LCI Blog: Meet the Media – Bob Redell: reporter, NBC Bay Area

This week, we had the pleasure to speak with Bob Redell: reporter, NBC Bay Area:

What’s your top story for today?
Top story today – eh.  Top story a couple days ago: dog chases mountain lion up tree in Los Altos Hills.  We’re the only station with the video of the big cat.  Story goes viral.
Tell us about your dream assignment.
I’ve had the dream assignments: flying with the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds.  Reporting from North Pole, AK every year prior to Christmas.  Chronicling my Dad’s return to Vietnam.   The true dream stories are the ones that surprise you.  You show up expecting one thing, walk away with something completely different.
Describe the wackiest story you’ve written.
The wackiest?  So many.  The first one that pops into my head: the girl who cooks and eats bugs for a living.  Her egg, bacon, tomato and bee larvae is actually quite good.
What is your PR pet peeve?
I don’t like being sold a bill of goods.  It doesn’t happen often, but there are times when we’ve shown up to a live shoot only to find that the story was not as advertised.
Top trend in the industry you’re currently covering or are interested in.
I’m considered general assignment.  In other words, I don’t cover a specific industry or beat.  But I do see a common thread in most of my stories: the economy / budget deficits / unemployment.  When people have a hard time putting food on the table, it affects everything.
Tell us a little about yourself.
I graduated from Indiana University with a double major in Japanese / Telecommunications, minor in Business, and concentration in Russian Politics. For some strange reason, I couldn’t get a job with that, which meant I was perfectly qualified to go into TV. (TV seemed a natural transition since I was a theater geek in high school and college.)
Amazingly, a news director hired me to work at the Fox affiliate in Ft. Myers, Florida. My thought was that I could work hard enough and become the next Dan Rather (without the being forced out of the job part.) Outside of my writing, voicing and general overall appearance, I was a natural on the tube. That is one reason why my boss relegated me to covering festivals, fairs and all the superlatives (world’s largest collection of salt / pepper shakers, country’s smallest post office, etc.).
Funny thing is: I found a niche reporting on those quirky human interest stories and eventually ended up as the feature reporter at the ABC in Jacksonville. (Don’t fall asleep yet. This bio is about to get really exciting.) Then in 2000, I came here to be the feature guy for the morning show at KNTV. You can catch me covering the “hard” news during our 5 to 7AM newscast and then having a little fun doing the features for our newscast at 11AM.
You can catch my news segments locally on NBC Bay Area News (channel 3) or online at: www.nbcbayarea.com.
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