TV Talk: Paul Martino retires from KDKA-TV, on-air sendoff planned

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.

After a 37-year run at KDKA-TV, reporter/anchor Paul Martino hangs up his microphone this week with an on-air exit interview farewell that’s expected to air during the station’s 5 and 6 p.m. newscasts Wednesday.

“I just want people in Pittsburgh to know what a pleasure it’s been, what an honor its been to come into their homes, tell them about their communities, be a part of their community,” Martino said earlier this month. “I love Pittsburgh, and I love the viewers and I’m going to spend the rest of my life here — although I may get away in the winter.”

A Chicago native, the 68-year-old Martino got interested in broadcasting in high school and college listening to newscasts on rock radio stations with pithy headlines (“Pregnant teachers solve labor problems,” about a Supreme Court ruling on teachers and maternity leave). Martino was always interested in politics and competed successfully on the speech team in high school.

Both would serve him well in his career where he covered two Pittsburgh mayors who died in office (Richard Caliguiri and Bob O’Connor) and landed in the crosshairs of another, Sophie Masloff, after revealing she’d been lying about her age.

“She was a delightful woman but it was, frankly, difficult to cover an elderly grandmother the same way you covered all these other white guy politicians, so we had a love-hate relationship,” Martino recalled. “The one thing she liked about me was I had a lot of babies. I had newborn twins and a 3-year-old and she wanted to meet the babies, so we brought all the babies up to see her and she posed for pictures and kept pictures of my babies on her credenza. … Sophie was wonderful to me till the day she died. And I’m so glad I was part of all that.”

Last summer, KDKA-TV videographer Ian Smith, whom Martino said he loves working with, was attacked and beaten by protesters and Martino suffered chest pains (“I went through all the tests and found out what was wrong with me,” Martino said).

“That was a horrible day, but both he and I are doing well,” Martino said. “We learned a lot from that.”

Prior to coming to KDKA, Martino worked at stations in Davenport, Iowa, Quincy, Ill., and Mobile, Ala. When he arrived in Pittsburgh, he expected it would be a stepping stone to a larger TV market.

“I had some feelers out. I grew up in Chicago and I once had dreams of working in Chicago and I actually came close a couple times to jobs there but I have no regrets,” Martino said. “I’m glad I stayed here.”

Martino said he “put KDKA on the map in Westmoreland County” when he opened a bureau there in the early ’90s. He had two stints at the KDKA anchor desk on weekends, originally with Brenda Waters as co-anchor, before opening the bureau and again as a solo anchor for a decade after Stephanie Watson’s departure in 2011.

“When they sent me to the bureau in Westmoreland, (station management) said, ‘We’re not going to do two-anchor shows on the weekend,’ but I didn’t mind (making the move) because I got a really nice raise at that time,” Martino said. “I said I’ll only (go to the bureau) if you give me A, B, C and D and they said, ‘OK.’ That was one of those rare moments in broadcasting.”

Earlier this year current station management took Martino off the weekend anchor desk, reassigning him to general assignment reporting weekdays (“That was kind of a blow to me,” he said). Martino had agreed to a new contract prior to that move but after the change in his schedule and duties he decided to call it quits.

“I had wanted to work longer (until maybe 70), but it’s a number of factors that came together,” Martino said. “I’m struggling with the new technologies, the tweeting and Instagram. It’s kind of foreign to me, whereas the younger generation, God bless them, they grew up with an iPhone in their hand.”

Covid protocols also factored in his decision.

“Not working in the office, working in a car all day was becoming difficult for me,” Martino said, noting he’ll often have “a laptop on one knee, an iPad on the other knee and two phones going. It’s crazy.”

“It was not that the station was trying to get rid of me,” he continued. “They wanted me to stay. They made that clear. But all of this came together.”

Martino, who was divorced more than a decade ago and got remarried in September, said working in TV is a young person’s game.

“Not to reveal my vanity but it is difficult to watch yourself get old on television,” Martino said. “But, you know, I’ve had a very nice run.”

In addition to playing golf and maybe doing some voiceover work on commercials, Martino will continue to sing and play keyboard in Paul Martino’s All-Star Band. He’ll next perform at The Rock-n-Roll Italian Invasion/Paul Martino’s Retirement Party at the Pittsburgh Shrine Center Pavilion at 3 p.m. July 11.

He anticipates he’ll miss the action of covering news and “being in the know” but he’s made peace with his retirement.

“Most of my life, I was thinking, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be so horrible not to be on television anymore,’ but I’m not feeling that right now,” Martino said. “I’m moving on to a different phase of my life. So far I feel great about it.”