Laura at Fixin’ Supper, were your ears burning this morning at about 11 a.m.?
Former Shelbyville mayor Geneva Smith has a weekly cooking show on WLIJ-AM (1580), one of our two co-owned AM stations in Shelbyville and the one with most of the local programming. Each week, she has a guest who talks about several of their favorite recipes. I was her guest this morning.
Mrs. Smith had asked me to bring several recipes to talk about on-air. I went looking last night for good ones to bring, and Laura’s Ro-Tel Risotto leaped out at me. It was the first recipe I talked about this morning, and the one that Mrs. Smith — not to mention my co-workers back at the paper who had been listening — seemed most interested in making. I did give you credit, Laura.
Well, the focal point of my afternoon was the live radio interview on WLIJ-AM with Kelly Corcoran, who will conduct the Nashville Symphony at this year’s Shelbyville concert. I went to WLIJ’s studios and conducted a live telephone interview with Kelly. The radio folks know me (I had a weekly talk show on the station at one time, years ago) and they just put me on the air and let me do the interview, since I know what the concert is about and what we need to promote. My plan, just as with last year’s interview of Albert-George Schram, was to do the live radio interview and then pull some quotes and turn it into a a brief news story for tomorrow’s T-G.
That was why I had a note pad and pen sitting in front of me during the interview.
But I was so in the moment, so excited and so focused on getting the radio interview right, that I didn’t take any notes. Not one. The interview turned out relatively short — 10 minutes or so. And last year, the announcer who was on duty at the station taped the interview; I didn’t think to ask them to do that this year.
Yes, I know the gist of what Kelly said, but the only purpose of doing a story like that is to incorporate some exact quotes, and I don’t have any and don’t have a way to get any.
Fortunately, we weren’t counting on the story from a news standpoint; we have plenty of other stuff for the front page tomorrow. And I can always come up with a different news peg for another symphony article in a few days. But I feel like such an idiot.
I taped an episode of “Marilyn & Company” today promoting the Symphony at the Celebration” concert and also talking about my foreign mission trips. It will air Saturday at 11 a.m. and Sunday at 2:30 on Charter Communications Channel 22 in Shelbyville, Tullahoma, Manchester, McMinnville and another market or two I don’t recall off the top of my head. The show may run additional times between now and the concert.
Also, I will be on WLIJ-AM 1580 about 2:30 Wednesday helping to interview conductor Kelly Corcoran. The interview will be live on the radio, then I’ll use it as the basis for a news story the next day in the T-G, and maybe a new press release for media in the surrounding counties.
or 
.