Knipfing Has 40 Years at Forefront of Local TV News
By Rick Nathanson Journal Staff Writer
Veteran television newsman Dick Knipfing sat in a conference room off the KRQE-TV, Channel 13, newsroom pondering how far he has come.
"Forty years," he said reflectively. "That's a long time. I never imagined that this would be my career" — or that it would last this long.
Knipfing, 60, is the elder statesman among TV news anchors in the Albuquerque market. On Tuesday, he will observe his 40th year in the business. He has worked at most of the major broadcast network affiliates, usually more than once, and he is regarded as one of the keenest observers of New Mexico's political scene.
Quite an accomplishment for a guy who initially intended to enter the Merchant Marine, and whose first job in television was based out of a metal garage.
Knipfing was born in Long Island. His father, who worked in construction and later insurance, suffered with arthritis. In 1951, the family relocated to high and dry New Mexico. Knipfing's mother, however, had a hard time adjusting to her new home, so in 1954 the family headed back East.
In 1961, Knipfing had been a cadet at the Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y., when he, too, was diagnosed with arthritis. That pretty much cut short his stay at the academy and any notion of a military career.
Still a freshman, he looked west, to the University of New Mexico, where he had been accepted the year before "and the only school I could get into instantly," he said. His family followed him back to Albuquerque in 1962.
In the summer of 1963, just before he entered his junior year, Knipfing saw a posting at the UNM job placement office for a reporter/photographer at KGGM-TV (now KRQE). The job listing stated "No Experience Necessary."
"I was an English major and pretty good with words. I figured it might be interesting, but I hadn't thought about journalism as a career," Knipfing recalled.
He got the job and became part of a four-person news department that operated out of a metal garage at the back of the KGGM property. The 40-hour a week job paid $60. Knipfing worked the swing shift and continued taking classes in the mornings.
In those days, he explained, reporters conducted interviews, shot their own 16-millimeter film and wrote the stories, which were read by the on-air newscaster. Knipfing's very first story, after a crash photography course, was a report on the construction of the Park Plaza apartment building near Downtown, one of Albuquerque's first "skyscrapers."
"It took me like six hours to write the story, and I thought, how am I ever going to do this every day?"
But he did, and he got pretty good at it; and he began to enjoy it far more than he ever imagined.
Coincidentally, KGGM also operated a radio station at the time, and reporters were often asked for live-from-the-scene broadcasts. Those radio reports gave Knipfing his first experience delivering unrehearsed on-air stories based solely on his notes.
Before long, Knipfing began to think about a career in broadcast journalism, so he enrolled in a history of journalism course at UNM.
"I didn't like it," he said. "The two guys teaching the course were both former print journalism guys and they didn't think much of TV news, that's for sure. I never took another journalism course. In fact, I dropped in and out of school, and finally got a history degree in 1976."
Knipfing stayed at KGGM until late 1964, when he accepted a reporter/photographer job at KOAT-TV, Channel 7, which had a news staff of seven. Over the years, his job expanded and he served as news director, weekend anchor, and primary weekday anchor. By the time he left in 1979, the station's news department had grown to about 25, and KOAT had become the No. 1 local news ratings leader.
Knipfing's defection to KOB-TV, Channel 4, was with mixed emotions. "They made me an offer I couldn't refuse, but it was hard because KOB had always been the enemy," he said.
Even with Knipfing as KOB's primary anchor, the station "failed to knock off Channel 7" in the ratings, so management replaced him as anchor in 1986.
Knipfing considered leaving the news business, and was about to accept a job as alumni director at UNM, but after more than 25 years as a newsman he just couldn't walk away.
He subsequently took a job back at KGGM for 21/2 years, then went back to KOAT for 10 years. In 2000, he returned for a third stint at the station where it all began for him, KGGM, which had since been sold and renamed KRQE. There, he co-anchors the one-hour newscast at 4 p.m., and the half-hour newscasts at 5:30 p.m. and 10 p.m., in addition to writing and editing copy.
Witness to change
From the perch of his different anchor seats, Knipfing has had a bird's eye view of four decades worth of newsroom changes. Most of the biggest have been technology related — the switch from film to video tape, increased live broadcast capability, adoption of computers, and reliance on the Internet as a research tool.
There are, of course, reminders of the old days, and Knipfing carries two of them at his finger tips — literally. He still types using the hunt-and-peck method. Both of his index fingers are slightly disfigured from the years he pounded away on heavy, manual typewriters containing a stack of carbons in the roller bar.
Knipfing's personal life has been significantly more stable than his professional life. He has been married for 37 years to his wife, Charlene, currently the director of probation and parole for the state Corrections Department. Together they raised two children and have remained active with the Catholic Church.
It was Knipfing's deep religious convictions that led him to report a story that he calls the most difficult of his career — the scandal involving former Archbishop Robert Sanchez, who in 1993 was accused of having improper sexual relationships with several young women.
"It was hard for me because I had known the archbishop for a long time," said Knipfing. "We used to go to Mass at his home on Wednesday mornings. Believe me, if I was ever tempted to restrain a story, that was it."
Instead, Knipfing, then at KOAT, and investigative reporter Larry Barker aggressively pursued and broke the story. Knipfing has not had the opportunity to speak with Sanchez since then.
With 40 years behind him, the tall, still trim Knipfing remains enthusiastic about the news business, but he hedges when asked how much longer he will be a player.
"This is a hard business, both physically and mentally," he said. "I'm 60 now, and most people retire at 65 or 66. I'm aiming for that, but if I still feel I want to do this, and if the station and the viewers still want me, I may stick around for a while longer."
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