WGHP'S FRED BLACKMAN RETIRES TODAY\ THE VETERAN NEWSMAN RETIRES TODAY AFTER A CAREER THAT STARTED AT A SMITHFIELD RADIO STATION AND ENDS AT WGHP. (2024)

People may not know this from 32 years of watching him deliver the Channel 8 news, but Fred Blackman is a funny guy.

Really.The public doesn't know that, though, because at noon and 6 p.m. each weekday, and for different times in prior years, when Blackman delivers the news, he doesn't play.

``The thing that characterizes Fred,' says former WGHP weatherman Frank Deal, ``is an authority quality to his work. His demeanor is authoritative.'

The Blackman most people see is the very definition of an anchor: secure, fixed and reliable. Until today, he even stayed in place. Today, though, Blackman wraps up a 32-year career at WGHP and a 45-year tenure in broadcasting.

Silver-haired and silver-tongued, Blackman is a no-nonsense newsman, known for his straightforward, no-frills news delivery.

``That's the way I was brought up in the business, and that's the way I think it should be,' says Blackman, who turns 65 on Saturday. ``You don't want to talk down to people, but at the same time you want to maintain a certain air of professionalism.'

That means reporting the facts, getting them right, telling them objectively and presenting two sides of a story.

He writes his own copy and as much other news as he can; it's the part of the job he loves most. He covered White House news conferences during the Carter administration and loves hard news. But the most affecting story he has ever covered is the aftermath of the eastern North Carolina floods in September 1999. People brought canned goods and donations to WGHP day and night, filling several tractor trailers.

``That was the doggonedest thing I've ever seen in my life,' Blackman says.

The thing that he's most proud of, though, is not a single story or an event, but his 45-year career, the bulk of it at WGHP, and his attention to detail.

``We have a mission statement at WGHP that says we value fairness and accuracy above all,' Blackman says. ``That has always been my motto. I have always tried to be fair and accurate.'

Accuracy is his hallmark.

``If he sees something that's not right, he'll send out an e-mail,' says Cindy Farmer, his co-anchor of the noon news. ``We'll all get a long, rambling message about why it's important to be careful.'

He caught the mistake when an Associated Press story referred to Republican Sen. Jesse Helms, North Carolina's senior senator, as a Democrat. He reminds reporters, particularly the young ones, that there is a distinction between jail and prison.

``I don't think most of the media is where it needs to be,' Blackman says. ``I'm seeing mistakes on the AP, (which) at one time was absolutely pure, the absolute tops. I don't know what's happening to the media.

``I'm seeing too many mistakes, and it disturbs me.'

His focus always has been telling news right and straight. He never thought much of those consultant recommendations for chit-chat and banter to make the news more ``entertaining.'

``They invented the so-called happy-talk thing,' Blackman says, chuckling. ``Instead of beats you had to have franchises, like 'pets of the week.'

``The consultants have muddied the water and are responsible for blurring the lines between journalism and entertainment.'

Consultants now say it's time to get back to covering beats, Blackman says, adding that if anybody can put and keep news on the right track, it's WGHP general manager Karen Adams. She worked for him 25 years ago as a camera operator on his 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts. When she became his boss in March 1997, Blackman acknowledged her immediately.

``He was the first person to come up and congratulate me,' Adams says, ``and also ask me if he'd ever been mean to me when I was a camera operator. Well, he never has. He's been so gracious, a true professional.'

The key to his longevity, Adams says, has been trust.

``If Fred was giving you the news, then you believed him,' Adams says. ``He was such a constant in everyone's lives.'

He brought news of the Vietnam War, of layoffs, of sensational crimes.

One recent day on the WGHP news set where Farmer and Blackman will do the noon newscast, Blackman has been at the anchor desk since at least 15 minutes before air time. Impeccable in a dark gray suit, white shirt and burgundy silk tie, with his makeup already applied, Blackman applies finishing touches to what is most important to him: the news. He gives his script a once-over, again. Television anchors generally read the news from electronic TelePrompTers. But veterans know to keep their scripts in hand, just in case.

Light banter fills the studio, where a big digital clock counts down the seconds to 12:00 and his jocular crew tend a trio of cameras.

``Fred, can you feel the love, can you feel the love?' asks crew chief Jeff Fabrizio.

Farmer, approaching the desk, croons: ``Fred-kiiins.'

``Mmmm-hmmm?' Blackman responds, eyes on his script.

``You gonna smile for the camera?' she asks, taking her seat next to him.

``Not if I can help it,' he says.

He and Farmer continue a quiet conversation. Fabrizio calls a 30-second countdown. Suddenly, the unflappable Blackman flaps. The TelePrompTer has the wrong script.

``That's not right,' he says, his baritone filling the studio. ``Get the TelePrompTergoing.

``C'mon, for Pete's sake,' Blackman says, pounding the desk with his fist.

But it's too late to get the correct text on view, and when the digital clock rolls from 11:59 to 12:00, a calm, focused Blackman looks at Camera 2 and says:

``Good afternoon and thank you for joining us.'

He and Farmer both do the first two minutes of the news from their paper scripts, until the crew puts the correct text into the TelePrompTer.

``That's why you have to have the hard copy in front of you,' Blackman says. ``It happens occasionally. Sometimes the TelePrompTer just dies or we have technical glitches.

``But if we're sharp enough to maintain good eye contact with the camera, the public never knows.'

Back in the days before there were such things as TelePrompTers, when television had barely settled into American living rooms, skinny, 16-year-old Fred Blackman of Johnston County fell in love with a radio station. Station WMPM opened in Smithfield and Blackman couldn't stay away. He started out doing 15 minutes of high-school news on Saturday mornings; by his senior year he was working full time as a disc jockey.

``I had been making my spending money in the tobacco fields and cotton fields of Johnston County,' Blackman says, ``and I tell you one thing: playing records was a lot easier.'

After graduation came a three-year hitch in the Army, where Blackman got to see a lot of Europe, before he returned home in 1957 to work at radio stations in Dunn, Smithfield and Durham. In 1959, Blackman realized his salary wouldn't get any higher, so he thought he'd try his hand at a TV job at Durham's WTVD.

``I didn't know anything about TV, but I went over and auditioned and got the job,' Blackman says.

He introduced an afternoon cartoon show and did the weather. He worked his way up to doing news reports. It was, at the time, a small station and TV was still a kid. Blackman got to report, write and edit his own stories and even got to run the cameras in the studio.

An administrative job, news and program director, lured him back to radio, where he worked at WCHL in Chapel Hill.

Finally, in 1969, Blackman came to High Point and WGHP, where he produced and anchored the late news.

``To produce your own newscast and then anchor and do it any blooming way you wanted to write it, to do it yourself from beginning to end, it was very nice,' says Blackman, who no longer produces.

Sue Dixon, a WGHP studio operator, has known Blackman since 1974. When she came, he was the news director. She also remembers his days leading both the 6 and 11 p.m. broadcasts.

``Fred has done it all,' she says. ``Plus, he's been a friend.'

Nearly everyone who works off-camera in television news acknowledge that there are on-camera prima donnas, the people who want all the attention, make all the fuss, create all the drama.

But Blackman, Dixon says, is the guy who waves and calls to her in a crowded restaurant, making her feel good, verifying for a skeptical waitress that she does know Blackman.

The young turks on his crew say Blackman is the guy who tells them funny stories.

``He is always on time,' says Fabrizio.

``He's always the first anchor on the set,' says camera operator Chris Roseboro. ``Even if he has to come out here and sit in the dark.'

Blackman's birthday is Saturday, but the big party, the hoopla to mark the end of his career, is today, the day he retires. Blackman will endure it because he's also the definition of gracious.

But, says Farmer, ``he'd rather leave quietly. I think he'd much rather walk into the sunset.'

Blackman chuckles, saying she's right. But there are people depending on him, people who want the chance to pay their respects, some of whom are making special sojourns. So Blackman will stay and do what he does so well, endure.

``I have always given 100 percent,' he says. ``That's the way I was brought up. That's my work ethic.'\ \ Contact Cathy Gant Hill at 373-7096 or chill@news-record.com