The television news industry is incredibly unforgiving and incredibly incestuous.  I know that from personal experience.  I can go in to virtually any TV market and know someone … or know someone who knows someone.   I’ve worked in three television markets … Des Moines (7 years), Orlando (10 minutes) and Kansas City (3 years).   But I can name at least 50 cities where friends of mine from former stations have landed.

And, believe me, if I’m in your town … I’m looking you up and you’re buying me a drink.  Or vice versa.

Take for instance my friend Ron Corning.  I met Ron a million years ago when he worked in St. Louis.  (Shout out, Jill Farmer!)   I don’t think I’ve seen him face-to-face in well over ten years.  But I’ve kept track of him and seen the trajectory his shooting star has taken.  He anchored for ABC News among a slew of other assignments.  As luck would have it, I had an assignment in NY where Ron anchors in the #1 market in the country.  He’s a bit out in the sticks of Long Island, but, then again, so was I.

Ron is the perfect example of someone who has done it all.  Serious news.  Fluffy features.  Entertainment.  And through all of it … he’s had perfect hair and a megawatt smile.  I hate him.

I gave him fair warning that I’d be in town (albeit briefly).   I’ll be damned if he wasn’t the host with the most … taking me out for some killer Italian food and letting me hang around the station while he anchored the evening newscast.   That’s the beauty of TV, you can pick up right where you left off ten years later.  The only difference is that you have more friends in common and can easily dish the dirt on more topics.

Thank GOD for Ron’s hospitality.  Otherwise I would have been stuck in a stuffy hotel room and had Chili’s delivered in.  That’s how I spend most evenings when I’m trapped in a city without a TV friend.  It’s a fate worse than death.