John Whaley was one of the most influential journalists in Duluth over the past several decades, but you never saw him on TV.
Whaley (not to be impersonal, most of us called him by his last name) was the longtime chief photographer at ABC affiliate WDIO until his retirement five years ago.
New reporters get some training in the newsroom. The real training came when they got in the news vehicle with Whaley, especially if they were going on a long drive to the Iron Range.
That’s because in small market TV, most reporters come and go after a couple of years, but photogs like Whaley stick around for decades.
He had been at the station since the 70s, covering every major news event and getting to know all of the figures in the news, big and small. He’d also evolved with technology, mastering every new technique as the industry moved from film to tape to memory cards and non-linear editing, even if he wasn’t always happy with the latest change at first.
Most new hires at a small TV station are new to the job, still needing a lot of lessons on the fundamentals. Whaley was patient, starting all of his photogs with an assignment to shoot a coffee cup. He’d have to offer advice that should seem obvious, such as that the horizon on video of Lake Superior should be level because water doesn’t flow uphill.
Not being a reporter or photographer, I never got a chance to directly attend the “John Whaley School of Photography” as some photogs dubbed it. But his impact on both photographers and reporters was clear, not just by their words following his recent death but by their quick improvement under his watch.
He was also known as a prankster. I was glad to have started at WDIO after the typewriter era ended, since Whaley had a reputation for pulling out the scripts while the producer was still typing! The equivalent during my era was that the computer would reboot every time static electricity hit a certain part of the desk. I was pretty sure he had figured out how to trigger the reboot.
Whaley also wasn’t afraid to tell me if he thought I was wasting his photog’s time by sending them to a “popcorn fart.” But it was all in an effort to create the best news product possible and to treat everyone as fairly as possible.
Outside of work, Whaley was an active outdoorsman, once famously showing a co-worker how to gut a roadkill deer right outside the station on Observation Road.
He believed in enjoying life to the fullest. I remember him recounting that when he was in a full-body cast from falling out of a tree stand, he could still go ice fishing by laying on the ice!
The Duluth News Tribune did a great profile of Whaley upon his retirement in 2017.
Whaley got a few years to enjoy retirement in the outdoors and time with family before a diagnosis of ALS last summer. Unfortunately, the disease is currently uncurable, and we lost Whaley this past weekend. Friends have set up a fundraiser for the Whaley family.
We’ll all continue to honor his memory by making sure everyone gets a chance to learn the ropes and by making the most of life outside work.