Mike Eisgrau | WNEW 1130 AM

A very Happy Birthday Mike (June 28)

Mike Eisgrau

WNEW 1967-1991

Mike Eisgrau is no stranger to the media or to public relations. For over ten years, Mike was the director of public affairs for the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center of New York. He was responsible for all public relations and print and broadcast media contact, including acting as the spokesman for the premier, world-class convention facility and as the PR contact with major government, trade show management and convention center officials from around the world.From the other side of the news desk, Mike has a career’s worth of experience as a reporter, editor and news director in both radio and television. As broadcast news editor for WWOR-TV in New Jersey, Mike was responsible for “Magazine” or “Enterprise” news stories produced by a staff of more than a dozen reporters. As news and copy editor for “Good Day New York” for WNYW-TV, Mike was responsible for writing and editing hourly and half-hourly newscasts on Fox TV’s New York morning show. For over twenty years, Mike served as a reporter, editor and news director for WNEW Radio News in New York, one of the nation’s premier local broadcast newsrooms of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. He covered major local and national stories, including the funerals of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.; the Democratic and Republican conventions; state gubernatorial and presidential candidates on the campaign trail; and the 1969 Woodstock music festival. Mike holds a BA in Literature and Speech and Drama from Cornell University and an MSJ in broadcast news from the Medill from Northwestern University.

..Bio from the WNEW1130.com archives.

Columbia University students taking over the campus in pro-Palestinian demonstrations regarding Gaza reminds me of another time on the same campus 56 years ago.

In 1968 students again took over the campus—that time actually barricading themselves in buildings—even taking over the President’s office—to protest American involvement in the Vietnam War.

Print and broadcast reporters had been on the scene for a couple of days. I had just returned from vacation in my first year working for WNEW Radio News. No sooner had I entered my apartment in Forest Hills than the phone rang. It was the desk. “Get over to Columbia U. —the students have taken over the buildings”. So, late at night, I raced to the campus and, sure enough, some students had taken over President Grayson Kirk’s office and several other buildings. The NYPD was outside the gates.

About 1:30AM I was inside when a guy I knew named Jacques Nevard slammed me against a building. Jacques was the DCPI (Deputy Commissioner for Public Information). He was trying to protect me for, seconds later, a phalanx of cops swarmed through the gates and across the campus, grabbing and sometimes beating students and working to clear out those buildings.

The next day student protest leader Mark Rudd held a news conference. I and other radio, TV and print reporters were there. (picture—I’m second from right—note the WNEW flag).

Jacques is gone now, but I won’t forget that night I reported for WNEW News on an Ivy League campus—especially since, just six years before, I had graduated from Cornell and had gone to get my Masters in Broadcast Journalism from Medill at Northwestern in Chicago. The experience that night taught me stuff I’d never learned in the classroom.

Mike Eisgrau

< Image courtesy of the archives of Bill Diehl>

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