Can’t handle the heat.

0Josh • 7th Oct 2004 • blog entries, nome., station life

I was supposed to interview, former Alaska state Governor Tony Knowles this morning, however that never happened. Tony is the second politician to leave me hanging over the past four days, and that leads me to believe one of two things:

a. All politicians are busy people, who often have to sacrifice commitments, and you can’t always trust them.

Or

b. No one wants to face the straight forward investigative journalism that Josh Rogers brings to the table.

I’m not sure which one it is.

Mr. Knowles is currently running for US Senate, and called in a while ago to setup an interview time while he is here in Nome. We decided that at 10am would be great, he would come in right after getting off the plane. Well, he DID make it in, but it was more like 10:45 when he got to the station, but I understood…it wasn’t a big deal. We went into the studio and started discussing how the campaign was going, and what the format of the interview was going to look like.

I had just gotten everything ready to record, when Neil came in saying that a State Senator (and good friend of KICY) was on the phone for Tony. This is where things started to break down, that phone conversation alerted Mr. Knowles of some campaign emergency. He spent the next 45 to an hour minutes fielding phone calls with his campaign staff back in Anchorage, state party leaders, and finally giving an interview over the phone on another radio station down in Anchorage. We had phones ringing off the hook, all calling for Tony, and we had 4 members of his staff just milling around the office, waiting for him. It was a mad house.

When things were finally under control, it was time for Tony Knowles to leave KICY, as he had other things in Nome that he was already late for. Without ever recording our interview, he remorsefully promised that he would be back.

We will see.