:33.420] for the grace of God, you know, something happened and I got, I got to stay and so it became a very, [18:33.420 --> 18:38.780] I almost, I forgot that I was in a volatile profession. I felt very secure in it for a long [18:38.780 --> 18:43.660] time, but it's not that it's not always that kind of business. So I guess I was pretty lucky. [18:43.660 --> 18:49.980] Yeah, indeed he was. He was then asked about what makes a good reporter. [18:50.060 --> 18:58.300] News reporting is pretty interesting and really you're, you have to remember that you were there [18:58.300 --> 19:05.820] to, you're really just telling the story. You're a mouthpiece and so you have to resist injecting [19:05.820 --> 19:12.060] yourself into the story. Sometimes that's impossible because people say, okay, you're there, tell us [19:12.060 --> 19:17.420] what your impressions were and all that sort of thing. But really, you're trying your best to [19:17.500 --> 19:22.860] convey the facts of the story in a way that really does justice to what has happened. I mean, [19:22.860 --> 19:27.420] if it's not that big of a story, you don't want to build it up into something that's that it was [19:27.420 --> 19:33.340] and which happens a lot in the business. I'm sure everybody can think of examples. But you really [19:33.340 --> 19:41.500] kind of have to just pay attention, be a good observer. And just it's almost like, if you have [19:41.500 --> 19:49.020] children and I know you do, but when you start telling stories to them, when they're very young, [19:49.020 --> 19:54.460] you want to emphasize the important parts of the story in a way that doesn't bore them to death. [19:54.460 --> 19:59.100] And so that's kind of like news writing in a very elementary sort of comparison way. [19:59.100 --> 20:06.220] You point out who the good players are, maybe who the bad actors are, [20:06.220 --> 20:11.660] try to put in all the important detail and then make it interesting and convey it in a way that [20:12.300 --> 20:17.980] reaches out to people in a way that they can understand. So it's sort of relating to a story [20:17.980 --> 20:23.740] from a personal perspective. And that's probably the best advice that I would be able to give to [20:23.740 --> 20:29.820] any young reporters, just resist the impulse to inject yourself into the story and just try to [20:29.820 --> 20:34.860] convey the facts in a manner that people can relate to in their own human experience in such a way [20:34.860 --> 20:42.380] that doesn't minimize something that might be tragic or overarching and doesn't maximize [20:42.380 --> 20:46.860] details just for the sake of taking up time. You know, say, hey, give us a minute and a half, [20:46.860 --> 20:50.060] Jim. Okay, I'm just going to throw in a bunch of details. It don't mean anything. Nobody [20:50.060 --> 20:56.220] cares about stuff like that. Just focus on what's important and the story usually can tell itself. [20:56.220 --> 21:01.660] If you're a good observer and you can just pick out what people want to hear. Everybody has an [21:01.740 --> 21:06.860] opinion and it's a challenge, especially when you deal with political stories, you know, because [21:06.860 --> 21:11.500] people, everybody has their own beliefs, including news reporters and the challenges to [21:12.300 --> 21:18.460] remember that, you know, you're only one person. There are probably at least 50% of the listeners [21:18.460 --> 21:22.780] out there who don't have your opinion or don't share your opinion. So don't just put yours out [21:22.780 --> 21:27.500] there as if it's the only one or if it's the primary one because it's tempting. I mean, you see it in [21:28.060 --> 21:32.540] journalism. You see the way stories are reported and sometimes, unfortunately, it comes across [21:32.540 --> 21:38.540] that people are more likely to be just airing a viewpoint on a story as opposed to just telling [21:38.540 --> 21:44.700] the story. And it's it's a human tendency and it's a human failing that many journalists have. And [21:44.700 --> 21:49.420] I've made mistakes in those areas over the years. And you just you try to learn from those mistakes [21:49.420 --> 21:53.420] because people, you know, you get feedback and people say, you know, I heard you tell that story [21:53.500 --> 21:57.420] and it sounded to me like you were injecting your own opinion in the story. So, you know, [21:57.420 --> 22:01.740] they were probably right when that had happened. And so you just you just have to resist that [22:01.740 --> 22:06.060] because it's a temptation once you get the microphone, like, well, I want to, you know, I want my side [22:06.060 --> 22:13.260] represented, but you can't can't do this. You have to be careful. I did try always to be fair. I'm [22:13.260 --> 22:18.860] sure there were times where I failed, but, you know, that's the big challenge is in trying to get [22:18.860 --> 22:25.420] people to pay attention to a particular radio station or your news is make sure that it was [22:25.420 --> 22:30.380] fairly reported. So as what we try to do, some people might disagree that we're always successful [22:30.380 --> 22:35.020] at it. But hopefully we have always been able to try to keep it down the middle of the road. [22:35.020 --> 22:40.060] It's tough. It really is tough because people are people and they're always going to be subject [22:40.060 --> 22:44.380] to their own wins and want to get their opinion. There's just a human nature, human nature. [22:45.340 --> 22:49.340] Jim had studied for two years also at the Reform Theological Seminary in Charlotte, [22:50.220 --> 22:55.420] where he studied Hebrew and ancient Greek. He worked in prison ministry at various Charlotte area [22:55.420 --> 23:00.620] jails. He and his wife Robbie and their daughter, Amy, members of Hickory Grove Baptist Church [23:00.620 --> 23:07.900] in Charlotte for many years. And knowing Jim, knowing his heart, knowing his faith, [23:08.460 --> 23:17.580] as my wife Christy said, you know, he was a lover of aviation photography. We'd take hikes up in the [23:17.580 --> 23:24.700] mountains and share on Facebook these beautiful pictures taken out over the valleys and gorges. [23:25.500 --> 23:31.580] And Christy said that he's enjoying the most amazing views. [23:31.580 --> 23:35.820] And so we'll miss you. Transcription results written to '/home/forge/transcribe3.sonicengage.com/releases/20240210005758' directory