Greg Dawson's Path Through The News Media

Michael Fritz
Pacific Tribune

"Great story telling is about detail, and it's about the little things," said Greg Dawson, 48, vice president of news at KNSD.
Dawson was never sure about what he wanted to do as a career until he took a communications class at Cal State East Bay, then called Hayward. His professor spoke about a project that a cable company in Columbus, Ohio was working on. They were working on interactive cable that you could pause and rewind and even record. Dawson said he thought the idea was really cool and that was what drew him into a career in communications.
He decided to transfer to the University of Southern California because he felt it was a better school for his interests. It was there that he received a bachelors degree in broadcast in 1985. Now he is vice president of news at KNSD.
Dawson started his career as a part time writer at KBCS in Los Angeles. Due to contract issues he decided to pack up and find another job in the bay area. He got a job at Medford, Ore. as a producer. Previously the news anchors had produced their own shows, so he was the first producer to be hired there. He said moving from the 2nd largest media market to the 152nd was a culture shock for him.
"What you realize when you leave [LA] is that rest of the country hates LA and thinks that the television there is terrible," said Dawdson.
Dawson said that he went from a market that thought big to a smaller one that focused locally.
"So seeing the contrast between the two was so valuable for where they were because they're both different dynamics. I didn't even learn that until I left Medford," said Dawson.
He spent a year in Medford and then went on to do newscasts at Tuscon for eight months. The news director who hired him there later got a job in San Diego and hired him there to do a sports show called "Sports Wrap." He worked his way up the latter there and reach his current position.
Dawson said he does not have any regrets with his career.
"I've been really lucky, lived in good places to live. Oregon, Arizona, I've loved everywhere I've lived. . ." said Dawson, ". . .I'm the kind of person to always look at 'what did I learn from it.' So even if it was not the greatest experience, I got a lot out of it."
Dawson said that being a news director was never something that he set out to be from the start, the opportunity just came up and he took it.
"I was at an opportunity in my life where I was like, 'might as well try it, got nothing to loose'," said Dawson. "My predecessor had left our station to go on and take over another station up in the bay area and the general manager at the time offered me the job."
Dawson has won fourteen emmy awards for his work at KNSD. But he says that he should not be the one getting all of the credit. It is based off of the effort of everyone who works under him.
"My job is to make sure other people can do their jobs. When we do something good it's not because of me it's because of everybody else, but I get credit," said Dawson.
Dawson says that even though he's not a writer anymore he can still be creative with his work.
"My job these days is outwardly pretty boring. . ." said Dawson. "Now I get to be creative in 'how do we do this project' or 'how do we grow our ratings' or 'how do we make this show better'"
Dawson says that one of his biggest challenges is having to let employees go as the media adjusts to changes.
"That's really hard to go through. Going through layoffs where I had to tell people who worked hard that they didn't have a job anymore," said Dawdson.
"I think we've gone through the worst of it and things are getting better," said Dawson. "But it's [the news media industry] still really competitive and I think the key is you have to really want to do it. It has to be a calling and if it is you'll figure out the right path and you'll make it. We need people with the passion and the desire to do it. The public needs it. Because really we're here to serve the public."