8 JUNE 27-JULY 3, 2024 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | says. “He just brought a lot to the table as a journalist.” Foremost among these attributes was Clark’s ability to fi nd stories others hadn’t managed to sniff out, no matter their aroma. Such was the case with one of his favorite early reports, which revealed what hap- pens to the animal waste from the National Western Stock Show. Turns out the smelly stuff was trucked out daily to be mixed with organic compost that residents could purchase to put on their garden — and ev- erything came up roses. The same went for Clark’s career at 9News. When veteran broadcaster Ward Lucas re- tired, he took over as weekend anchor, and during the next several years, he continued to assume more prominent roles, proving his mettle with, for instance, his coverage of the July 2012 Aurora theater shooting, which he anchored for seventeen hours. But while he was clearly adept at standard TV-news duties, he ached to create something unique. The process that led to Next was labori- ous. “We talked about putting it on the air for a good year before we did,” he reveals, “and we spent months putting together a team and trying to fi gure out how it would work. Then, after we put on the fi rst show and had a celebratory cake, I thought, ‘What kind of fool am I? I’m signing up to do this daily.’” No rest for the weary The interview with Holtorf — he of the metacarpal-pulverizing handshake and shoulder-dislocating arm yank — rapidly goes off the rails. Most of Clark’s chats with candidates for various offi ces, which are uploaded unedited to YouTube, last around twenty minutes or so, and his conversation with CD4 candidate Yu stretched to thirty, a new record. But Holtorf seems to see the interview as a chance to show how adept he can be at fi libusters. His answers to Clark’s questions are never direct, meandering like a carnival-goer prone to dizziness after riding the Tilt-A-Whirl. Moreover, he seems to be wholly conscious of what he’s doing. “Sort something out for me with, I pray, some brevity,” Clark ventures at one point. “From me?” Holtorf asks, feigning as- tonishment. Nonetheless, Holtorf doesn’t come out of the exchange completely unscathed. He evades a direct strike when quizzed about his propensity for denigrating females by hyping his sponsorship of a bill to establish Women Veterans Appreciation Day. But his tortured explanation for a statement he made in a General Assembly address about a woman he’d impregnated who had an abortion (“I respected her rights and gave her money to help her through her critical time so she could live her best life”) speaks volumes. And when Clark shares his hypothesis about Boebert’s election being a sure thing because too many people are running against her and queries, “Is that fl awed logic?,” Holtorf admits, “Not at all” before arguing that all her rivals other than him should drop out. Still, by the end of the session, which clocks in at a stunning 47 minutes-plus, Clark is clearly exasperated. “We never put a time limit on these extended interviews. You have caused me to reconsider that,” he deadpans, triggering a Holtorf guffaw. Back in the newsroom, the Nexters, who’ve watched the exchange, are in near- hysterics over what they consider to be an amazing slab of television. But Clark is too busy fl agellating himself for failing to control Holtorf to see things from their perspective. “I’m sorry,” he says. There’s no time to wallow, though. Clark must edit two representative slices of the in- terview for airing on that evening’s show and fi nish a commentary about Boebert allegedly politicizing Hunter Biden’s conviction on three gun felonies. Rather than squeeze in a dinner break, he munches an apple while scanning the script on his monitor. Fortunately, Next isn’t a solo act. Zelinger comes through as usual; he obtained the sought-after CSP stats (exactly 285 crashes took place near the recent Highway 285 ac- cident location over eleven years), cajoled a CDOT expert to weigh in, and found out that a concrete barrier for the spot is seen as imprac- tical since it might be even more dangerous during winter freeze cycles. Reinke’s piece is also complete, and Harris has put together the day’s “Word of Thanks” package; it benefi ts the Center on Colfax’s free mental health program for LGBTQ+ youth. As a bonus, Moore has fi nally gotten the entire Holtorf interview online and is chopping up snippets for social media distribution. By 6 p.m., when Next airs, everything is in place, and the show runs smoothly. No snafus mar Zelinger’s live report from Highway 285; Reinke appears in-studio to talk with Clark about the Firehawk helicopters and the Interlaken fi re, whose acreage more than doubled in a day; forecaster Kathy Sabine’s weather update goes off without a hitch; the Holtorf bits hang together better than feared; and the commentary is sharp and concise. The only casualty is the “Chunky Kyle” capper, which is jettisoned to make room for a random comment sent in during the show from a viewer named Fritz. “Kyle, I used to like you,” Clark reads. “Now you’re just talking fl esh. You sound like you’ve been hit in the head with a bag of nickels.” After a pause, Clark offers his take: “That’s either disturbing or poetic or both.” Seconds later, Clark moves from the stu- dio to the control room, where he debriefs with Harris, Reinke and a handful of behind- the-scenes collaborators, including director Cyrus Allen and senior executive producer Nathan Higgins. They share positives, but he’s not overly enthusiastic. On a scale of ten, he gives the offering a six or a seven. The good news is, there’s always tomor- row — though for Clark, the demarcation between days can get fuzzy. Once the June 12 Next has been beamed into the stratosphere, he moves to prepping for the 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. broadcasts. He gets home around 11 p.m. but spends the next two hours on social media between preparing questions for his next CD4 interview subject. By the time he gets to bed, he’s well into June 13. This schedule sounds like a burnout blue- print. But Linda Kicak, who joined 9News as news director in March after spending twenty years at Fox31 and KWGN/Channel 2, already knows better than to tell Clark to slow down. “That’s how he’s built, and I have to trust that when he needs a break, he’ll take a break,” she says. But she thinks his work ethic “shows how much responsibility he feels and how important it is to him.” What’s next for Kyle Clark Even some of Clark’s supposed failures are successes: The Holtorf interview winds up generating around a half-million views on various platforms. Such reach, plus the attention Clark has received from beyond Colorado lately, raises the prospect that a big station in a larger market or a major network might poach him. But when asked twice about whether he’s had inquiries from such operations, he initially slides to another subject without addressing the odds of such a jump, then gives the sort of non-answer answer that would do a dodgy politician proud: “I’ve had lots of conversations with lots of people.” But he hastens to add that he loves his current job and has concluded that local TV is even more important now than when he joined 9News seventeen years ago. These days, convincing average folks — especially those under age fi fty — to turn on a television and watch a local news program is tougher than ever. Scads of people in their twenties and thirties follow Clark on social media (he has more than 204,000 followers on X alone) but never tune in, which doesn’t do anything for 9News’s ratings. News director Kicak concedes that getting more of them to be- come regular viewers is high on her to-do list. Because Next skews younger than most local news- casts, the incentive to replicate its format would seem high. But there are no overt Next clones airing anywhere in the U.S. and relatively few efforts to do something fresh with the age-old TV news format — and that disappoints Clark. “If I could wave a magic wand, there’d be fi ve or six innovative news shows in Denver and in every market around the coun- try. I think they could bring new audiences to local TV,” he says. “That doesn’t mean there should be fi ve Nexts. But we need shows that are different.” One person who understood this desire was the late Carl Akers, a Denver broadcast pioneer and commentator whom Clark reveres; he keeps two Akers books on his desk. Their styles could hardly be less similar, but Akers shared Clark’s disinterest in pandering, as epitomized by his long-ago response to a critical letter from a viewer. In the note, shared with Clark shortly after Next’s debut by the family of the man who received it, Akers recommended a rival newscast that didn’t feature commentar- ies like his before adding, “You, I assume, have intelligence enough to turn the dial.” This message is the same one Clark deliv- ers to his critics. In his words, “There’s lots of other things to watch.” But none of them are quite like Next. Email the author at [email protected]. The Next Big Thing continued from page 6 Kyle Clark sat down with CD4 candidate Richard Holtorf for a solo chat; he has more than 200,000 followers on X. MICHAEL ROBERTS
