This column was published October 4-5, 2024 in the Manhattan Mercury.
The notion of broadcast journalism first took hold as a little kid. I would devour NBC’s Saturday afternoon Game of the Week and complain that the facts and figures spouted by Curt Gowdy didn’t match up with what was on the back of my baseball cards.
The dream of becoming a big-league sports play-by-play announcer would give way to broadcast journalism, which led to spin doctoring for a governor, and eventually communications, advocacy, public and private sector system management. A lifetime in Kansas and a career’s worth of journalistic instincts.
It comes full circle one week from this coming Monday morning at 9 a.m., when I begin hosting a new radio talk show on News Radio KMAN in Manhattan.
Titled ‘Within Reason,’ those two words were very thoughtfully and purposefully selected. It came about through conversations with Ned Seaton, publisher of this newspaper, whose family also owns KMAN and the four FM radio stations in Manhattan that make up Manhattan Broadcasting Company, Inc., all for-profit ventures. More on that in a minute.
Ned has embarked on a mission to ensure the future of independent, professional journalism in our community by combining systems within his family’s media properties and we see this new radio talk show as a building block to help reach that goal. In fact, Ned will be my guest Wednesday, October 16. Tune in and hear his dreams.
We replace In Focus, a community affairs program that served a purpose but generated no
revenue. Make no mistake, without revenue, there will be no independent professional journalism. Which is why we’re grateful for visionary leadership of three community pillars
who have signed on as core sponsors of Within Reason: Stormont Vail Health, McCownGordon Construction and The Trust Company. We appreciate not only their sponsorship, but their trust and confidence in me to deliver a product that will lend credibility to their good names.
Our intent is to dig deeper into Manhattan and regional community conversations, business and societal trends, policy ideas from every level of government, with a particular emphasis on reason and common sense.
So far, we’ve lined up conversations on childcare, housing, and the ongoing, never ending, chronic challenges related to parks, recreation and the hopes and dreams wrapped up in indoor swimming pools.
Our hope is to arm listeners with new data, information – and truth. I strongly believe the key to today’s societal ills are people who think longer, deeper, and more critically. Journalism is the one constant in our society to allow that.
We’re thrilled to have secured an in-person commitment from Gov. Laura Kelly, to be our debut guest, on Monday, October 14. Since we’re so close to the election, the first couple of weeks we’ve also lined up appearances from candidates for the newly expanded Pott County Commission, the state legislature, and the U.S. House.
When last I talked regularly on the radio, my voice was transmitted only terrestrially. We’ll still do that, but times change and technology marches on. We’ll also livestream globally on YouTube, and record and post each program as a podcast.
It will not be gotcha or confrontational, we seek the gaining of new knowledge and motivation. We’ll travel the middle of the broad thought road, where the overwhelming majority of people in this community live – politically and emotionally.
We intend it to be rational, authentic, and genuine, with just enough show biz and pizzazz to make it appealing, set it apart and gain a following. Like reading this column (which I will continue to write), you have a choice. Consume it, think about it, and move on with your life – or ignore it.
You’ll make a similar choice about whether this new local radio talk show is worth your time. When you unpack that choice, you will find the essence of our motivation behind Within Reason.
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