By Jeff Sherman OnMilwaukee.com Staff Writer Published Dec 21, 2004 at 5:43 AM Photography: Neil Kiekhofer of Front Room Photography

{image1} Kathy Mykleby loves to talk. Good thing, since she's been reporting the news in Milwaukee for 24 years.

As the co-anchor of WISN's 5 and 10 p.m. newscasts, she's more than a fixture in Milwaukee, she's one of the city's most respected, watched and humorous news people. She easy-going, and that trait filters into thousands of living rooms every night.

In her college days, she helped develop the College of Communications Studies program at the University of Iowa, which is currently ranked among one of the top schools in the nation. And she hasn't stopped creating, having fun and making things happen since.

Recently, she sat down with OMC to talk about her career in Milwaukee, her love for the city, her role models, favorite restaurants and more. Enjoy this latest edition of Milwaukee Talks.

OMC: Please give us the brief "Kathy Mykleby story."

Kathy Mykleby: I grew up outside of Chicago and went to school in Iowa City, at the University of Iowa. Created my own major, the Communication Studies Program which has now been there -- for, how long ago did I graduate? -- back in 1976. Anyway, in sort of a freak moment when the journalism school was in an upheaval over something or other I freaked out and thought, "Oh my gosh, I need to have a legitimate major."

So, I called my parents in some sort of panic and said (my major isn't) accredited or whatever -- whatever the word was, they're not doing it for journalism! I didn't even know what it meant. My dad just said, "Then why don't you just start your own major?"

So, I did. Graduated in '76, got my first job at an FM rocker in Iowa City, did news on that station. And then got married. I met my husband in college, on the last day. At that time, he was in dental school and he needed to take another job in Oklahoma, so I got my second job in Oklahoma City at WKY radio.

Ultimately, Geoff (my husband) takes a job in Milwaukee as a dentist and I've got to find myself a job, so I start putting out some resumes and somebody from our radio station in Oklahoma City finds out I'm moving to Milwaukee where Channel 18 is owned by the same company -- so my bosses say, "How about television?"

And I say, "I don't know if I like those television people." But it's a job so I took it. And then within a couple of months I had offers from a bunch of television stations and the next thing you know, I'm working at Channel 12 in television. It wasn't something I planned.

OMC: What year was that?

KM: I got both of my jobs in television in 1980.

OMC: Did you do news on Channel 18?

KM: I did news on Channel 18. I made my own set. When I was on the air there was no one in the room to tell me we were on the air, so one day I came in with a saw and sawed a hole in my set so that we could put a television in there so I knew when I was on television.

I was at 18 for six months. I have 24 years now at Channel 12.

OMC: Do you remember what your first story or first assignment was here?

KM: My first story was about the Plankinton Mansion, it was across the street (currently the site of the Marquette student union), it isn't anymore. In the middle of the night the City of Milwaukee somehow, some people within the City of Milwaukee got the necessary permits to knock it down. It was very controversial. So, in the middle of the night a big old truck just ran into it and that was my big story. Took me 100 times to do my standup.

OMC: What do you think has changed the most in your 24 years in TV news?

KM: The technology has been amazing. I think of when I would go on a story and to make a phone call was a hassle. Now, obviously, everybody's got his or her own phone and the newsgathering has changed because we have an immediacy that we didn't necessarily have in the past. That's good at times, but it can be challenging mostly because you're going to get a lot of information just flooding in and you still have to try to figure out what is legitimate, what you're not going to get sued over. People will say anything, so you really have to monitor it.

And I think the business changes as you grow older, too. As you're in a community for awhile you're suddenly part of a community and that makes a difference.

There are so many more people in our business now, there's so much competition, you are competition -- the fact that people can kind of create their own television newscasts by either watching the Internet, looking at the Internet.

I don't worry about all that stuff, though. I think the most important thing to me has always been to put the best information on television. What's changed is how you can go about gathering that information. So it just makes it more challenging. It's good -- I don't know, the jury's out. I let people decide for themselves.

OMC: Are you still having fun?

KM: Oh God, I wouldn't do it anymore if I wasn't.

OMC: What are your thoughts on the Milwaukee TV news landscape?

KM: I think Milwaukee is pretty lucky. When I go to other cities (and watch local news) I feel like everybody looks like they're just out of school. We have people (at Channel 12) who have lived here a long time and want to be here and have a stake in the community. This helps Milwaukee's news. I have always felt that our news market is not as cookie cutter as some other markets in this country. Even New York, even Chicago, you watch their newscasts and you see a story about "This will or that will kill you" -- we don't do that.

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OMC: What are your thoughts on where TV news is going? Obviously there's so much media now, will it be relevant in 10 years, will it be the same?

KM: When local news is no longer relevant to people I think we'll really be in trouble. You have to constantly adjust your thinking as a news operation, you've got to go with what's going on in a community but when suddenly people don't care about what's going on in their community any longer -- I don't want to live in that community. I've never been in a position where I've not been interested in what's going on around me but what goes on around you impacts you whether you know about it or not. So why walk around without that knowledge?

OMC: Did you know what you wanted to do when you were in high school?

KM: I think I did. President Kennedy was assassinated when I was in grade school. I was walking through the hallway, and I saw a teacher crying and I thought, "Well that's different" and I walked over to her and I said, "What's wrong?" And she said, "The president has been shot." And, I say to myself, "The president has been shot!?"

President Kennedy was probably the first president that I really knew more about than the fact that he was just the man who lived in the White House. I grew up in an extremely Catholic neighborhood, it had been incredibly celebrated that a man who was Catholic was going to be president. We had records that had speeches of Kennedy and we would play them all the time. And she tells me that he's been shot. I've got to go somewhere with this information. So, I walk into my little class and I just announce that the president has just been shot.

It's nice when you're behind glass in the living room, people expect you to be telling them this kind of stuff. But my class, they were just as upset as the teacher, as upset as I was, and I got it then -- the impact of what telling people what was happening had.

OMC: What advice would you have for students who someday want to be an anchor?

KM: Pay attention. Keep a little notebook or something, make your own little life log. Absorb events somehow, however you can. Our attention span is way too short. I sound like I'm 50 years old, and I am. But, we are going to make the same mistakes over and over and over again if we don't pay better attention. And if everything (news) has to be something that's going to knock our socks off then we're really gonna be crazy. We just need to pay attention to detail and to the big stuff.

OMC: Did you have a role model professionally, personally?

KM: I just had the opportunity to meet one of them, Jane Pauley. When I got my first job in radio she was getting her big job at The Today Show, she was in Chicago television, I had grown up in Chicago so I was just astounded by this person who was just lovely, so smart and had such a great cadence about the way she spoke.

I had the opportunity to interview her about three months ago -- it was really fun because for me since I admired her so much. We were almost completing each other's sentences and able to talk at a level that wasn't like, "You little ABC affiliate girl," and I'm like, "Oh gosh, it's Jane Pauley!" If it was 20 years ago, I might've been an idiot and said, "Could I have your autograph?"

I've met Barbara Walters who, to be honest with you, was not somebody I was constantly trying to mimic. However, she did cut the path for me to be where I am today and I totally respect her for that.

OMC: What other interviews stand out?

KM: I got to meet David Cassidy who was in the Partridge Family when I was a little girl. And I loved him then.

He was playing at Potawatomi, so we thought maybe we'd do an interview with him. And I sit down and David Cassidy's across from me. So, I'm having this normal conversation with him and then I joke with him and as you can tell I'm happy to sort of have the light side of things as well as the serious sides of things -- so we talked about how he's gone through depression, how he's gone through being a big shot to being sort of a has been, and that's kind of the way I put it, too, "How does it feel to be a has been?" And, people in the room are aghast, but he says thank you for saying it exactly the way it is. I appreciated his candor.

OMC: What's your favorite thing about the community, and what are a couple things if you had that magic Milwaukee wand that you'd change about it?

KM: What I really like about Milwaukee is that it's compact. I can get from my house to the symphony in 20 minutes. And we have a great symphony; we have a great ballet, great theater, all at my fingertips. The art museum is just magnificent. I got to go to the grand opening of the Milwaukee Art Museum and had the opportunity to talk with Calatrava. This man stood and looked over this crowd of people from Milwaukee and his great prize with such a look of pride! I think a lot of people just want to pick it up and hug it because it has so many great things going for it.

Maybe we suffer a little bit from an inferiority complex because we've got that big city to the south but we really shouldn't. I'd change that mindset. I grew up in Chicago and I think -- I'm sure that my friends are, "Oooh, you're in Milwaukee?" I spend more time involved and going to great restaurants, great theater, great entertainment, than these guys do in their little suburbs outside of Chicago. So, I feel pretty blessed to have all of this at my fingertips.

People should do more stuff in Milwaukee. They should support all these arts. They should support all the great things in Milwaukee. Even the baseball team. People gripe about our baseball team. But, they play well and hard.

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OMC: What's the last concert you saw?

KM: Sting at the Marcus Amphitheater with Annie Lennox. She was great.

OMC: If you had three CDs to take on a trip what would they be?

KM: This sounds kind of crazy but if you go into my little six-pack in the trunk of my car and I'm referring to the CD holder, I have in there, believe it or not Uzbek music that I picked up a little hankering for that when I went to Afghanistan. It's very lively and jittery and hard to find around here.

I have Dinah Washington, I love jazz. I have French café mix that has a little dance mix to it. And I always have Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots are Made for Walking" because I do love that particular song and got to sing it with her last year when I interviewed her.

Robin Pluer too, I have her CD in my car. Robin and Paul Cebar.

OMC: What about TV shows? Any ones you just love?

KM: I love "Lost." It's interesting. I always watch "West Wing," and I love "The Sopranos" and "Six Feet Under." And I've started watching "The Daily Show"; that's a gas. But I don't watch a lot of television.

OMC: If you could have a drink or a cup of coffee with someone that you haven't met who would it be and why?

KM: Katharine Hepburn. I don't even think it requires any explanation. She's very -- both of the Hepburn girls frankly, Audrey and Katharine, no relation or anything -- they are a couple of women who lived life their way.

OMC: What does success mean to you? Or how would you define success?

KM: One little word, it's content, C-O-N-T-E-N-T. It could be pronounced "content" and it could be pronounced "CONtent." And if you got CONtent you're gonna be content. And then you could be contentious after that, just by adding a little. I think that once you've decided you are successful you probably are a little complacent so you've got to find another area to have some sort of success. So it's a work in progress.

OMC: Do you have a favorite restaurant in town?

KM: I love Bacchus. I love a lot of restaurants in town. I really like Watermark, too. And, I love Jacques' Café. Lance's (weatherman Lance Hill) in-laws own Sticks & Stones, so I better say that, too.

I'm an Eddie's (Eddie Martini's) girl, too. My book club is named Eddie's Steakhouse. We meet at Eddie's every week -- or every month.

OMC: What about coffee? Coffee drinker?

KM: I just drink straight black dark roast. I go to a little joint called La Tart's Little Perk, 6742 W. Wells St., on the way in to work.

OMC: One last media question. Packers and crime coverage, how has that evolved through the years, and why is there so much of both on TV?

KM: Hopefully the Packers won't commit any crimes. Because we have lived through that. People are excited about the Packers. And I used to somewhat despise that until I went to a few Super Bowls and saw the community aspect of what was happening.

I'm guilty of Packers stories and of crime stories. But media should try to put more depth into both of those stories. They hardly compare, but you as a viewer, are telling me that you think you see a lot of crime stories and you see a lot of Packers stories.

I've been here for 24 years and I can remember a time when we would have a murder and I would do the story about the murder suspect or about the murder victim. We would always do two stories. And I hold onto that today since it bothers me that media doesn't always report on the person who's murdered. I really want to know more about that person, I want to know if that person is a father, if that person was a smart student, if they delivered the newspaper, I want to know who they are. I think it (crime coverage) has gotten dehumanized over the years, but we haven't yet become a town where we don't report a murder. That's Chicago. It has to be a triple murder to hear about it in Chicago news. And I'm not saying that that's good or bad -- I just think that at least (it's respectable) that media acknowledge we lost a citizen.

We're not gonna be the kind of station where if "it bleeds, it leads." But there are times when it's just the news. It's frustrating because we have really good people in our business who don't necessarily want to chase after those stories all the time. We do our best to balance it.

Jeff Sherman OnMilwaukee.com Staff Writer

A life-long and passionate community leader and Milwaukeean, Jeff Sherman is a co-founder of OnMilwaukee.

He grew up in Wauwatosa and graduated from Marquette University, as a Warrior. He holds an MBA from Cardinal Stritch University, and is the founding president of Young Professionals of Milwaukee (YPM)/Fuel Milwaukee.

Early in his career, Sherman was one of youngest members of the Greater Milwaukee Committee, and currently is involved in numerous civic and community groups - including board positions at The Wisconsin Center District, Wisconsin Club and Marcus Center for the Performing Arts.  He's honored to have been named to The Business Journal's "30 under 30" and Milwaukee Magazine's "35 under 35" lists.  

He owns a condo in Downtown and lives in greater Milwaukee with his wife Stephanie, his son, Jake, and daughter Pierce. He's a political, music, sports and news junkie and thinks, for what it's worth, that all new movies should be released in theaters, on demand, online and on DVD simultaneously.

He also thinks you should read OnMilwaukee each and every day.