Post critic and author recalls his days at UB

W>ashington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz's latest work is Hot Air: All Talk, All the Time (Times Books Random House), zeroing in on America's burgeoning trend in radio and TV talk shows.

Kurtz, a 1974 graduate of UB, writes: "My four years on The Spectrum is what got me into journalism-period, paragraph, end of story. It never occurred to me before that I could get paid for doing what I like to do, which is write.

"My experience in the third-floor newsroom at the old Norton Hall union was like a second education, one that helped catapult me into my current job as media reporter for The Washington Post, where I've worked for 15 years.

"What I remember most about campus life, in addition to the strangeness of being away from home and living at Goodyear Hall, is the politically charged atmosphere of the time (1970-74). It was a period of antiwar rallies, of cultural upheaval, and especially of questioning authority, a good trait for a journalist. At The Spectrum we had the freedom to fire away at college administrators and faculty with all the protections-and responsibilities-of the First Amendment.

"By my senior year, when I was elected editor, it hardly seemed unusual to be criticizing the UB administration with the same fervor that I denounced the Nixon administration in all those Watergate editorials. We even put out an extra on the day that Vice President Agnew resigned.

"I have many other warm memories of good teachers on cold mornings, of concerts at Kleinhans, of the old Buffalo Braves basketball games, of the close-knit texture of the Buffalo community-and of meeting Mary Tallmer, who lived in Clement Hall and is now my wife. Not a bad four years, I'd say."