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A veteran of 26 years within the broadcast industry and having spent nearly 17 years with CNN specializing in science, aerospace, technology and environment and was Chief Technology and Environment correspondent based in New York. Having achieved many great things within television along the way, he was, stand-in anchor from time to time and covered Hurricane Katrina for several weeks anchoring CNN‘s Peabody and DuPont award winning coverage, also he anchored several news and talk programs including Science and Technology Week, Saturday Morning, Sunday Morning, TalkBack Live, Headline News Primetime, Live From… and, most recently, American Morning.
week . He covered Hurricane Katrina as well.
week . He covered Hurricane Katrina as well.
Q and A
1) Miles could you start by telling us a little bit about yourself?
Well I was born, June 9, 1959 in Detroit, Michigan, I grew up outside of Detroit in a place called Grosse Pointe Farms. I decided I didn’t want to stay in Detroit so I went to Georgetown University in Washington DC to study history, mostly because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, I knew I enjoyed journalism. I started an alternative newspaper in high school cause I didn’t like the way the high school paper was done. I was always interested in journalism but I never really saw it as a career because growing up in Detroit I didn’t know anyone in the media business and I didn’t have any role models for that job.
While I am in Washington, which was a major advantage of course, I took an internship at NBC News in the Washington Bureau and that internship led me to a job offer when I got out of college, at the time, there was a bit of a recession going on the at time so there weren’t many jobs going around. So it was an offer of working midnight to 8, ripping wire copy off the old ticker type machines before we had computers, so that was to me a great job, I loved it. So id do the overnight shift, do all that stuff and also listen to police scanners and make sure there was nothing going to blow up in the world and make sure I would be able to call in a crew if something bad happens.
Cause I was young and didn’t need much sleep I would go out during the day with reporters and see how they did their job and if I got lucky id do a little piece of my own, write it up and report it. One thing led to another and I got a job in St Joseph, Missouri and that was in 1982, basically where I started near the bottom of the barrel within media and television. From there I got an offer in Albany, New York where they had their own photographers and live trucks etc which was great, all kinds of fancy stuff. I did that for 15 months before getting an offer to Tampa, Florida and moved down there which was the 17th largest market, after some 200th + position in the market when back in Missouri, so was gradually climbing the pecking order and from there I went to Boston, Massachusetts and worked in that market for six or seven years. That’s were I found out about CNN and they were looking for a science correspondent. I really didn’t know much about science but I really wanted to get in there at CNN. So I heard about this job actually from one of my colleagues who had heard about this job. So I went down to Atlanta and went through a two day ordeal of an interview, got tested and got the job.
So over nearly 17 years there I covered science, space, aviation and did several programs, by the end of December 2008 they got rid of me and my entire unit, so presently I have been doing a bunch of free lance work and having a lot of fun doing that, I’m fortunate that my phones not stopped ringing and I haven’t had a day off since so I’ve been doing all sorts of fun things.
After leaving CNN, I contacted http://www.spaceflightnow.com/ which cover space issues, put video on and real-time blogs of missions etc and I thought what would it take to put 5-6 hours of streaming coverage of the launch on the internet since the cost would be minimal, all you would need is a Macintosh, a switcher and a couple of TV cameras. Now starting off with an established website helps but also being able to write about it on face book is an astounding free marketing tool. By just start telling people “hey would you be interested in 5-6 hours of uninterrupted coverage with spaceflightnow and it’s amazing how we have some 40, 50,000 viewers at a time. We had 180 countries tuned in during the last launch, so me, just a stand alone guy with very cost or overhead can truly in this day and age compete with CNN, their an entirely different business model but if your interested in space, you’re an inch wide and 100 mile deep in coverage, you’re the only game in town and I called them up and of course I know them all having worked side by side with them for years.
Mark’s Comment: So it’s really a niche within the space industry.
Well there are people all over the world that are fascinated by this stuff, they have been underserved, think about it, because the mainstream media have sort of walked away from this subject. The truth is wherever you go, there is people who love this stuff and if you provide it to them they will be able to find you.
2) Have you been in space?
No no, right before Columbia I reached a deal with NASA to make me the first US journalist to fly in space but the Columbia disaster ended that. We were going to announce it after Columbia was supposed to land successfully but obviously that didn’t happen.
3) Do you have a particular highlight within your career or in life?
My career highlight for me that kinda stands out would have to be my experience covering the flight of John Glen on the space shuttle back in October of 1998 I has the good fortune to anchor that coverage with Walter Cronkite as my co-anchor. I don’t know what your equivalent would be in Scotland but he is the guy who invented the whole notion of being an anchor man, he covered the space programme, if you’re in my business he’s like a God. It was really a privilege to work with him on John Glen’s return to flight in October ‘98. Its gona sound strange but a highlight of my career even though it was a very dark day, is the loss of Columbia in February ‘03 because that was a story that I spent a career preparing for if you think about it. I spent 16 solid hours on the air live I felt in a way I sort of helped the country get through a tragedy, it was actually a great experience in that respect as awful a day as it was.
4) Away from work what kind of things do you like unwind with, Miles? I am assuming your work is stressful at times?
Oh sure, it’s the kinda thing that if you love it it’s a lot less stressful. Its stressful in the sense that there’s tight deadlines and its dynamic and all those kinda things. But if you love what you do it shouldn’t be an issue and it should be part of the thrill and pulling it all off, that’s the way I’ve always viewed it. But it is intense at times.
I am a pilot, I have a little airplane that I fly, I enjoy doing that. I like to spend as much time as I can with my family. I’m a big runner and cyclist, I like to get outdoors as much as possible, we have a place in the mountains in Georgia where we go a lot and do some hiking and boating and so forth. I’ve just turned 50 so I try to beat back the hands of time, so that’s what I do for fun.
5)Here do you like to go to in your plane?
My favourite destination my family and I like to go to is the Bahamas, we like to fly the plane down there and visit tiny little islands and tiny little resorts that are otherwise very difficult to get to, where you need a boat or plane to do it. So we do it a lot, we go scuba diving, spend time on the beach and spent time together.
6) Have you ever fancied becoming an astronaut?
Oh sure, I think about it often. What’s interesting in my case is when I started CNN covering science, I realised how much I enjoyed the subject matter. I thought about how if I had been nudged in a different direction in high school I might very well have ended up going down that path. But I don’t believe I was taught properly by teachers or I didn’t get inspired the way I should have. If I had gone down that path it might have very well happened for me, well, you know things happen for a reason. I think I have the communication skills which are important, which frankly a lot of scientists and engineers don’t have. So I probably ended up in the right place.
7) In terms of people you have worked with, interviewed or met that individually stand out to you?
Well, of course being with Walter Cronkite, that for me is high up on the list, someone who I really admire and respect. Really the people who I am most impressed with and have interviewed are those Apollo Astronauts that went to the moon, every time I am with them and they share their experience with, I am in shear awe, to know and be friends with people like Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and of course many others in that whole team.
1) Miles could you start by telling us a little bit about yourself?
Well I was born, June 9, 1959 in Detroit, Michigan, I grew up outside of Detroit in a place called Grosse Pointe Farms. I decided I didn’t want to stay in Detroit so I went to Georgetown University in Washington DC to study history, mostly because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, I knew I enjoyed journalism. I started an alternative newspaper in high school cause I didn’t like the way the high school paper was done. I was always interested in journalism but I never really saw it as a career because growing up in Detroit I didn’t know anyone in the media business and I didn’t have any role models for that job.
While I am in Washington, which was a major advantage of course, I took an internship at NBC News in the Washington Bureau and that internship led me to a job offer when I got out of college, at the time, there was a bit of a recession going on the at time so there weren’t many jobs going around. So it was an offer of working midnight to 8, ripping wire copy off the old ticker type machines before we had computers, so that was to me a great job, I loved it. So id do the overnight shift, do all that stuff and also listen to police scanners and make sure there was nothing going to blow up in the world and make sure I would be able to call in a crew if something bad happens.
Cause I was young and didn’t need much sleep I would go out during the day with reporters and see how they did their job and if I got lucky id do a little piece of my own, write it up and report it. One thing led to another and I got a job in St Joseph, Missouri and that was in 1982, basically where I started near the bottom of the barrel within media and television. From there I got an offer in Albany, New York where they had their own photographers and live trucks etc which was great, all kinds of fancy stuff. I did that for 15 months before getting an offer to Tampa, Florida and moved down there which was the 17th largest market, after some 200th + position in the market when back in Missouri, so was gradually climbing the pecking order and from there I went to Boston, Massachusetts and worked in that market for six or seven years. That’s were I found out about CNN and they were looking for a science correspondent. I really didn’t know much about science but I really wanted to get in there at CNN. So I heard about this job actually from one of my colleagues who had heard about this job. So I went down to Atlanta and went through a two day ordeal of an interview, got tested and got the job.
So over nearly 17 years there I covered science, space, aviation and did several programs, by the end of December 2008 they got rid of me and my entire unit, so presently I have been doing a bunch of free lance work and having a lot of fun doing that, I’m fortunate that my phones not stopped ringing and I haven’t had a day off since so I’ve been doing all sorts of fun things.
After leaving CNN, I contacted http://www.spaceflightnow.com/ which cover space issues, put video on and real-time blogs of missions etc and I thought what would it take to put 5-6 hours of streaming coverage of the launch on the internet since the cost would be minimal, all you would need is a Macintosh, a switcher and a couple of TV cameras. Now starting off with an established website helps but also being able to write about it on face book is an astounding free marketing tool. By just start telling people “hey would you be interested in 5-6 hours of uninterrupted coverage with spaceflightnow and it’s amazing how we have some 40, 50,000 viewers at a time. We had 180 countries tuned in during the last launch, so me, just a stand alone guy with very cost or overhead can truly in this day and age compete with CNN, their an entirely different business model but if your interested in space, you’re an inch wide and 100 mile deep in coverage, you’re the only game in town and I called them up and of course I know them all having worked side by side with them for years.
Mark’s Comment: So it’s really a niche within the space industry.
Well there are people all over the world that are fascinated by this stuff, they have been underserved, think about it, because the mainstream media have sort of walked away from this subject. The truth is wherever you go, there is people who love this stuff and if you provide it to them they will be able to find you.
2) Have you been in space?
No no, right before Columbia I reached a deal with NASA to make me the first US journalist to fly in space but the Columbia disaster ended that. We were going to announce it after Columbia was supposed to land successfully but obviously that didn’t happen.
3) Do you have a particular highlight within your career or in life?
My career highlight for me that kinda stands out would have to be my experience covering the flight of John Glen on the space shuttle back in October of 1998 I has the good fortune to anchor that coverage with Walter Cronkite as my co-anchor. I don’t know what your equivalent would be in Scotland but he is the guy who invented the whole notion of being an anchor man, he covered the space programme, if you’re in my business he’s like a God. It was really a privilege to work with him on John Glen’s return to flight in October ‘98. Its gona sound strange but a highlight of my career even though it was a very dark day, is the loss of Columbia in February ‘03 because that was a story that I spent a career preparing for if you think about it. I spent 16 solid hours on the air live I felt in a way I sort of helped the country get through a tragedy, it was actually a great experience in that respect as awful a day as it was.
4) Away from work what kind of things do you like unwind with, Miles? I am assuming your work is stressful at times?
Oh sure, it’s the kinda thing that if you love it it’s a lot less stressful. Its stressful in the sense that there’s tight deadlines and its dynamic and all those kinda things. But if you love what you do it shouldn’t be an issue and it should be part of the thrill and pulling it all off, that’s the way I’ve always viewed it. But it is intense at times.
I am a pilot, I have a little airplane that I fly, I enjoy doing that. I like to spend as much time as I can with my family. I’m a big runner and cyclist, I like to get outdoors as much as possible, we have a place in the mountains in Georgia where we go a lot and do some hiking and boating and so forth. I’ve just turned 50 so I try to beat back the hands of time, so that’s what I do for fun.
5)Here do you like to go to in your plane?
My favourite destination my family and I like to go to is the Bahamas, we like to fly the plane down there and visit tiny little islands and tiny little resorts that are otherwise very difficult to get to, where you need a boat or plane to do it. So we do it a lot, we go scuba diving, spend time on the beach and spent time together.
6) Have you ever fancied becoming an astronaut?
Oh sure, I think about it often. What’s interesting in my case is when I started CNN covering science, I realised how much I enjoyed the subject matter. I thought about how if I had been nudged in a different direction in high school I might very well have ended up going down that path. But I don’t believe I was taught properly by teachers or I didn’t get inspired the way I should have. If I had gone down that path it might have very well happened for me, well, you know things happen for a reason. I think I have the communication skills which are important, which frankly a lot of scientists and engineers don’t have. So I probably ended up in the right place.
7) In terms of people you have worked with, interviewed or met that individually stand out to you?
Well, of course being with Walter Cronkite, that for me is high up on the list, someone who I really admire and respect. Really the people who I am most impressed with and have interviewed are those Apollo Astronauts that went to the moon, every time I am with them and they share their experience with, I am in shear awe, to know and be friends with people like Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and of course many others in that whole team.
** Sadly since Miles and I‘s phone interview, Walter Cronkite passed away.
Photos of Miles are from Verizon Wireless BlackBerry!
I would like to take this time to thank Miles for spending the time over the phone with me and kindly providing me with these answers to my questions. I would like to wish him and his family all with health, happiness and success for the future.
You can check out more about Miles and his work with these following links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_O)
His website: http://trueslant.com/milesobrien/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_O)
His website: http://trueslant.com/milesobrien/
Thank You, Miles!
Thanks for reading.
-Mark
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