The Dean Departs
After 35 years in the same job, Lee Giles retires from WISH-TV.
By
Kathryn S. Wenner
Kathryn S. Wenner, a former AJR associate editor, is a copy editor at the Washington Post.
The man known as the "dean" of television news directors announces his retirement after 35 years in the same job--which may be a TV news record. Lee Giles, 66, started at Indianapolis' WISH-TV as an editorial director in 1963 and was named news director five years later. Perhaps best known as the guy who gave Jane Pauley her first television job, Giles has lasted through seven general managers and a slew of ownership changes. "You've got to have the work ethic in this business," he says. "You have to want to be there, you have to really invest yourself in it, make that commitment and keep it up--and you have to get a few lucky breaks." His current boss, General Manager Scott Blumenthal, and his chief competitor, Jacques Natz, news director at WTHR-TV, use the same word to describe him: gentleman. Natz, who still has the rejection letter Giles sent him when he applied to WISH right out of college, says the Indianapolis news market "is as competitive as it is probably largely because of the kind of integrity [Giles] brought to his role over the years." ###
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