Al Schottelkotte

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Al Schottelkotte, circa 1984

Albert J. "Al" Schottelkotte (IPA: /ˈʃɒtəlkɒti/; March 19, 1927 – December 25, 1996) was a long-time news anchor/reporter for WCPO-TV in Cincinnati, Ohio for 27 years, and later served as President/CEO of the Scripps Howard Foundation from 1986 until three weeks before his death in December 1996.

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[edit] Early career

Schottelkotte's news career began in 1943 when he was hired on as a copy aide for The Cincinnati Enquirer. Three months later he was promoted to general assignment reporter, making then-16-year-old Schottelkotte the youngest journalist at that time for any major American newspaper. After a two-year stint in the military serving in Korea, he began writing his "Talk Of The Town" for the Enquirer, which lasted nine years.

During his military career, Schottelkotte lectured on current affairs. It was that experience that offered him the chance in 1953 to anchor an evening newscast on WSAI-FM (now WVMX).

[edit] "The Voice Of Cincinnati"

By 1959, Schottelkotte had joined Scripps-Howard's WCPO Television, anchoring the 11 p.m. newscast. For a time, he continued to write for the Enquirer, but by 1961 he had abandoned print journalism to devote all his energy to television.

Schottelkotte's tireless work ethic, paired with his terse and prudent on-air delivery made him synonymous with Cincinnati television news, and easily earned him the nickname "The Voice Of Cincinnati", supplanting newscaster Peter Grant, a longtime mainstay of on WLWT television and radio. Schottelkotte's newscasts consistently led in TV ratings from 1960 to 1982, with shares sometimes leading all of the competing Cincinnati newscasts combined. He was unseated as Cincinnati's news leader in 1982 by Nick Clooney, a long-time TV favorite in Cincinnati who had begun anchoring local news on rival station WKRC-TV.

1975 TV Guide ad for "The Al Schottelkotte News"
1975 TV Guide ad for "The Al Schottelkotte News"

For many years Schottelkotte anchored the news six days a week (Sunday through Friday), initially doing the 11 p.m. newscasts, and later adding on newscasts at 6 p.m. and later still an unprecedented "Channel 9 Noon Report", making him far and away the most visible of all news anchors in Cincinnati. His popularity was such that he appeared as a baliff in a 1964 episode of Gunsmoke,[1] and even made a cameo appearance as himself in a 1966 episode of Gilligan's Island-- at the time WCPO was affiliated with CBS.

Over time, he took to beginning each newscast with a precis of the day's headlines, finishing his overview with "Details on these in a minute.. Elsewhere...", and then signing off with his trademark ending: "Until tomorrow, may it all be good news to you." (On WKRP In Cincinnati, newsman Les Nessman signed off all his newscasts with "Good night, and may the good news be yours," a variation on, and a tribute to, Schottelkotte's trademark signoff).

In 1973, when the Rembrandt painting "Portrait Of A Woman" was stolen from the Taft Museum, a local man having found the painting called Schottelkotte personally and produced the portrait to him live on an 11 o'clock newscast; the painting was confirmed to be genuine by then-museum committee chairman John Warrington.

During a 1977 newscast, an intruder barged into the studio shouting as Schottelkotte began narrating a film report. He punched the prowler with one hand while muting his microphone with the other so viewers could not hear it. The intruder fled and Schottelkotte, unshaken, continued with the newscast.

[edit] Innovations

Schottelkotte contributed to numerous pioneering facets of local news:

  • The "Spotlight Report", which he created for radio in 1953. He brought it to television and continued it until he ended his broadcast career in 1994.
  • He spearheaded the expansion of WCPO's newscasts to a half hour (from 15 minutes), and he created newscast slots at 6 p.m. and even a "noon report" broadcast, which he himself anchored until 1967 (at the time a newscast at noon was unheard of in television news).
  • Schottelkotte relied heavily on visuals, believing they drew more attention to a given story and away from Schottelkotte himself. The WCPO news staff had acquired a library of over 50,000 slides and countless pieces of film footage of noted personalities and local landmarks (Ted Turner later took a page from Schottelkotte's approach when he launched CNN).[2]
  • By 1967 Schottelkotte was promoted to general manager of Scripps Howard's fledgling news division. Under his management, WCPO had obtained one of the first ever news helicopters in the U.S. (The "Channel 9 Newsbird" was also one of the first to broadcast live while in flight).
  • He was also credited with the creation or co-creation of several local programs, both news and non-news oriented, including:
Impact, a weekend political discussion program.
Police Call, a public affairs show featuring discussions on law enforcement with actual police, short films on safety, and also featured a "most wanted" hotline to catch criminals still at large.
Call The Doctor, a medical discussion show where people could call in with health-related questions. The show ran for 22 years.
Sports Of All Sorts, a Sunday night sports discussion show.

[edit] Later years

Schottelkotte was promoted to senior vice-president of Scripps Howard Broadcasting in the fall of 1981. The following year he was made station director for WCPO and stepped down as anchor of the 11 o'clock newscast, but continued to anchor the 6 p.m. newscasts until August 1986, when he was promoted yet again to president of the Scripps Howard Foundation. He would have retired in March 1997.

[edit] Personal life

Schottelkotte grew up in Cincinnati's Cheviot neighborhood and was of German ancestry. He practiced the Roman Catholic faith.

He and his first wife, Virginia, had 12 children, most of whom still live in the Cincinnati area. His second wife, Elaine Green, was at one time a news reporter at WCPO; in 1981 she won a Peabody award for her interview of a gunman during a hostage situation in WCPO's newsroom in October of 1980.

Schottelkotte died on Christmas Day 1996 at his Lawrenceburg, Indiana home, after a two-year battle with cancer.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Friedman, Jim (2007), "Images Of America: Cincinnati Television", page 99. Arcadia Publishing, ISBN 978-0-7385-5169-2
  2. ^ Allen, Craig. "Action Plan (1969–1972)", News is People: The Rise of Local TV News and the Fall of News from New York. Blackwell Publishing, 114. ISBN 0813812070. “One of the onlookers then living in Cincinnati was cable TV pioneer Ted Turner, who in 1982 would model his ‘Headline News’ on this ‘Schottelkotte format.’” 

[edit] External links