Tom McCall - Journalism Career

Journalism Career

In March 1942 he was fired from the News-Review and traveled to Portland, Oregon to look for work. At the time the economy of Portland was booming due to World War II (McCall was told by the military that he was not eligible for enlistment due to bad knees and a recurring hernia) and journalists, still primarily men, were in short supply. He was quickly offered a job at The Oregonian at nearly triple his wages in Idaho.

While working on a story, an official of radio station KGW (owned by The Oregonian) approached McCall about reading a public service announcement over the air. The station management was impressed by his unique voice and offered him a job as a news announcer. He worked at KGW radio until 1949, when he became administrative assistant to Oregon Gov. Douglas McKay. In 1952 McCall returned to KGW radio, where he served as a newscaster and political commentator until 1955, when he jumped from radio to television and KGW to KPTV.

McCall was a newscaster and commentator at KPTV, Oregon's first TV station, for about a year and a half. In November 1956 he followed colleague Ivan Smith out the door during a dispute with station management over placement of a sponsor's product on the news set. Just one month later, KGW-TV went on the air, with McCall and Smith as part of a durable news team that stayed together for seven years, until McCall's 1964 departure to run for Secretary of State.

Tom McCall led early efforts to help migrant workers. In September 1958 he led a meeting in Portland as chairman of the Steering Committee for the Oregon Committee on Migrant Affairs. This eventually led to groundbreaking migrant civil rights legislation passed by the Oregon Legislature in 1959.

In November 1962 McCall produced and hosted an ambitious KGW-TV documentary, Pollution in Paradise, which graphically portrayed the poor condition of the Willamette River and air quality throughout Oregon. The award-winning documentary Pollution in Paradise helped focus public attention on the problem. KGW repeated the program in January 1963 on the eve of the opening of the legislative session, and the 1963 Legislature was spurred to some of Oregon's early attempts at combating pollution. McCall also hosted a show on KGW called Viewpoint, which dealt with political issues of the day. McCall appears briefly (on a TV set) in the famous 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in a cameo role as a late-night newscaster, based on his experience at KGW.