Roy Hardee in the WNCT newsroom. Photo credit: WNCT

A good newsman from Eastern North Carolina died this week. As a matter of fact, he died in his wife’s arms. If you have never heard about Roy Hardee, you should visit Stewart Pittman’s nice post, read the Associated Press story or watch the piece WNCT-TV aired.

(Side note: Holy cow, anchor Alan Hoffman still works at WNCT?! He was newish when I worked there in ahem 1987-1988!)

When I met Roy Hardee, I was 21 or barely 22, fresh out of UNC’s School of Journalism, but with three years of broadcast news experience, all in radio. He was in his 50′s and had a gravely voice, a constant harrumphing cough and a piercing stare. WNCT-TV wasn’t a station with bells and whistles, the pay sucked and the equipment was dismal. That’s where I began my career in television news.

Since I was an assignment editor, I saw a lot of Roy Hardee during my shift. Well, I saw a lot of him in his office. His phone glued to his ear, Roy knew how to sniff out news, find a source and call in a news tip like no one’s business. He was so good at calling in tips that the Associated Press named an award after him. The Roy Hardee award was given to the person who had provided the most tips to the AP in the Carolinas. Roy Hardee won it twice.

Roy figures in a story I like to tell about my early career. One day I was riding the desk, sending my crews out on stories across a wide swath of Eastern North Carolina. Crews is a misnomer — our reporters were one-man bands. Roy came out of his office, and stood over the AP wire. In those days, pre-internet, the news stories were actually printed on flimsy paper at certain times of the day. If your printer jammed or ran out of ink, you didn’t have the news. Period.  When you figured that out, you’d have to call up the AP in Raleigh and ask them to refeed the state or national news you’d missed, and it was a Very Big Deal.

But I digress. There’s Roy Hardee, standing over the wire, watching the news come in. When he sees the item he wants, he rips the wire, rips off the story he was looking for and takes it back into his office, a little smile playing around the corner of his mouth. And Roy’s not really a smiler, you know?

During our six o’clock newscast I found that that both of our competitors had a big story that we had somehow missed. And it’s my job as assignment editor not to miss this kind of stuff. I was nervous when I went to Roy’s office to admit that I had missed a story everyone else had. Roy was the kind of boss who wouldn’t lose his temper or harangue you  exactly, but he hated to miss a story and we hated to let him down. He would just look at you, make that little cough and then rumble something about “Try harder”, “Turn up the scanners” or his favorite, “Work the phone.”

Turns out, they got it from the AP wire. From a tip Roy had called in, and then ripped off the wire for his file. Forgetting to tell me. Roy apologized about that.

He also taught me a lot about getting the story and getting it right, building on the mentoring I’d received from another Eastern NC legendary newsman, Glenn Hargett who was the news director at a little radio station in my home town. Later in my television career, a different news director told me the problem with me was that I was a “big J journalist” — someone for whom Journalism came with a capital letter. Yep, I was a big J journalist, thanks to Glenn Hargett, Roy Hardee and other seasoned news professionals.

And according to Roy, I was a “fine-lookin’ blonde” who was smart enough and talented enough to be on the news. That was one tip he didn’t forget to tell me.

Now you may be asking yourself — what does this have to do with social media? Well, I first learned of Roy Hardee’s death on Facebook. Stewart Pittman shared his memories on his blog.  A Google search brought me more links. As I follow the comments, I’ve been finding old colleagues who are posting on blogs or news websites, all sharing their favorite memories of Roy Hardee. The lives he touched are spread out, but we’re all reconnecting through a medium and a memory.