Jim Donovan's medical leave of absence

An emotional three weeks. Honestly, more than three weeks. I am so blessed to work where I work but more importantly to have developed the friendships over the years with some amazing human beings.

I am proud to call wkyc Sports Anchor Jim Donovan friend. He and his family have become more than friends. They are truly family to me and my family. Before Mom died, she would call and wind up talking to Donovan, and then me as an afterthought! When Jim's wife calls, I wind up gabbing with her for a while and then passing her along to Jimmy!

Though I've known about Jimmy's medical situation longer than many, it did not really hit me until I watched him make the formal announcement on the air his last night of work. I sat there hanging on his every word. What you see with Jim on tv is what you get in real life: a consummate professional at the top of his craft better than most, who is one of the most caring and compassionate human beings alive. His wit towers above everyone's and I am speechless at his memory bank. You can tell him something once or he can glance over something just one time and it is etched on his brain forever.

None of us wanted to leave work that night knowing that for an undetermined number of weeks or months, a member of our family would be absent.

I gave Jimmy a big hug and kiss and told him he was guaranteed that I would be checking on him regularly. That's one thing I've not done very well over the years. If an employee leaves, I am the worst at keeping in touch with them, whether they be out of town or still in town. I don't know why. Not this time. For the 1st time in a long time, I realize how much I am going to miss my friend, and I refuse to let that happen.

Well, the good news folks is that Jimmy had his bone marrow transplant yesterday, and though he still has a long recovery, everything went very well. Yes, another emotional day. The news started going around the newsroom that surgery went well and Jim was feeling very good, strong, better than he has in a while. And then I never imagined what happened next. I received a text message -- from Donovan! Basically he thanked me for thinking of him and said it was an incredible day....I was flying sky high for the rest of my shift. Absolutely nothing was going to get me down today, let alone the rest of this week!

For those of you who may not have seen Jimmy's last show, He's been battling Leukemia for the last 10 years. He's been receiving treatment, and it's been working. Jim, always a very healthy man, has been amazing at how he's battled this disease without skipping a beat. He's up at the crack of dawn to do stuff for his family, be out at Browns camp, Indians batting practice, Cavs camp, public appearances, emcee events, or tape the bazillion of wkyc & STO shows he anchors. His caring family has assisted him immensely with support and the motivation he's needed through the years.

Jim shared, "I've gone through a lot of treatment for close to 11 years and right now a transplant gives me the best chance for a full recovery. My wife, Cheryl and daughter Meghan have been with me through it all and we figured now it was time to allow people to know what is going on in my life. My goal is to get healthy and to be back covering Cleveland sports as soon as possible."

wkyc President and GM Brooke Spectorsky added, "Jim Donovan is a huge part of the success of Channel 3 and we will be thrilled when he is in good health and back on the anchor desk. Our prayers are with him and his family, and we know the viewers of northeast Ohio will be equally supportive."

Dave Chudowsky will be filling in Monday thru Friday while Chuck Galeti will be handling the weekend sports anchor desk, along with his STO show, "Chuck's Last Call."

For anyone who'd like send well wishes, send them to getwelljim@wkyc.com

Manny Acta & Chris Antonetti of the Indians

I lucked out and was able to attend the Summer Sports Series at Executive Caterers at Landerhaven featuring Cleveland Indians Executive Vice President and GM Chris Antonetti and Cleveland Indians Manager Manny Acta.

Honestly, my shift shuts me out of 97% of events most other media folks can enjoy, but hey, nature of the biz!

Any event involving Manny Acta well worth attending! He's an amazing human being, and as we've seen over the last few years, a student of the game of baseball who knows pretty much everything there is to know. He not only knows the game of baseball inside and out, but he did his homework and knows every minute detail involving the Cleveland Indians, past and present, major and minor leagues.

When I arrived at Landerhaven, I was greeted by present and former co-workers! What a nice afternoon! We had a wkyc table but since I was a last minute add, I actually sat with a former co-worker. It was amazing catching up with Tonya and meeting her current co-workers and son.

wkyc sports anchor/reporter Dave Chudowsky emceed the luncheon. Speaking of knowing his stuff, Dave did an absolutely amazing job as emcee, asking the hard and the right questions of two of the most powerful men in the Cleveland Indians Organization (including a few of my suggestions!).

Acta adheres to 'Wahoo Baseball.' These words are on his office bulletin board. 'Wahoo Baseball' = 'a clean game.' Every facet of the game played cleanly, but more importantly the defense and pitching. Oh yea, we'll take a homerun or timely hitting if we can get it. On the flip side, keeping the opponent out of the game by 1st pitch strikes, not giving up runs, mowing down the opposition, and staying ahead in the count all fits into the 'Wahoo Baseball' philosophy. A team of scrappy ballplayers who mirror the city in which they play (blue collar, working class), who have enthusiasm and passion for the game AND the city of Cleveland.

Acta's solid life philosophy seems to carry over into the clubhouse. He says he does not get frustrated by the game of baseball, it's a game. People who drive slowly in the left lane, that frustrates him! He says, "I do not watch or listen to the news. It's not healthy for me. Honestly, you are never as good as the accolades and never as bad as the criticism. I was a hero a few weeks ago and now they are calling me a different name!" Acta went on to say if there is something big going on in Cleveland, the US, or the World, one of his guys will fill him in to the news. He also believes that negativity doesn't rule the world. It's actually a very small percentage of what's going on around us but it's just louder.

If you hear Manny Acta speak, he says what is on his mind and tells it like it is. He DID do his homework and research before even being hired as the Cleveland Indians' manager back in 2009. He knew the depth of talent on the upper level down to the minor leagues. He truly believes with the this talent, the Indians can again regain the Dynasty they had in the 90's. He loves coming to the ballpark and seeing all the championship banners flying high.

Though Manny Acta monopolized the afternoon with his wit and wisdom, Chris Antonetti fielded some pretty hard questions. When asked about development and trades, he admitted, "You can't allow emotions to take precedence over the best decisions of the day." Fans see the outcome. Fans really don't see the leg work, the homework, and minute by minute wheeling and deal to try and make a move come to fruition. He did go on to share some of the emotions that flowed the day Victor Martinez was traded. He said there really was not a dry eye in the office, especially after working with this player for so long. Victor was not just a co-worker to all but a great friend who clearly did not want to leave Cleveland.

Bottom line, said Antonetti, "We want to win the World Series." We do the best job we can analytically, methodically, scouting-wise, our research and homework to make the best deals and win a World Series. Antonetti said that begins with the draft and continues year round. The Indians just drafted a local kid from Lincoln West, Brian Ruiz, who they are very excited about ...and are excited for the home grown ties! They are very excited about Lonnie Chisenhall and Drew Pomerantz.

Acta touched on the talent the Indians have and some of his key players. Acta said going into spring training he has an idea of most of the players that will be staying with the team but every single player has to perform and earn their stay and roles with the team.

The top performers include shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera. Acta says, "He's the best for me. He's been outstanding. He's still evolving as a player only to get better which is scary." Outfielder Michael Brantley is the guy Acta wants to see at the plate with runners in scoring position. Catcher Carlos Santana is still adjusting. But Acta went on to say, "He's so valuable, it's unbelieveable." When asked about right fielder Shin-Soo Choo, Acta said "He's the best right fielder in the game. He made a mistake off the field and he's taking it very hard." Most of these players put a lot of pressure on themselves and just have to go one bat at a time.

Acta's not so sure about the "Bullpen Mafia" title but says his bullpen has done their job night after night.

Acta believes in his skilled coaching staff and says having Mike Hargrove and Sandy Alomar back on this team has exceptional value, especially with those two players, linking the past success to the present.

A few other topics that came up from the audience included instant replay and social media. Acta does not want to take the human element away from the game....while GM Chris Antonetti says he believes in IR to the point where it does not interrupt the game.

Both men are on Twitter and interact with their fans. Acta says having computers, technology, and social media at your fingertips has changed the game of baseball completely, especially with how fast you can get stats and breakdown the game while it's actually happening. Overall, that's good for the game. Acta likes his fans to see that he is like everyone else, goes shopping, eats out at local restaurants, and listens to music! He also gets tips on where to buy his fancy hats on Twitter but admitted that he's cheap at times and will go for the greatest deal!

Scooped the competition

Hello friends.

I know this blog intends to give you all a glimpse into the day and the life of an assignment editor.

I have to be honest. A) My new computer is not yet configured to allow me to save these blog posts. Yes, I am working on it....just imagine if I actually knew my way around a computer! And 2) I have been off the radar while the task of working the assignment desk has been non-stop and quite grueling.

I definitely do not have time while at work to share my daily grind. That's what the middle of the overnight hours or crack of dawn are for, unless you have a bum computer!

I apologize for doing you all a disservice by not sharing the hectic, chaotic pace up here on this desk.

As you all know there has been storm after storm, wall to wall weather coverage intermixed with my amazing Cleveland Indians' baseball...daily developments with the Cuyahoga County Corruption saga as well as countdown to jury selection for the Sowell trial.

Other top of mind stories have included national stories out of Joplin, Missouri, the NBA basketball playoffs, Arnold & Maria, Congressman Weiner, and the biggest story of all, the end of Osama Bin Laden.


One story that really makes me beam from ear to ear happened back in April.

At the end of the day, I'm usually tired but pumped up by a job well done.


Breaking news back on a Friday in April completely revved everyone.


After receiving a tip about a body found in Seven Hills, it was an awesome feeling to dial up my contacts (which you make after all these years in the business) and verify within minutes what the heck may be going on out there.


I immediately sent a crew before really having verification....


My crew said, 'yep, we got a crime scene out here and it's quite extensive and there is no other media on scene.'


That said it all. It was go time.


From that moment on, everything we'd been working on flew out the window and we focused on the new breaking news, on-line and on air.


Crews stayed late....crews came in early......I stayed 3 hours past the end of my shift to monitor what was happening, update wkyc.com and brief the next producer in to the station....


Still no station had anything on their air and when I left the station 3 hours after we aired the story, still no other stations had anything on their websites --Rare in a time of Twitter, Facebook, monitoring the competition, and checking everyone's websites.


But I'll take it!


What absolutely made my week and was the so-called 'cherry on top' of the entire story is a text I received from one of my contacts who saw our story and realized no one else had it! The gist of the text told me what a great job we did.....and then congratulated me on being the only station on the story.....and went so far as to tell me that they thought I was a great news professional....


Knowing the leg work I personally put into this story.....the ethics and accuracy we exhibited ....and then receiving this message from someone I hold in high regard and have the utmost respect for put a smile on my face from cheek to cheek and made what I do so worthwhile.





It is rare to be congratulated or patted on the back on a regular basis for a job well done. When it happens, by someone you hold up on a pedestal, makes you feel that what you are doing is well worth it and just soooooo right!

"Jimmy" of all trades

(Jim Donovan and my Mother)

The masses are seeing what I've seen and known as long as Jim Donovan and I have worked together!

All of our on air folks are quite talented....but I hold a special place in my heart for James F. Donovan, who does it all.

Donovan undeniably is the best sportscaster around. As the Radio Voice of the Cleveland Browns, you hear how a football game should be called and most folks turn down the TV and pipe up the radio when watching a Cleveland Browns Game.

He's done pretty much every sport including World Cup Soccer, Marathons, Olympic sports, Major League Baseball...

Going back to an election day from the archives, Jim Donovan was called upon to anchor all of our election night coverage due to illness and he nailed it.

You can not turn on SportsTime Ohio without seeing a Jim Donovan show! He's the hardest working man in the building as he oftentimes comes in early to tape multiple shows or is out at Browns' Camp at 8am and works through the 11pm Show.

Throw Jim live in the field and he is flawless....

Well, this week our viewing audience got a glimpse of the range of Donovan's talent as he co-anchored our new 7pm News Show with Robin Swoboda. Chris Tye normally anchors with Robin but was off on vacation.

I can not tell you how many complimentary calls we received at the news assignment desk each night, and well warranted!

Not only do I have the utmost respect for this man as a fellow colleague but must admit I am one of his biggest fans. Again, he nailed every single show never missing a beat. Jim never uses scripts or the teleprompter. He's one of the smartest men I know whose wealth of knowledge surpasses most. It's a given he knows everything there is about sports but has so many other wide-ranging interests from politics, religion, the economy, business, health and fitness, animals such as dogs and horses....you name it, he knows about the topic. I'd never play Trivial Pursuit with Donovan, I'd get crushed!

And the cherry on top is that Jim is just the nicest human being you could ever want to know or run into in your lifetime. His humor keeps you in stitches and his kindness proving that there are still kind people in this world.

As you can see, I think he's ok (!!)......I could go on and on but will end the gushing.

Kudos and job well done to the best sportscaster in Cleveland and beyond!

'Real' dress rehearsal

March has not disappointed! In a recent entry I sensed an exciting month ahead....and it's been absolutely nothing but action-packed!

On a personal note, I recently had a day off...yet work always seems to weave into the course of the day, even an off day.

During my day off, a very rainy day, I needed to drive over the Valleyview bridge not once, but twice! Holy cow. In light of the fatal accident just a few weeks ago, it is quite frightening driving over that bridge, let alone in a torrential rain storm. Even during off time, newsie events loom in the back of an assignment editor's mind!

I usually work every St. Patrick's Day --St. Pat's Day 2011 off the charts. OK, let me preface what I am about to say with this --I understand St. Paddy's Day can be crazy, zany, with thousands of obnoxious drunk people everywhere. But for some reason, 2011 stepped it up a few notches. I can not believe the constant calls on the scanners for public intoxication, people just laying in the streets passed out, broken limb calls, and then shortly before 6pm, a massive fight broke out in front of Tower City. A Cleveland Police officer broke his foot as patrol cars from everywhere zoomed to Public Square.

We were in the thick of things but honestly, it actually sounded much worse than it was....at the time, it seemed it could go either way and balloon into something much worse. After the fact, it was a typical St. Patrick's Day melee.

Closing out the week with a bang! OSU vs UTSA at Quicken Loans Arena! OSU blew the covers off this game winning 75-46. And with all of the NCAA festivities in town, wkyc took the Friday 11pm show on the road. Romona has been ill much of the week with an awful virus. (Sidebar --the news desk has been receiving call after call all week long asking where Ro is --she's just been sick everyone!! She will be back very soon!!)....

So the new 7pm team of Robin Swoboda, Chris Tye, Jim Donovan, and Betsy Kling had a 'real' dress rehearsal leading up to Monday's 7pm debut. Robin anchored from the studio as Chris Tye, Jim Donovan, and Jennifer Lindgren were all live outside Q Arena for various OSU /Sports stories. Add in Betsy and Maureen back in studio and you have a blockbuster show! The 11pm news rocked big time. It was so fun to watch and be a part of the entire production.

Perfect end to what has been a pretty perfect week so far......

Be sure you get outside this weekend to witness the Superbig Moon! A big end to what has been an enormously successful week!

Time to make the paczkis

Looking ahead into the wkyc crystal ball during the month of March and beyond should prove to be quite exciting!

Not only are we approaching March Madness, always an exhilarating time of the year, but I'm seeing more and more STO people roaming around the building as Spring Training winds down leading up to Cleveland Indians' Opening Day on April 1, 2011.

The time change always perks people up as the days begin getting longer and longer....

Spring is right around the corner.

And a transformation for our 7pm show as Robin Swoboda and Chris Tye take the helm with some wonderful new ideas and segments....

A few days ago many celebrated Fat Tuesday --a precursor for Ash Wednesday and the Lenten Season.

But Fat Tuesday also means something else: Paczkis!

Personally, I prefer the plain, empty paczkis (which I guess are more like fried dough!)....the authentic New Orleans beignets are magnificent!

In honor of Paczki Day, we sent Betsy Kling out to whip up some tasty treats.....and she came back with a whole slew of authentic eats she made with her own hands! Delicious!

February 2011--Great month for stories

Yes, it is winter in Cleveland.

Everytime we go out to do a 'snow' story or I'm asked to have a crew shoot snow, I keep reminding myself, it's just winter in Cleveland.

But even I must admit, we've been dumped on moreso this year than in years past.

The great thing about modern technology, wkyc.com, facebook, and even twitter is the immediacy of sharing pictures and video. As a member of the wkyc facebook weather warriors page, I upload lots of pictures during snow storms to share what's happening in my neck of the woods. Hopefully, viewers from our entire viewing area are doing the same! We sure do love to see what's happening in your neighborhood, especially if we can not get there ourselves!

Every other week has had a different weather event playing out...one week it's 50's and rain with tremendous thunderstorms (February 26) and then the next we are in the midst of yet another white out, knuckle clenching snow blizzard.....strap your seat belt on folks, we have a little ways to go before winter is officially over!

Another story stemming from our Cleveland winters began when my package delivery was delayed.....simple idea yet quite funny. We got socked yet again toward the end of February.....I was set to receive a PKG on a Thursday and sure enough the darn snow delayed it for 5 days....well, it was not anything that pressing but does make you think about those people that do wait for supplies which help save their lives and help their quality of life. The weather delays can put them in quite a predicament.

As I checked the UPS website everyday, it had this huge message on their homepage that the bad weather may be delaying deliveries ....the 3 main areas that popped up were OHIO, CALIFORNIA, and LIBYA! Cleveland and Libya in the same sentence quite comical and then the comedians on fb had to get into the act and ask me what I had purchased from Libya!

Whether we want to admit this or not, yet another huge story this month was The Cleveland Cavaliers playing the Los Angeles Clippers and winning 126-119. The Cavs seem to beat the great teams....but more importantly was gathering added information to feed to Chris Tye after the game....when the game ended, social media takes over.

It's a hoot to be on facebook and Twitter and see people from literally all over the world commenting on the same story....maybe friends of yours who have scattered but are still Cleveland Sports fans monitoring the game.....and then if you follow big wigs on Twitter...it's awesome to see the likes of who is commenting at the game's conclusion. ESPN, NBA, Ted Williams the Golden Voice, Drew Carey, Josh Cribbs, Ozzie Guillen, just to name a few, all interjected their congratulatory comments to the Cavs' strong game against LA.....and to add a little flavor to Chris Tye's live shot, we fed him the comments we were reading all over the social media world.....

It's very fun to scream something to the producer who relays to the talent in the field and literally minutes later, it's coming out on the air.....it's that 'Broadcast News' moment!

One other big story for me particularly was the death of my Mother's best friend. Mercedes Karpinski Spotts was a real influence in the legal world in Cleveland...but so much more. She helped those who could not help themselves....I honestly can not do justice in a few words here to praise all this woman stood for and did for Cleveland and beyond as a wonderful trailblazer and humanitarian.

Since I was very close to Mercedes, she imparted on her family that I sing her funeral and I was in the loop almost immediately after her passing. In turn, I wrote a story on wkyc.com way ahead of the competition including Cleveland.com. It all came together in memorializing this wonderful woman who established so much of what Cleveland has become.

At Mercedes' funeral, there were judges and other politicians, religious, and pretty much people from all walks of life. Jimmy DiMora showed up at her funeral. No matter what you think of this man, I find this moment very telling and heart warming. This man who is certainly in the spotlight now more than ever chose to honor his friend above what people may say about him ....I'm sure he was uncomfortable but he exemplified (at this moment) what we all should...the right thing above caring what people may say.