{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/183416vk0k/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Rolf Hertsguaard interview, circa 1990"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/053/original/cropped-marmia-logo-copy1.png?1586173104","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Source Metadata URI"]},"value":{"en":["https://marmia.libraryhost.com/repositories/2/archival_objects/25699"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["circa 1990 (Creation)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["Be advised that this video may contain sensitive, triggering, and offensive language and content. (Content warning)","Digitized with funding provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources' \"Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives: Amplifying Unheard Voices\" grant program. (Funding note)","This is part 1 of Rolf Hertsguaard discussing his broadcasting career. 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I think he does a good job, too. I think he's he's a guy that and I would stand by him. All right, Now look right here at me. I just find him just like. Okay. Now, you started working. Stand by. One more time. This. You started working at Bar one, 1958. January 28th, 1958. Do you recall when you came in to Baltimore television your competitors at that time was who? My competitor. I didn't know until television I didn't pay attention because I came here and working both sides of the house, radio and television, and hired primarily as a writer, reporter and doing right angle and from early morning news shot through radio and doing cut in the Tonight the Today show five months breakaways on voice over on camera myself and eventually about a year later management changed and I switched over to television 100% and became anchorman for their other news win. Yeah, one year in in 59, probably. But I started like an April 59th. Dave Stickle was the the news man in Baltimore then and for several years thereafter. You're your main competition then. Did you did you all become number one ever then? Who knows? Depends on who who you're reading. I've heard a million arguments and rationales and so on. And over in the business all years, I've been a part of what comprises the road to the top and its lead in programing, its carry its takeout program, which, you know, I don't know I don't know if I ever became number one in some respects. I know I did. And with with a rating with you, Arbitron or whatever that those are. I didn't Jerry Jerry it was one that eventually it was it was a dogfight.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864#t=4.34,158.55"},{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864/transcript/71684/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I think in the early years when I started, of course, Jerry didn't really come into the trenches like 1965. So in the very beginning it was really between you and Dave Steckel, because our guy then was Keith McBee and then Joe Templeton. Yeah, but anyway, I, we, I recall you and as a viewer now, this was before I got involved with television working at TV. I recall you as, as simply as a viewer on my part, as the the newsman who had some. You were a preacher or something, I recall. Explain that. Well, I started in broadcasting when I was in college. They had a radio station. And it was a it was a very narrow Norwegian Lutheran College in my home state of Minnesota. My mother and father both attended there. That's where they met. My sister attended there. I attended there. I was sort of the black sheep of the family. However, I got into radio there and and then went to Cairo and decided I like it. I was majoring in music, but I decided I like broadcasting and I'm summertime. Announcer at the station then went to Croce in Rochester, Minnesota, the Mayo Clinic station, and then to WCCO, which was CBS owned and operated at that time. That was in 1942, 542. And then I went to college in Denver, which was an NBC show, and all came back to Minneapolis. And Cecile was there from 1946 to 1956. In 1951 or 2, I began teaching speech at Lutheran Seminary, one of them in Minneapolis, and became interested in theology. So I was working full time in Chico, doing news, working at the seminary, teaching speech, and then I became a student there. And that all these things together, I was in my third year of of theology, and the job came along in New York City for the National Lutheran Council, director of radio and television.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864#t=159.12,294.66"},{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864/transcript/71684/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I was I had to take it. It was just built for me. And I stayed there a year and decided I could do a better job for the Lord getting back into commercial broadcasting. And that's when I came to Baltimore in 58. You know, you, you, you're you're not therefore you are not a Baltimore boy. No, no. Minneapolis, Minnesota. Born and raised in this country. Very cold. And I'm going out there next week and not looking forward to it in the least. I'm going out with one of my daughters to visit my sister and I have a son out there who works at WCCO and he interviewed me on the air one time last year when I was out there, and there were 1 or 2 people out there who were still alive and still remembered his father being on the air. Well, my audience in the morning, there are a lot of folks, a lot of folks still out there are going to remember you and may be a little strange that you're being featured on Channel 13 when you were such when at one point you were such a competitive person with Channel 13, as it should be. But I just for the record. Do you have any regrets about working in TV? Not for myself. Not. Not in the least. I have regrets about what's happened to the broadcasting industry, but then, by extension, that can almost be said of of everything today. But I hear I see the the diminution of of quality quite in writing, in the reporting, in the presentation on the air. I deplore what's happened to the English language. Not just at the hands of broadcasting. It's it's it's moved it's filtered upward because of what's done in the schools I guess, and from the early from the early years.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864#t=295.12,430.11"},{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864/transcript/71684/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I think that's a terrible shame. I don't know what to do about it. I really I'm sick about that part of it. I should tell you one thing interesting when you say the competitive nature of the business and my being a WBA and as opposed to Jay and this is on Jay Z, a woman called me one evening and said, Do you know that you have a son, a freshman at the same college that Jerry Turner has a son as freshman? I said, no. I said, you know, I've never met Jerry. Jerry and I know girls on the air opposite each other. You never meet someone in that way. So I said I was interested and called up Jay-Z. And Jerry said, Yeah, I just heard from her. And we introduced ourselves. Our our sons had chosen to attend the Citadel, which was the, you know, the military school in South Carolina. It's it's tougher than the Naval Academy than at least discipline wise or the Air Force or anything else. So Jerry and I got to know each other. We would fly down there and on weekends and so on. And I always thought that was just we became very close friends as a result of that during a I would say was a nice friendship. You when you one of the things that you've done, you opened up to Jonathan how would how did motivation. I had always wanted I had always thought I'm interested in the restaurant business. When I was in high school, a friend of mine and I had designed a plush restaurant in Carmel and California. Of course, we never got to it, didn't know anything about the restaurant business, but and because I didn't know enough about it, that's why I went into a franchise and this one was available on 33rd and Greenmount, and I was there for ten years.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864#t=431.58,546.93"},{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864/transcript/71684/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I was lucky. I had always had at least one of my children working there with me. And that, I guess you would say, just made it possible for me to continue to enjoy the things in life and travel and at the same time and feel secure in that one of them was back home running the place. So that worked out pretty well. Yes, it did. Right there. Yes, I did. I didn't make a mint, but I enjoyed myself. You're retired now? Yes. Have been for, five, five years. I'll be 71 next in a few months. And I'm retired usually. Well, how old? I'll be 71 in June. What is your secret to a youthful appearance? Hereditary. My father died at 96. And? And he was 93. He began a series of little strokes that at that time he ceased looking like he was 65 or 60. Some people. That's just it is certainly not because of the pure life that I have led. Well, we won't get into all that stuff. What is the main difference? You talked about the business when you turn the news on today and I'm sure you do occasionally, what do you see now that should or should not be there? I mean, give me the and you and your professional opinion as a an award winning. And don't let me forget that as an award winning anchorman, what in your professional opinion, what is the main difference now? Good, bad or indifferent? It goes back to what I mentioned earlier, the basics, the very basics norm. Starting with the idea story, idea, the reporting of it. There is the thoroughness. Well, because of the medium, of course, it cannot be as as print is. Nevertheless, I still think that there are a number of things that come up that are not thoroughly investigated before the reporter.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864#t=547.68,685.47"},{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864/transcript/71684/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Then you get to the writing of it and it is terrible language. And the people who sit in front of the camera and they're reading a teleprompter and you can tell whether they've written a piece of copy or somebody else has written it. And there's no excuse for not having written it yourself or at least having read over ahead of time what someone else has written, if you can write it. Okay. And there's a place, obviously for the one person couldn't do it all. I used to write all my own stuff and other people's. That's not the way it is anymore. But there's no excuse for an anchor to be sitting in front of a camera reading copy that. He has not or she has not looked at before he or she went on the air. Absolutely no excuse. Getting back to this award winning thing you did, you worked on a documentary film that probably won you more awards than anyone. Up to that point. It's called The Dark Corner. Yeah. Tremendous effort by you and and the staff. Talk about that for a minute. It began because at the time I was doing them, I think it was 6:00 or 630, 6:00 news, half hour. Then I did a ten minute live interview. I'm usually live and I'd be sitting there sweating and wondering whether the guest would be appearing. And sometimes I've never even seen the guest on time. Then we tried to get the famous people. It was patterned after the early Mike Wallace shows. Then after that, I did the 11:00 one of my interviews, and that ten minute show in between was the then chief of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins. And he was he had gotten a grant from the Kennedy family for work in rehabilitation.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864#t=686.1,812.33"},{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864/transcript/71684/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And the implication of mentally retarded. You can try to condense that down. Yeah. Okay. And in that interview, let me you get in to that. I mean, that was it. I interviewed him and he had two children who were retarded, severely return it. And I began to push more and more and more. And it led to more shooting, more film, more Hopkins elsewhere on the city to Rosewood, etc., etc.. And the program, the scope of the idea just grew like topsy, like almost like a mushroom cloud. It took I took two years to do that thing and I had to boil it down in order to get it to 90 minutes, you know? Did you realize what a what a classic piece of work? No, I didn't. That time of year, I'd start in the morning with Pete Greer and Lenny and then Richter and Camera, and then I have to get back in by one 2:00 to do the evening news. And the late night news got up early. I was just like this all the time. You don't realize what all is involved, just staying on schedule. So they were so they were. So you were you're a pioneer. Obviously. You realize that you are when it comes to news. Nobody knew what they were doing back in those days, you know? Yes, Right. And you got out in front of the camera and you just winged it and good, bad or indifferent. Everything today goes back to guys like you, your roots, where you were. You want to know, just I you know, I had to do that to where you were the absolute pioneer in news. And a lot of the stuff that you were pioneering then is what is now.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864#t=813.11,910.85"},{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864/transcript/71684/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"You know, what they do is matter of fact now. But what do you what are your impressions about those days back in the 50s and early 60s when so much was being done and and by so few and who knew nothing of what it was that they were supposed to do? No, I don't know that I can give you impressions because as you point out, we knew no other way. One thing I can say in sharp contrast to today or even in later years, when I was still in it on the 11:00 news, we used our national film. Of course, we we didn't have access here. Somebody from New York would call us from the from the film services up there, and we'd run down a list of what they had, stories that they'd covered, What do you want? And we'd pick 1 or 2 and they'd send it down on the train and we'd send somebody down to Penn Station to the guy, just throw it off the baggage car, off the teller, like we picked out and came back and had already, you know, written it in the scripts. Like smoke signals. Yeah, right, Yeah, exactly. And the gear that we carried was fantastic. And I have very sensitive skin. It's very non allergic, but very sensitive and makeup used to when we started, you know, I didn't, didn't use makeup and then they then began the color schemes and so we underwear either one one station we to be set up for blue and one we set up for green. I never understood that in the makeup and it used to make my skin terrible, terrible condition. And and there's so many things that I can't I can't begin to think of all how.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864#t=911.3,1020.48"},{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864/transcript/71684/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And of course, I'm not familiar with all the modern things now with this camera. So for what's next for Ralph Hertsgaard? Ralph Hertsgaard, good guy. When I say it, it just brings back so many more. What's next for Ralph Hertz Garden? I would like to get back to writing. I have a son who's a very successful at it and nobody in the print media I don't know about your son. I know, but I enjoy going from there. I would like to to write, but I procrastinate. I, I feel most qualified to. And it would be terribly, extremely challenging and interesting to me because I've done it before. But with professional people, with the names that you recognize around town and around the state. Elsewhere to be a speech coach, I'm very good at it. I can criticize constructively and I've tried to sell it to certain people and the limelight. And I found out and it frightened me for a while and disappointed me for a while. But I finally found out from people who told me the reason that they turned it down. They're afraid. They're afraid to, I guess, be coached, criticized or something. They I can't think of. I don't know what what the reason is. Wow. But there's a market for it. Well, what about I mean, you are still an attractive man. You still have at least in this area, you still have that news credibility. Surely you understand that. Have you ever thought about television again being on the air show in front of the cameras? Sure. And. You tell me. Nobody's calling at my door. And if they did, I would listen. I wouldn't want the I wouldn't want and then routine of a nightly show or anything like that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864#t=1020.74,1151.55"},{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864/transcript/71684/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But just I just shots that's a that's poor. He could certainly put a special or two together every year. Yeah I suppose I could. But the, the technical aspect of it now I would have to, I would guess, go back to school or listen to someone like, like you very closely and for a long period of time. So I would feel comfortable in the mechanics of putting it together and the the procedure. And it's still all up here. Yeah. Yeah. You, you put it together, appear and then you get a highly skilled technician to do all the, you know, the fancy thing. One other thing, guys like goodness Royal Parker they, they would you talk about makeup, which kind of struck a bell. They would dress up a VW Doodle or, you know, or Mr. Pop Lolly and they would do the show at 4:00. And then at 530, they would get all that makeup off and they'd be out in shirt and tie doing news, you recall? Yeah, but what about. Sure. What? You've had some experience with Royal, I suppose. Yeah. We're. We're good friends. We. We have a cup of coffee together once in a while. I'm just chew the fat, too, with, you know, I guess we point fingers. At what. It is not you. It's fun. The guys who did that. And they always had a and they, you know, in reality, they always had a little difficulty in maintaining credibility when they got over to the news part of it. There's a guy in this town who used to do weather and he went out of the business and went into law.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864#t=1153.98,1268.97"}]},{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864/transcript/71684","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["English [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136852/file/253864/transcript/71684/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"subtitling","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/file_transcripts/associated_files/000/071/684/original/trint_WJZ-FLDTP-005-013_ffv1_transcript.vtt?1728353332","format":"text/vtt","language":"en"},"target":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/file_transcripts/associated_files/000/071/684/original/trint_WJZ-FLDTP-005-013_ffv1_transcript.vtt?1728353332"}]}]}]}