Thomas Fudge is retiring this week after nearly three decades as a KPBS reporter, host and editor.
He joined KPBS’s Katie Anastas to reflect on his broadcasting career and the evolution of San Diego journalism as he experienced it. Their conversation is below.
Tom, you spent most of your career here at KPBS. But it all started in the Midwest at WSUI Radio in Iowa City. Take us back to 1980s public radio. What got you interested in reporting, and what was it like as you were first starting out?
Fudge: Well, I was interested in reporting because I was interested in talking about what I considered to be big issues, you know, society, politics. And I love to write. Those were kind of the two things that made me a journalist. And I got into public broadcasting, like you said, my first public radio job was in Iowa City. And I got into that because my parents listened to public radio. So even as a kid, I became familiar with All Things Considered, and then they added Morning Edition, and then they added all sorts of other things.
I ended up getting into public radio. I graduated from college in Minnesota, moved to Iowa, moved back to Minnesota to work for Minnesota Public Radio until I was laid off and freelanced for a couple of years. And, in Minnesota, I was getting tired of the weather, and my then-wife was really getting tired of the weather, and she wasn't crazy about her job. So I said, 'Well, I'll look elsewhere.' And this is where I ended up, thankfully, in San Diego.
And you joined KPBS in the late '90s and then began hosting the interview talk show 'These Days.' We went back into the archives and we found one episode that really stood out. It aired in April of 2000, and you were questioning whether new technology at the time was killing the written literary novel as it was traditionally known. And we have a clip from your introduction to that episode. Let's hear it now.
"Everybody likes a good story and maybe the definition of a good story today isn't much different from what it was 200 years ago. But the means of storytelling are very different now. Movies, TV and computers have tended to emphasize the visual image over the written word. The sheer volume of information we receive on a daily basis and the speed at which we receive it have created new ways of seeing and understanding."
Fudge: Yeah, couldn't have said it better myself.
Well, I feel like that 'new ways of seeing and understanding' certainly holds true today.
Fudge: I really don't remember doing that show, by the way. I don't know. I interviewed and talked to so many people, and some of it has been lost in my memory. But that was, that was fun listening to that.
Well, I'm sure you've seen in over the course of your career, we as journalists have kind of taken on this new way of seeing and understanding. What comes to mind for you as a journalist when you hear that back?
Fudge: Well, different ways of seeing and understanding. There have been a lot of changes in journalism since I graduated from j-school in Minnesota. That was in the late '80s, and at that point, daily newspaper employment was at its height, and it has been falling ever since then as you know, new modalities have come into play, the internet. I mean, the old economic model of the daily newspaper just is really barely there anymore. And so there have been a lot of changes.
When I first got to KPBS, we were a public radio newsroom. That's what we did. We had a website, KPBS had a website, but it was really nothing more than a marketing vehicle and something that people could go to on the internet. Now we present a lot of news.
With all those changes happening, are there things that give you hope for the future of San Diego news and for KPBS?
Fudge: Oh, I do have hope. Things are changing, and of course, public broadcasting got a hit this year when President Trump eliminated funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. So there are going to be challenges and there are challenges.
But I spent my career as a journalist and it was a great privilege for me to do that. I was really very lucky. And I think in the future, people are still going to want to hear the facts and want to hear people present facts in their best effort to get to the truth. There's always going to be a demand for that. And so I guess that's the thing that gives me hope.
When young people ask me if they should become a journalist, I ask them, 'Well, is it something you love to do?' And if they say yes, I say, 'Go ahead.' There will be a way in the future it's going to look different, but there will be a way to present journalism to the public.
