Neil A. Carousso produces NewsNation original “Kurt’s Country” – a celebration of country music and a slice of Americana with host Kurt Bardella.
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Young People with Autism Get To Be WCBS 880 Reporters For A Day
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — As part of Autism Awareness Month, and in partnership with Koeppel Auto Group, WCBS Newsradio 880 presented a program on news and weather reporting for a class of autistic young people from the Quality Services for the Autism Community Day Habilitation program.
The young people came to the showroom of Koeppel Ford in Woodside, Queens to hear from WCBS 880 Reporter Marla Diamond and Chief Meteorologist Craig Allen.
Diamond explained how she works as a reporter – including her early alarm clock, her computer skills, how she works out of her vehicle, and how she travels the city covering all kinds of interesting stories.
She demonstrated how she uses as microphone, digital recorder and audio editing software on her laptop. She recorded QSAC visitors reading news scripts and weather forecasts.
WCBS Newsradio 880 Director of News and Programming Tim Scheld, Reporter Marla Diamond and Chief Meteorologist Craig Allen talk with motivated QSAC students. (Neil A. Carousso/WCBS 880) The QSAC young people also got a lesson in weather from Allen, a veteran of both radio and TV. He also brought tools of his trade — including a barometer, a lightning detector, and something that created a tornado effect in a glass tube.
The session concluded with questions and answers from the young people about everything from covering snow storms to what makes a good news story.
“So when we talked to the guys who came today about this potential opportunity, they were incredibly excited to meet people in the community who they see as absolute superstars, and they really were excited to learn about what you guys do, and to be in a place with fancy cars, with everybody giving them tons of attention, so they’re really excited to be a part of this today,” said QSAC Senior Director of Day Services Lauren Maldonado.
WCBS Newsradio 880 Chief Meteorologist Craig Allen shows QSAC students the tools of his trade. (Neil A. Carousso/WCBS 880) QSAC President and Chief Operating Officer Cory Polshansky said many in the program are making leaps and bounds toward independence. He mentioned one young man who has been with the program since he was a teenager.
“Now it’s 15 years later, and he’s grown into a young adult, and he’s developing the skills and hopes to one day live in his own apartment. And that’s what he’s been talking about for a couple of years, and he’s working at it, and in a couple years, he’ll probably be ready to live independently with some supports from QSAC,” Polshansky said.
A QSAC Student reads a weather forecast with WCBS Newsradio 880 Reporter Marla Diamond and Chief Meteorologist Craig Allen. (Neil A. Carousso/WCBS 880) The session was held at the Koeppel showroom in Queens as part of the auto group’s strong support of the QSAC organization.
“We would like to give back what we get. I mean, it’s kind of selfish to keep getting and not giving back,” Koeppel said.
Neil A. Carousso produced WCBS Newsradio 880’s digital content at QSAC’s Day of Habilitation program at Koeppel Auto Group on Friday, April 13, 2018.
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After 100 Days In Office, Westchester County Executive Says Budget Is Top Concern
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — George Latimer is marking 100 days in office as Westchester County Executive.
The Democrat was elected last fall, unseating two-time popular incumbent Republican Rob Astorino. Latimer is a lifetime Westchester resident — born in Mount Vernon, a product of public schools, and a graduate of Fordham in the Bronx. He was a marketing executive for two decades before jumping into politics. He has served in various roles in city, county and state government along the way, and he has never lost an election.
He ran for county executive on promises to hold the line on taxes, fight to preserve the environment, build up urban centers, increase opportunities for minorities and women in business, and increase investment in mental health and fight the opioid crisis.
During an appearance Wednesday morning on WCBS Newsradio 880, Latimer told Wayne Cabot and Paul Murnane that the budget is a top concern.
A full audit is underway, but an early look shows the county has a budget gap that will likely grow.
“The state comptroller came in to the fiscal review, identified that some revenues were overestimated — sales tax, state aide. And we know already that we have a major union contract that’s gone seven years unresolved and that’s accumulating a pretty hefty prospective charge if we’re able to close it off,” Latimer said.
The county executive said he’ll try to encourage villages to share some services as a way to cut costs.
“What we have to do at the county level is try to give them incentives to combine or work with the county on the delivery of services,” Latimer said. “We’re obviously concerned about how can identify shared services, ways of restructuring how we deliver shared services — police, sanitation — things that we’ve come to understand can be done by every local municipality but now we have to look at doing them in some combination of delivery.”
A caller also expressed concerns about what will happen to the communities that stand to lose revenue when the Indian Point Nuclear Plant closes in the coming years.
Latimer said the goal is to repurpose the land that the plant sits on.
“Part of it is going to always remain to house the spent fuel rods but the rest of the land sits on the Hudson and if it can be repurposed productively, and that’s open-ended. That’s a question economic development and how we incentivize that,” Latimer said.
He favors creating an enterprise zone “where we can give some special tax discounts that would allow us to bring something else into that land.”
“I don’t know that you’re going to get the same economic boon that you had with Indian Point but I think we can help offset it until the economy restructures itself in that area,” Latimer said.
The county executive also addressed a question from a caller who asked why a new Westchester County police commissioner has yet to be appointed.
“We haven’t found the right person yet,” Latimer said. “Public safety is an important position and we want to make sure we make the right decision. We’re not into hiring and firing and rehiring.”
Another caller asked Latimer about lighting on the Bronx River Parkway.
“All the lights on the parkway work in the Bronx section but none of them seem to work on the Westchester side,” the caller said.
The issue comes down to money. The project has to be funded through the capital budget.
“Everybody says,. ‘Well let’s keep our taxes low, don’t spend anymore money, don’t raise my taxces,’ but there are capital needs,” Latimer said.
The county executive doewsn’t sound optimistic this will happen anytime soon.
“I hope by the time I say goodbye in this position both he and I will be able to drive the Bronx River fully lit,” Latimer said.
Neil A. Carousso produced WCBS Newsradio 880’s live-to-tape interview on the WCBS Opening Bell Report on Wednesday, April 11, 2018.
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A Look Back at Steve Scott’s Interviews With James Earl Ray, The Man Who Pleaded Guilty To Killing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — James Earl Ray pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 99 years in prison in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which happened 50 years ago Wednesday.
But until his death at the age of 70 in 1998, Ray maintained that the guilty plea notwithstanding, he was not the one who killed Dr. King.
WCBS 880’s Steve Scott interviewed Ray several times – including two radio interviews in the prison where Ray was serving his sentence, first in 1992 and again shortly before Ray died in 1998.
Ray was a footnote in the grand scheme of history, Scott noted. But in 1992, Ray published a book, “Who Killed Martin Luther King? The True Story by the Alleged Assassin.” Upon seeing the book, Scott thought Ray might be an interesting person to talk to.
Scott went through Ray’s publisher to get in contact with him, and not long afterward, Ray called him at home.
“I was taking a nap one day, and got a collect call from a maximum security prison in Nashville, Tennessee, and there was James Earl Ray on the other end of the phone,” Scott said. “And I interviewed him, and then I asked him, I said, ‘Hey listen, if I can get myself down to Nashville, would you be willing to sit down in a room with me and record a radio interview face-to-face talking about the King assassination?’”
Scott said Ray responded, “Well, you know, they don’t like me a whole lot,” but said Scott could ask prison authorities. The prison authorities in turn said there were no rules against an interview, so Scott could come down to talk to Ray if he so desired.
So Scott, who was working in Chicago at the time, headed to Nashville and met with Ray at the Riverbend Maximum Security Prison in Nashville in 1992. Ray laughed as Scott played him a clip of CBS News’ Walter Cronkite from the night Dr. King was assassinated.
“Dr. Martin Luther King, the apostle of nonviolence in the civil rights movement, has been shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee. Police have issued an all-points bulletin for a well-dressed young white man seen running from the scene,” Cronkite said in the clip.
Ray said: “Well-dressed? That couldn’t have been me.”
Ray had been a fugitive from a Missouri prison at the time of the King assassination. He had a long criminal record that included armed robbery, burglary, forgery and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, CBS News reported.
Speaking to Scott, Ray said he was a low-level crook who ran guns over the Canadian and Mexican borders. He said he was duped into being in Memphis when Dr. King was killed on April 4, 1968.
Ray fled the city shortly after the shooting and was captured in London two months afterward, CBS News recalled. He signed a confession with a detailed description of how investigators claimed the crime happened, and went on to plead guilty, CBS News recalled.
CBS News reported the prosecutor in the case, Phil M. Canale Jr., maintained there was no evidence of a conspiracy in the King assassination. Canale did not outline a motive for the killing, nor did he accuse Ray, who was white, of being racist, CBS News reported.
Ray tried to withdraw the guilty plea three days after issuing it even though he had told the judge he understood the plea could not be appealed, CBS News reported. He claimed at the time that he was set up by a shadowy gun dealer he had met in Montreal and whom he knew only as Raoul, and said he himself was changing a tire at the time King was killed, CBS News reported.
Authorities never found a connection between the man identified as Raoul and the slaying, and several courts said there was never evidence of anyone else’s involvement, CBS News reported.
Ray told Scott in the 1992 interview that he was not involved in any way with the King assassination, and he said he pleaded guilty out of concern that his brother and father – the latter also a prison escapee who had been on the lam for more than four decades – might also face charges otherwise.
Scott: “James, I’ll ask you again, did you kill Martin Luther King?”
Ray: “No, I had nothing to do with the shooting of Martin Luther King, and I had no advance knowledge of it. But having said that, I had been, you know, committing criminal offenses. But I wouldn’t have got no 99 years for what I was doing.”
Scott: “You confessed to the King murder.”
Ray: “Yes… I didn’t really confess to it. I entered a guilty plea. There’s a difference between, you know, a confession and a guilty plea.”
Scott: “But why plead guilty to one of the most notorious murders of the 20th century if you didn’t do it?
Ray: “If I didn’t enter a guilty plea, they might charge my brother Jerry Ray for as a conspirator in the Martin Luther King murder.”
Scott: “Who had nothing to do with it?”
Ray: “He was working. They knew he was working at the time. He was working in Chicago at the time, six days a week. They also said they might arrest my father, and my father, he’d escaped from prison in 1925, and he’d been a fugitive ever since. So apparently, the Justice Department found out about it, and they told my attorney, Percy Foreman, and he came and told me that if I didn’t enter a guilty plea, that you know, they might put him back in jail. And so I agreed to enter a guilty plea on those conditions.”
In the interview, Ray suggested that the FBI was behind the King assassination, because then-Director J. Edgar Hoover was terrified of King’s influence over black America.
Ray also reminded Scott that he was a prison escapee himself in 1968, and said, “What better way to stay under the radar than to kill Martin Luther King?”
The U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in 1978 that Ray was the man who killed Dr. King. But the committee concluded that a group of racial bigots in St. Louis – with a reported $50,000 bounty on King’s head, might have been involved too, CBS News reported in 1998.
As to whether he believes Ray was King’s assassination, Scott said: “He maintained until the day he died that he didn’t do it. Do I believe him? I’m not a big conspiracy guy. I’m really not. But there is a lot of compelling evidence – and the King family buys into this as well – that points, perhaps, to the fact that James Earl Ray at least did not act alone or didn’t do it at all. But you know what? If you give me 99 years in prison, I’m going to come up with some pretty good stories too. So the bottom line – I just don’t know.”
Neil A. Carousso produced and edited the backstory video with WCBS Newsradio 880 afternoon anchor Steve Scott.
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High School Students Learn Valuable Lessons On Digital Business Skills At WCBS Small Business Breakfast
STAMFORD, Conn. (WCBS 880) — Amid the sea of attendees in the Stamford Hilton ballroom Wednesday at the WCBS Small Business Breakfast was a table filled with high school students furiously taking down notes.
The students from the Academy of Information Technology and Engineering from the Stamford School District gathered to hear Google Small Business Marketing Expert Wendy Gonzalez talk about how to grow their business online and sharpen social media strategy.
Business and technology teacher Brenda Zanga has brought students to these breakfasts in the past and calls it “an amazing learning experience.”
Student Jena Lombardo spoke to WCBS 880 after the breakfast and said she was walking away not only with broad and overall points, but with “actual specifics” to help her understand the needs of a small business and how to make brands stand out.
“I do like how Wendy was talking about how your business, they like if it’s personalized; if it kind of has that wholesome feel, and also not everything you put out there has to be some big bang – it’s all about like a gradual growth,” Lombardo said.
The morning was especially helpful to high school senior Marco Lima, who created his own business brand – Triple M – an apparel line that sells clothing in several states.
“I do produce clothing – it’s retail – and I don’t know, anything that you can think of, basically, and I also do custom designs for people, and so if somebody has a huge order they want to do, in terms of wholesale, I also do that as well,” he said.
Lima loved the networking at the event and even met a potential business partner who does embroidery.
Student Bryant Kozial is also working on his own business, and told us he learned about some helpful tools for the first time.
“It really was interesting, because a lot of the sources that, you know, you could use from – like Google Analytics and Express – I didn’t even know those existed prior to today,” Kozial said. “And now that I walk into this room and got such a meaningful presentation of what Google could help you with in your business, I think that it’s going to help out my business a lot more.”
Student Linsey Loraditch said she was especially intrigued with the Google My Business aspect of the presentation. She said the tools she learned about would be useful when it comes to artistic applications for promoting a business.
“I would say to be able to develop their style through art; to be able to draw traditionally and digitally, especially with this growing media presentation that we have with art in the world,” she said.
The group, including members of the school’s faculty got to talk with WCBS Business Anchor Joe Connolly following the breakfast and took some photographs with him. They’re already talking about a trip to the WCBS Newsradio 880 studios for a follow up conversation.
Neil A. Carousso produced WCBS Newsradio 880’s multi-media coverage of the Small Business Breakfast and assisted in organizing the event in Stamford, CT on March 28, 2018. All WCBS 880 videos and social media posts were written, edited and published by Neil A. Carousso.
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Google’s Wendy Gonzalez Gives Advice On Sharpening Your Digital Skills At WCBS Small Business Breakfast
STAMFORD, Conn. (WCBS 880) — Participants learned how to take full advantage of the digital tools available for their business at the WCBS Small Business Breakfast Wednesday morning.
.@JoeConnollybiz and @GoogleSmallBiz expert Wendy Gonzalez, our featured guest at the WCBS #SmallBusinessBreakfast, discuss what they learned from small business owners this morning on how to “expand your digital presence” and transcend it into sales. pic.twitter.com/YzQs62D3R6
— WCBS 880 (@wcbs880) March 28, 2018
Joining WCBS 880 Morning Business Anchor Joe Connolly at the Stamford Hilton was Google Small Business Marketing Expert Wendy Gonzalez. Guests heard tips on how to grow their business online and to sharpen their social media strategy.
https://www.facebook.com/wcbs880/videos/1499906383465333/
Among the pieces of advice Gonzalez passed along was how to make the social media presence for a business engaging and personable – even if the business itself might seem to be on the dry side. Connolly mentioned one man he knew who worked as an accountant, and engaged potential clients on social media by showing himself coaching his Little League team on the weekends.
https://www.facebook.com/wcbs880/posts/1499781796811125
“For a lot of people, the whole world in accounting is very scary, and it’s something that is the last thing on your to-do list to deal with. But everybody has to deal with taxes and business. You’ve got to deal with your finances – of course, you’ve got to deal with your finances,” Gonzalez said. “So you want to work with somebody who seems personable. The video can show that.”
https://www.facebook.com/wcbs880/posts/1499709043485067
She noted that no matter what the business, there is always something in that lends itself to video and social engagement.
“The first step, really, is to take a step back and say, ‘What’s our goal here?’ Because I think you can also see a lot of YouTube channels where they have a lot of videos, but none are very interesting. None feel very authentic. None feel like you’re getting information,” Gonzalez said. “So I think the first step is to say, ‘Well what’s the point? What am I really trying to do here?’ So in the case of that accountant, I think my goal would be, I am trying to show that I’m somebody that you want to hang with. I’m somebody that you can relate to. I’m coaching Little League. This is what I do on weekends. That is going to lead to a different video strategy and social media strategy, and someone who wants to show these products, or someone who wants to show these customer stories. It all depends a little bit on what your goal is.”
https://www.facebook.com/wcbs880/videos/1499698876819417/
Following the discussion, Gonzalez said the most important takeaway was that businesses are looking for ways to find customers the same as ever, but with new tools at their disposal.
“To me, it’s still the bread and butter of business that people are looking for customers. And people are looking for customers now on all sorts of different platforms, and approaches and strategies on how to find those customers, but ultimately, that is still what people are looking to do, and digital is a great way to find those customers now,” she said.
Gonzalez noted that when it comes to digital strategy, businesses are going well beyond the “hours and directions” box on Google.
https://www.facebook.com/wcbs880/videos/1499942043461767/
“When a business pops up on the right-hand side, that’s run through a program called ‘Google My Business.’ So business owners can claim that listing, and they can add their hours, and they can add photos, and respond to reviews, and we have a new feature called ‘local posts,’ where people can post information that’ll last for about a week, including videos – so just more engagement; new ways that people can – as a business owner – engage with their customers, right at those moments when customers are looking for them,” she said.
Google AdWords were also a major topic of interest at the breakfast. One man noted that if AdWord number one is too expensive, taking the second slot is not a bad idea.
“Ultimately, we are always trying to deliver a relevant experience to a user, so looking at your search term; looking at the ad text; looking at your website; finding what is relevant to whoever is searching, and sometimes that is the number two ad position,” Gonzalez said. “So of course, number one is great, but I think he made a great point that he sees a lot of success by sometimes being the number two search result.”
Now in its 23rd year, the WCBS Newsradio 880 Small Business Breakfast is the longest running small business event series in the New York area.
Neil A. Carousso produced WCBS Newsradio 880’s multi-media coverage of the Small Business Breakfast and assisted in organizing the event in Stamford, CT on March 28, 2018. All WCBS 880 videos and social media posts were written, edited and published by Neil A. Carousso.
