Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Tom Sinkovitz One-on-One; Much-Respected Bay Area TV Anchor Talks the Talk and Walks the Walk; Tuesday Interview



Tom Sinkovitz is a veteran Bay Area TV anchor--he spent nearly two decades at KRON, (early on when the old KRON was the dominant Bay Area news station in the evening) and just recently finished a stint at KNTV, (NBC Bay Area), before leaving last year due to a host of circumstances. (He was tired of the commute to San Jose and some other assorted professional issues).

Sinkovitz and I had lunch the other day and I told him point blank that he should be back on the Bay Area airwaves. He laughed. It was that venerable giggle that makes "Sink" the good guy he is along with the fact that he's one helluva newsman.

In a far-ranging interview, I asked Sinkovitz several things. Some answers may surprise you.

So, how you been? My wife Paula and I are living in San Francisco and our twins are in a great school. It doesn’t get much better than that.I’m doing several different things -- all media related. I’ve got good clients and good collaborators, so knock on wood.


You know, my e-mail box is loaded with people asking why you're not on Bay Area TV. So, what's the situation? I haven’t pushed very hard -- and no one is knocking down my door either. I’ve had
conversations, brief ones, with a couple stations and a “courtesy interview” at one of them. At the time, my reticence to jump back in was written all over my face. To shake something loose, you have to identify what you want to accomplish and be committed to it. It’s been a process, but there’s a voice that’s getting louder now that asks me --That’s it? I don’t think it is. (smiles)


You were at KRON for the good old days. What was that like? Well, I don’t think there’s much point in living in the past but since you asked....They were great days. I could make the argument that KRON in the 90’s was the best local affiliate in the country. The editorial meetings were a daily education about the Bay Area. We were producing terrific local programming. Even the Chronicle’s web site was in our building. It was an electric atmosphere. The anchor teams were rock solid with years of field reporting under their belts. And when we matched our six or eight best
reporters with the six or eight most important local stories of the day, I’d say out loud,
let’s see any station in the country beat that.”


I know that you worked with the late Pete Wilson -- you became melancholy when I mentioned it's been five years since his passing. What kind of person was Pete? I miss Pete. Pure and simple. I got to know a different side of him playing a lot of golf with him and his closest friends, and once with Pete his son Brendan -- just the three of us. Pete had a bigger than life presence, but when you boiled it down, he was another doting father like the rest of us. In the newsroom, he might have projected that it was mostly about him (and it was), but he sometimes went out of his way to show his appreciation for the efforts of people. I remember the day after the Pine and Franklin Street shootout on a Sunday night, he tracked me down to tell me that I had made him proud of KRON the night before. That was important to me. I always felt that between us we had all seven nights of the week covered.


OK, gotta ask you, who are some of your favorite people in the biz? Jeez, where do I begin? I assume you mean from my broadcasting years in the Bay Area. Let me start with the amazing co-anchors I’ve worked with: Pam Moore, Catherine Heenan, Wendy Tokuda, Suzanne Shaw, Emerald Yeh, Vicki Liviakis -- and then Lisa Kim, Jessica Aguirre and Diane Dwyer in San Jose. Talk about a harem. And all of them smarter than me. Honestly I can’t begin to name all the people who made my years at KRON so incredible. Great reporters and photographers and producers and assignment editors and some really good bosses too even though we clashed over issues mostly of my own making. We had a managing editor named Mia Zuckerkandel who had a real appreciation for how sports are a huge part of the fabric of the Bay Area, and she knew I loved to do those kinds of stories. Without a quirk early in my career, I’d have spent my life covering sports. My competitors were terrific, too. It was good being out on the streets at night with guys like John Fowler and John Sasaki and Doug Murphy to name a few. You had to work like hell or you were going to get beat. It’s tough out there night after night and I really admire people like Vic Lee and Don Knapp and Linda Yee and Rita Williams and Tom Vacar who still have fire in their bellies after so many years.


You like anchoring but you're really more of a fan working out as a reporter in the field, right? Let me say this. I enjoy anchoring. And I enjoy reporting. I like to think that my strength is that I do both fairly well. There aren’t many positions that allow you to do both consistently. Doing the weekend anchoring at KRON for so many years was a great job. There was one night during the summer of our rolling power blackouts when photographer Dave Fix and I covered the story from Potrero Hill. When the sun went down, families were having dinner by candlelight and people came out on the streets to enjoy a rare, balmy night. And all the while, downtown San Francisco was lit up like a Christmas tree and looked spectacular. I remember thinking to myself, you don’t have these kinds of experiences when you’re tied to the anchor desk. You can’t know this huge and complicated community without spending time on the streets. From my perspective,”anchors” shouldn’t have that title until they’ve earned it. To this day and all these years later, people still ask me about anchoring our coverage on the afternoon of the Oakland Hills Firestorm and then reporting from the fire that night. It matters.

*Rich Lieberman 415 Media Exclusive


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18 comments:

  1. Tom's a class act.. pure n simple.. enjoyed my time working with him...

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  2. Great stuff. Tom is much better than most of the knuckleheads who sit at the anchor desk these days. But his work wouldn't be appreciated by those Daffy Ducks who are at the helm of their respective ships.

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  3. Thank you for the interview, Rich. Tom is greatly missed here in the Bay Area news arena. I wish him the best (and come back to TV soon)!

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  4. Rich. You are at your best when you do one on ones! Pure magic. Tom is missed, hurry back, will ya !

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  5. Tom is a class act, pure and simple. He's respected by the public and his peers equally. Those of us who have run into Tom over the years also know what a good guy he is. I've always had the highest regard for him as a TV newsman. Hope he gets back in the biz. KRON is such a joke these days! I'm glad Tom isn't there anymore, because that place has really gone to the dogs! And I understand they have a total dweeb for a news director! Radnich and Pam Moore are both hanging on by their fingernails there, hoping to hang on for a few more years. It's very sad! to see how the mighty have fallen. But when they treated behind the scene stalwarts such as Dave Gingona like dirt, and fired them, and essentially kept a bunch of mediocrities (because they're cheap!) what does that tell you?

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  6. Tom is one of the best people I've ever met in the business. Period.
    - Hank Plante

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    1. Tom is a class act - always like seeing him at KRON when KRON was a real station. We are losing a generation of professionals.

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  7. I have to concur: Tom was an outstanding journalist at every level and a great co-worker. We miss you BIG TIME, Tom!

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  8. Rich...this is a great interview with Tom Sinkovitz. And for the record, we miss you too Hank Plante!

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  9. I like Tom...having worked with him he is a super nice guy and a solid anchor. But let's be honest Rich, Tom or any main anchor in this market does not drive ratings. KNTV tried it with Tom and the needle did not move. Dennis Richmond leaves KTVU and the numbers stay the same. It is all about lead-in and convenience. Look at KNTV, big numbers during the Olympics and now they are back in third place most of the time. KTVU only wins because they are on at 10 and have been there for so long it is habitual with the viewers. Names like Tom, John Kessler, Ken Baustida or whoever you claim to would be great and stations crazy for not hiring, are simply not worth the money.

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  10. It's time for old farts to move along, come on guys these are not jobs for lives, let the young generation in. Too many old farts on TV in the bay area.

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    1. Could you be a young reporter looking for an anchor job?

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    2. When I was getting started in the business, it was those "old farts" who taught me my trade. You know, the stuff that you'll never learn in school??

      I owe them all a huge debt of gratitude, not the derision of calling them old farts. You might do better in your aspirations if you'd learn to show a little respect. If I was hiring and heard someone like Sinkovitz called an old fart, you wouldn't get past a first interview, Sonny.

      Too many of today's young wannabes are too full of themselves and have way too large a sense of entitlement, for my tastes. And attention spans? What attention spans?

      Whatever happened to humility and gratitude, coupled with motivation??

      Kids. Honestly.

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    3. How difficult can it be to read a teleprompter, ask Bush or Obama? We treat these anchors like god. Half of them have no personality. Go get a real 8-5 job in a factory, then tell me how you feel when you don't get treated right.

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  11. Tom is a great guy whom I miss working with everyday. He has great talent, humility and an even greater sense of humor. Class is what Tom is all about. You won't find many like him in the business today. He deserves respect and admiration.. he already has mine.

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