MarketInk: Anchor Kathleen Bade Leaving Fox 5 for ‘New Adventures’

Kathleen Bade insists she is not retiring when she leaves her weekday evening anchor job at KSWB-TV Fox 5 San Diego on Wednesday, July 31. Rather, she will have time for “new adventures,” as she puts it.

“After 16 years occupying the anchor chair at Fox 5, 25 years in the San Diego market and 31 years in TV news, I’m ready for new adventures,” Bade told Times of San Diego.

“I don’t plan to retire in the conventional sense. I will do something I’m passionate about after some time to decompress. To borrow a phrase from tennis great Serena Williams, `I have never liked the term retirement. Maybe the best word to describe what I’m up to is evolution.’ So, I don’t know exactly about those new adventures, except for the next day.”

After signing-off during her final 11 p.m. newscast on July 31, Bade will go home and wake-up the next morning to catch a flight with her college-aged daughter to attend a Taylor Swift concert in Poland.

“I admit, it’s a crazy way to start a new chapter,” said Bade. “My sister and niece are going with us to the concert. I’m really looking forward to it. It’s the start of finding my own voice outside of broadcasting.”

A year ago, Bade said she was blow-drying her hair in her bathroom at home when she starting thinking about the future. “I know it might sound funny, but I had just turned 55 and I realized, at that moment, I would turn 60 in five years, and how time was flying by, and how many more things I wanted to do in life,” she said.

Her TV news career started at Arizona State University where she graduated with honors from the prestigious Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications. She was the first student in college history to earn the coveted William Randolph Hearst Award.

Bade spent one year (1992) as the evening weathercaster and fill-in anchor at KYMA-TV in Yuma before returning to her hometown of Phoenix where she worked for two years (1993-1994) for the National Basketball Association’s Phoenix Suns team in community relations.

“There, I met my husband who worked for the Suns,” Bade said. “I wasn’t thinking about returning to TV news until a sportscaster with the local CBS affiliate told me his station needed a weathercaster for the morning and noontime newscasts.”

Shortly after ASU, Bade earned a broadcast meteorology degree and certification from Mississippi State University.

“When I was simultaneously working for the Phoenix station and the Phoenix Suns, I would wake up at 3 a.m. and head into the station for the morning show, then back to the Suns office,” said Bade. “Then, I would do the noon weather during my lunch break back at the station, and then, return to the Suns office. On game days, I would head to the arena to attend the games till 10 at night. It was a crazy time.”

Eventually, the Phoenix TV station hired her and she spent seven years as a weekend anchor and co-host of “Fox 10 Arizona Morning,” a newly launched show when the station switched from a CBS to Fox affiliate.

Then, she was recruited to join KFMB-TV in San Diego. “I turned down their job offers four times because I wanted a nighttime position, not a dayside so I could be with both our kids during the day and my husband could be with them at night,” said Bade, who has been married to husband Jeff for 30 years.

“We wanted to design our lives so we could be with them as much as possible. The nightside job allowed me to teach art at their elementary school for 10 years and go on nearly every field trip before heading into work.”

Bade anchored at KFMB-TV for seven years (2001-2007) before joining KSWB-TV in 2008 for the launch of Fox 5 San Diego. She has served as a Fox 5 anchor for weekday news shows airing at 5, 6, 10 and 11 p.m.

“I have logged a ton of miles between the station and my house on work days,” Bade said. “For the better part of 20 years, I drove back-and-forth on dinner breaks, either for bath time, or reading time, or homework time, or typing research papers for a teenager.

“It was chaotic as an anchor-mom, but I loved it. And, the reason I was able to do it all as a working mom is because of my husband. He’s been a huge support and part of any success I’ve had as an anchor and as a parent. But, now we’re empty-nesters.”

Bade said one part of the TV news business she won’t miss is the clock.

“I love the news business,” said Bade, “although there’s a reason why they call it an anchor chair. It is because you are tied to it. You have to be there physically and be present for it. It’s high pressure and hyper-focused.

“TV news is consumed with watching the clock, 15 seconds here, 30 seconds there. But, I’ve been very, very lucky. It’s been the ride of a lifetime. I know I will miss it intensely, especially working with my colleagues.”

As Bade said to viewers in an video posted on social media, “It’s time to hang-up my anchor cleats. This job, to do it right, is really all-consuming and requires a lot of dedication and commitment, which has been something I’ve been happy to do. But, it feels like it’s time for new adventures. As incredible as it has been to come into your living rooms, I just want to be in mind now with my husband of nearly 30 years.”

PRSA Offering Free Advice to Nonprofits

The Public Relations Society of America’s San Diego-Imperial Counties chapter will host “Quality Time with PR Minds,” its annual outreach to help nonprofits with their communication goals, from 4:30 to 7 p.m., Tuesday, July 16, at the Better Business Bureau Ignite Center, 4747 Viewridge Ave., San Diego.

At the event, PRSA members will offer free one-on-one advice and outreach consulting to representatives of local nonprofits. A PRSA official told Times of San Diego that 24 PR professionals from across several industries will volunteer to provide PR, communications and media relations advice to 24 San Diego region nonprofit organizations.

PRSA officials say the annual event, now in its 7th year, is a favorite of senior-level members because it’s an opportunity to brainstorm and use their best-practices expertise to help raise awareness of good works happening in San Diego’s nonprofit community. For more event information, contact Staci Reidinger, staci.reidinger@gmail.com, or visit www.prsasdic.org.

San Diego Press Club Hosts Summer Mixer

The San Diego Press Club will host an in-person, Mid-Summer Mingle from 5 to 7 p.m., Wednesday, July 24, at the Mission Bay Beach Club, 2688 East Mission Bay Dr., San Diego.

The public is invited to attend the casual get-together reception. Admission is free, although registration is request. To RSVP, visit www.sdpressclub.org. A cash bar and food will be available for purchase. Parking is free.

The Mission Bay Beach Club on the same street as De Anza Cove and the San Diego Mission Bay Resort Hotel. The building includes the Superbloom Café, a coffee bar, and the Picnic Market, a bottle and gift shop, and Moonlight, a cocktail bar.

Media Political Coverage Scrutinized in Wake of Trump Shooting

In the hours following Donald Trump narrowly surviving a political assassination attempt, the news media’s coverage of U.S. politics was being blamed for the shooting. But, is this fair?

The press has been frequently cited as a culprit for political polarization as it reports the statements from elected officials and pundits who stoke fear and distrust.

The Washington Post reported that Trump allies are claiming that Democratic portrayals of Trump as a threat to democracy led to the violence at the campaign rally in Butler, PA., even though the shooter’s motive was not apparent at the time of their remarks.

The Post said Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) wrote on social media, “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”

The Post also reported that Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said on social media, “Let’s be clear: This was an assassination attempt aided and abetted by the radical Left and corporate media incessantly calling Trump a threat to democracy, fascists, or worse.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) also was quick to place blame, as reported by The Post. “The Democrats and the media are to blame for every drop of blood spilled today,” Greene wrote on social media. “For years and years, they’ve demonized him and his supporters.”

The Hill reported that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said on NBC’s “Today” show on Sunday, July 14, “We’ve got to turn the rhetoric down. We’ve got to turn the temperature down in this country. We need leaders of all parties, on both sides, to call that out and make sure that happens so that we can go forward and maintain our free society that we all are blessed to have.”

Trump also sought to strike a unifying tone in the hours following the shooting, calling on the nation to “stand united” in a Sunday morning social media post, The Hill noted.

“In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined, and not allowing Evil to Win,” Trump wrote.

In a survey from the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults blame the news media’s reporting for increasing the political polarization that divides Americans.

However, the survey also shows Americans have significant concerns about misinformation. Half of survey respondents say they have little-to-no trust in the media’s ability to report the news fairly and accurately.

“That breakdown in trust may prompt many Americans to reject the mainstream news media, often in favor of social media and unreliable websites that spread misleading claims and that can become partisan echo chambers, leading to further polarization,” wrote the AP.

Rick Griffin is a San Diego-based public relations and marketing consultant. His MarketInk column appears weekly on Mondays in Times of San Diego.