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Inside SooToday
David Helwig
David Helwig ·

I grew up doing my homework in front of this old (even then) Emerson Bakelite Tube-Type Radio.

If you opened the back, there was a paper licence glued to the bakelite case.

In the early days of radio, you needed a licence to listen!

And so I spent my evenings fascinated by nightly tales of murder and mayhem on 20/20 News from CKLW (The Big 8) in Windsor, Ont.

Blasting 50,000 watts day and night, CKLW's boulder-shattering signal could be heard across 28 U.S. states and three Canadian provinces, #1 in Detroit, Cleveland, Toledo, Ft. Wayne and, of course, Windsor.

The Big 8 was a major influence on the unorthodox newswriting style I adopted in the early years of SooToday/Village Media.

CKLW's 20/20 News was known for writing that hit like a sledgehammer, and also for terrible, terrible excesses.

I copied the former and tried to avoid the latter.

Tried....

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