Running into one-time Denver sportscaster Les Shapiro in a Chinese restaurant in downtown Washington, D.C., is not an every-day occurrence.
But there we were on Saturday, both of us attending BookExpo America, a gigantic convergence of authors, booksellers, buyers and publishers.
Shapiro has a new, part-time gig – podcast interviews. He corralled James Patterson, Newt Gingrich, Jules Pfeiffer, Pat Schroeder, Robert Duvall and others at BEA for five-minute interviews to be carried on bookexpocast.com.
It’s the brainchild of fellow Denverite Rob Simon, a co- founder of Westword, who’s teaching businesspeople new technology need not be scary.
Shapiro and Simon are working on a similar podcast with ex- Denver newspaperman Norm Clarke and Those Who Matter in Las Vegas.
“It’s basically an extension of my broadcasting career,” says Shapiro. “I’m still interviewing high-profile people who are successful.”
Shapiro emphasizes that this iPod foray isn’t a full-time career for him. He could be back on local TV soon, he says, “but not in news.”
Get outta town
Bill Dallman, news director for KDVR-Channel 31 for seven years, leaves his post on Thursday.
No time to rest up. He starts his new job at KMSP-Channel 9, another Fox outlet, in Minneapolis on Tuesday.
Dallman is mostly faceless to the general public but he virtually built the Fox31 news operation from scratch, including the on-air staff, in 2000. KMSP is beefing up its news so it’ll be right up his experience alley.
It’s a bittersweet change for him. He’ll miss us, he swears, but “the good news for me is they are already very successful.” Plus, he and his wife, Angie,are from the Twin Cities. In fact, he’ll move back in with his mom, temporarily we hope, until his kids get out of school and they and Angie join him.
So far, he says, no clamoring among the Channel 31 staff to join him in Minneapolis. However, several people have stopped by his desk to say, “Congratulations! Can I apply for your job?”
Around the dial
Local media website denvertvnews@blogspot.com reporting that one-time (briefly) KUSA-Channel 9 anchor Heidi Collins to be paired with John Roberts on CNN … David McSwane, whose contributions to an Army recruiting practices report that won a Peabody Award for KCNC-Channel 4, has hired on as a summer intern at the station … Looking back: Channel 9’s new “9NEWS in Time” on its website (9NEWS.com), chronicling memorable Denver and Colorado events (think blizzards and floods) dating to the 1970s. … Quotable: “If there’s anything unsettling to the stomach, it’s watching actors on television talk about their personal lives.” Marlon Brando
Dick Kreck’s column appears Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. He may be reached at 303-820-1456 or dkreck@denverpost.com.
