No one inside the newsroom at WTRF seemed panicked a week ago. Still, it was obviously a false calm adopted to avoid the inevitable reality filled with tears and fears and an unknown not even she can define.
After 43 years, the institution and icon that is news director Brenda Danehart is going to work today for the very last time as a full-time employee and WTRF TV and parent company Nexstar Media Group. This week, she’s been referred to as “a pro’s pro,” and “amazing,” and “one of a kind,” and former sports director Scott Nolte put it perfectly when saying, “Brenda Danehart has been Channel 7.”
Veteran broadcaster Keri Brown has been hired and has been shadowing Danehart for the past two weeks, and assignments editor Bob Westfall has helped with the tribute coverage this past week. They understand – just like everyone else – that no one alive is capable of doing what Danehart did for her team and her community with unwavering allegiance.
“When I look back, what I hope I’ve done is make WTRF a community station. That’s probably what I am most proud of. I’ve been able to do all kinds of stories on our community and the people in it,” the W.Va. Broadcast Hall of Famer said. “Ever since people have found out I’m retiring, folks from throughout the valley have been reaching out, and I hope they know how much it’s meant to me.
“I’ve enjoyed coming to work every day. We’ve covered some great moments and some very tough moments, but I believe we’ve done our best for our community,” she said. “So, maybe I did make a positive difference.”
A Country Changed
It was a blue-skied, cloudless late summer morning when 19 terrorists murdered 2,976 people and injured thousands more. And everything stopped.
Danehart, former TV reporter and anchor Frank O’Brien, and the WTRF team covered the local angle of that tragic day, covering dismals of schools, the local connections in New York City and Washington, D.C., and the cancelation of nearly everything on September 11th, 2001.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about some of the bigger stories I’ve covered during my career and one of the biggest – and this may sound weird – is linked to 9/11,” Danehart remembered. “Bishop (Darrell) Cummings had come to the station, and he was being interviewed about how to deal with the emotions surrounding everything that happened that day to our country. Frank O’Brien and I were sitting with him and then all of the sudden, he reached out and asked us to pray.
“I remember thinking to myself, ‘I don’t think this has ever been done on a local level.’ He just felt the need, and that’s what Frank and I did. We prayed,” she recalled. “It was pretty cool because it was about our community, and he was asking for prayers for that community. It hit me, and that’s why it stands out in my mind the most.”
Danehart’s journalism career has spanned from the “Just the Facts Ma’am” era of journalism to the “shock-and-awe breaking news” class of media entertainment, and ratings and revenue now-more-than-ever determine slants and angles.
The retiring news director, however, has always placed people above all.
“In every position I’ve had here, what I’ve tried to do is cover the people of our communities here in the valley because I love people, and I love to sit and talk to people. I’ve done a lot of that over the past 43 years,” Danehart said. “But if I’ve been successful at making WTRF the community television station, then that’s what has separated us from other television stations.
“I’ve always believed the people of this valley are what makes it so special and so different than all the others. The people make this valley what it is,” she said. “I’ve learned a lot from the people I’ve worked with, and hopefully I’ve been able to help them while they were here, too.”
An Industry’s Evolution
She especially admires her long-time friend, DK Wright.
That’s because Wright, who also joined WTRF in the mid-1980s, has kept pace with the ever-changing technology that has altered every aspect of news gathering and reporting. Simply, the reporter, like DK, does it all now as opposed to partnering with a cameraman and producer to develop news packages.
“It’s night and day,” Danehart confirmed. “But a journalist like DK Wright has made it work. She may be old-school, but DK has learned everything she’s had to so she can continue doing what she loves. That’s pretty fabulous, in my opinion.”
The population loss in the region has impacted local media outlets, including the area’s two TV stations. Very infrequently does a reporter stick around as long as Wright has, and Danehart has tutored rookie after rookie for several years now.
“There have been lot of changes that have taken place over the years because there was a long time when we had our anchors and reporters and producers for a lot of years. For several years, we had a terrific team here at WTRF, but now we have a lot of young people working very hard and doing very well. But they are learning here and climbing up from here now.
“We have a lot of our anchors and reporters for about two years, and then they move on thanks to what we have taught them here at WTRF. They learned about this valley and how to cover so many different things, and they take those lessons to the next position they find,” she explained. “So, we’ve become more of a training station so we’re getting them ready for their next step, and we’re very proud of those young journalists.”
When Danehart was hired more than four decades ago, the audition was quick and easy.
“I was in radio with WWVA when I went in because my cousin worked there and thought I could do TV, and when (legendary news anchor) Mark Davis heard my voice during a recording, he said, ‘OK, you’re hired’ from the back of the studio.
“But now a reporter does it all these days because of the technological changes that have taken place over the last couple of decades. They report, they shoot, they edit, they write, and they’re doing the web, too,” Danehart defined. “I know I didn’t have to do all of that when I started and for several years. I had a photographer who went with me on my stories, and I took care of the facts and they took care of everything else.”
You Can’t Please Everyone
It’s today when those tears and fears set in, and of course, it’s not going to be a normal day at work for Danehart, for her staff, and for the viewers of WTRF TV7.
Instead, today is the last day.
“People have asked me if I would do it all over again or if I would do other things in the field,” she said. “But I would do all of it again and that’s because I can say I loved it the entire time. I still love what I do, and I’m going to miss it tremendously.
“But I also think it’s time,” she said. “I just felt like the time had come. I just feel like somebody new needs to come in, and I need to go into a different direction and do something else. I’m not going to just sit at home and do nothing, trust me, but I don’t know what that is yet. It’ll find me, I’m sure, and I’ll still be a member of the community.”
She and her husband, Dave, will let it set in. Or try to anyway. It won’t feel normal, though, for a long, long time, and that’s because her God-given penchant for those “Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How’s” of journalism never stop pounding in the brain of a born reporter.
“But right now, I plan to take a month or two off, start going to the Wellness Center with my husband pretty often,” Danehart insisted. “Plus, I’ll always be available to the people here if and when they need my input or contacts. You can’t spend this much time doing this job for the people of this valley and just let it go.”
Brenda has been a steward of generations of news reporters and producers, and her career has spanned decades full of the ups and downs of a Rust Belt region that’s never quit fighting for whatever comes next. The news has always been the news for Danehart, void of her opinion in favor a neutral perspective with the facts first and foremost.
That was the job, she did it better than most, and as she finally calls her it a wrap, Brenda departs the industry with one last piece of advice.
“I’ve always talked to our reporters about being true to themselves. Be fair and accurate, and you’ll do very well. And I tell them they can’t please everyone,” she said. “I’ve always wanted people to like me and respect me, but in this business, that’s not always the case. There are people out there that are sometimes not so nice.
“That was a hard lesson to learn. In the beginning of my career, it bothered me, but you live and learn, and that’s what I’ve always told our people here. Just be who you are, and be accurate, and people will come to respect you.”
