Glen Loyd On Your Side in Wisconsin

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2005-03-09T06:05:00.000-08:00

Glen Loyd on getting sued

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"I have been unsuccessfully sued six times for more than 14 million dollars! Among the many lawyers who have disagreed with my stories: F. Lee Bailey; Melvin Belli; Leonard Garment (advisor to President Nixon); and Fred Thomson, former U.S. Senator who plays the district
attorney on the Law and Order TV show."

Glen Loyd on freedom of speech

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Staring down from the bench, Judge Walker asked Glen Loyd if he thought he could say anything about anybody anytime

regardless of the consequences. "Yes," he replied.
Dallas Times Herald

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If you need help

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Having a problem with a landlord, auto mechanic, contractor, or telecommunications company? Need advice about refunds or offers that sound too good to be true? Want to file a complaint or check the complaint history of a company? Help and consumer fact sheets on most issues are available from Wisconsin's Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection: 1-800-422-7128.

Chapter 30/My hero at the Milwaukee Journal

2005-03-03T08:07:00.000-08:00

Dear Glen Loyd:

The gyp outfit that had the "too-good-to-be-true" offer did finally respond after your agency took action. I expect they will be just a little more careful in the future when they try to pull their scams on the yokels from the dairy state.

Walter Zahn
Green Bay

Since I turned 31 in 1971 and began appearing on TV, people have been recognizing me and even asking me for my autograph. I am still giving a few at age 65.

At first, I was uncomfortable about these requests because I didn't think I merited that kind of attention. Eventually, though, I was happy to sign and would tell the seeker it was an honor.

But I try not to take myself seriously. Eventually, this thin memoir is likely to be selling for 10 cents at some resale shop.

That 's where I recently discovered a great but dusty book written by a hero of mine, Arville Schaleben who worked for the Milwaukee Journal as a reporter and editor for 42 years. He died in 1992 at age 92.

Like me, he was a participatory journalist. He just didn't write stories, he took an active part in them.

For example, in the 1930s, he helped solve America's largest mass murder case by finding clues to show that a Muskego, Wisconsin, farmer dynamited his wife and eight children to death because they preferred listening to the radio to milking cows.

In another investigation, he helped convict swindlers who had promised investors from Wisconsin and elsewhere $5,000 for every $1 they invested.

Several of his stories were turned into national radio dramas. The dynamiting was dramatized by the national radio show Big Story and later by a television show of the same name.

He was also a pioneer in the Journal's environmental reporting and led the paper's efforts to expose controversial U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s who made unfounded accusations while on a communist witch-hunt.

According to his obituary in the Milwaukee Journal, Schaleben was "known for his candor and, by several accounts, was often out of favor with the newspaper's corporate management."

In his dusty book entitled Your Future in Journalism, Schaleben seemed to be summing up my past in journalism:

"It makes a person feel good to know when day is done that his work and words pierce other minds."

"Think a good thought for the man who went out with a paper and pencil and reported facts to you. As long as he is free to ask questions, you are free. As long as his eyes are open, so are yours." #

© 2004 F. Glennon Loyd Jr.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from Glen Loyd, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Chapter 29/My advice about health advertising

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Most consumers believe that newspapers, TV, and radio screen their health advertising for misleading claims. Wrong!

Many ads in Wisconsin are filled with health claims that are not true.

My advice to broadcasters: Misleading ads harm consumers and damage your credibility and the credibility of your legitimate advertisers.

"Despite claims to the contrary," says Michele Bacchuber, M.D. of the Wisconsin Medical Society, "no product on the market can guarantee sexual prowess, breast enhancement, erase wrinkles, or cure arthritis and cancer. Most products for hair restoration don't work. And there are no magic bullets or effortless ways to burn off fat. Claims for diet products or programs that promise weight loss without lifestyle change or effort are bogus and can even be dangerous.

"And yet unknowing consumers fall prey every day to unscrupulous marketers who exploit their fears and boost their hopes, all in the name of a fast buck. In addition to wasting their money, these consumers may be wasting valuable time before they seek proper treatment and may be exposing themselves to dangerous products. It is always wise to discuss these products with your doctor or other health care professional before using them."

It's important to approach ads that tout treatments or cures for serious conditions or diseases with particular caution. Ask to see an advertiser's support for extravagant claims. By law, advertisers must have solid evidence for health claims before they run an ad.

What the media and consumers should watch out for:

Ads for products that promise to melt fat, treat baldness, relieve stress, cure impotence, improve eyesight, slow the aging process or offer other easy answers to difficult problems
"No diet! No Exercise. Eat as much as you like. Eat your favorite food. New scientific/medical breakthrough"
Testimonials from "famous" medical experts
Case histories from "cured" customers claiming amazing results. Such testimonials also imply their experience is typical for consumers using the product or service. When you see testimonials, ask for proof.
Dramatic before-and-after photos
A laundry list of diseases or conditions the product cures or treats
A claim that the product is available from only one source or for only a limited time
Ads that tout the latest trendy ingredient in the headlines
Ads that make extravagant claims for doctors or minimize the risk of medical procedures
Ads that claim to prove long-term relief from chronic illnesses such as arthritis

Until newspapers and radio and TV stations start to scrutinize their health ads, consumers are at risk for rip-offs and injury and must protect themselves.

Chapter 28/Strangers at your door

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I am looking at a police photo of a 29-year-old man who rips-off homeowners with driveway paving scams.

This conman knocks on your door, claims to have asphalt left over from a big job and can pave your driveway at a bargain price. Shortly after you pay thousands of dollars, you find dandelions growing through your new driveway.

But what is more worrisome to me is that I just found out this 29-year-old man, who has been going door-to-door in Wisconsin, is a violent registered sex offender and has done time for rape and weapons offenses.

Strangers going door-to-door are trouble. In recent years I've learned that many of them have arrest warrants out for them. Even those young looking door-to-door magazine sellers.

I spent a day with a door-to-door magazine crew in Appleton, Wisconsin. All of the crewmembers were 18 and over, but most of them looked like they were in junior high and high school. Young looking adults are recruited because homeowners will have sympathy for them and think they are from the neighborhood.

Tagging along with the crew leader, a petite woman of 21, I found that when knocking on doors, she could transform herself into an appealing grade school student who baby talked. She pulled the transformation right in front of our news camera. And she lied on camera, telling consumers she lived in the neighborhood.

Another crewmember, a young man who appeared to be 15, seemed full of self-confidence and had a friendly gift of gab. But the day after we were with him, he was arrested for threatening to burn down the house of an elderly man who refused to buy magazines from him.

Young people running from the law frequently join up with these crews. When strangers show up at your door, call the police to check them out.

Traveling magazine crews are constantly recruiting new workers when they come to Wisconsin. While it may sound like a lot of fun to travel around the country with other young people, my advice is don't! You may be teaming up with people who can get you in serious trouble.

What's more, these crews work long hours for low pay and must endure harsh personal treatment and physical hardships. As the Wisconsin Department of Justice says, "the crews are often poorly fed, inadequately housed and transported dangerously."

In 1999, seven young magazine sellers were killed and five others severely injured in a van crash near Janesville, Wisconsin. The unlicensed driver was trying to switch places with a legal driver when police chased him for going 80-miles an hour.

I recently interviewed a 20-year-old woman recruited in Madison. She said the manager provided the crew with marijuana and beer and sexually assaulted her.

Last year, a drunken crewmember drowned in the Apple River in Somerset, Wisconsin, and another crewmember was arrested after veering into the oncoming lane and killing another driver.

You can help stop these door-to-door crews by not buying what they are selling, no matter how cute and personable the salesperson is.

Chapter 27/Why the elderly are conned so often

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Cross-border scammers often target the elderly. And new research is telling us why. A doctor at the University of Iowa's Neurology Department says that some people with only slight damage to their brain may be especially vulnerable to financial scams.

Antoine Bechara, M.D., says these people fail to understand the future consequences of financial decisions. They are oblivious to any consequence that the short-term action may have in the future.

"Scams offer the prospect of immediate rewards," says Dr. Bechara. "You can only resist that temptation if you can keep the long-term consequences of losing that money in mind."

The problem occurs in the brain's prefrontal cortex, a region behind the forehead which allows us to store memories, draw general conclusions, forecast the consequences of our actions and compare current and past experiences, thus helping us reach more balanced judgment.

Dr. Bechara says that because even slight damage to this area of the brain can block ability to determine long-term financial consequences, the friends and families of these people may not know about this vulnerability until it is too late.

Dr. Bechara points out that various forms of dementia (age-related declines in mental sharpness) can begin in the prefrontal cortex. That may explain why the elderly disproportionately fall prey to investing scams.

To avoid rip-offs, be on guard. Advancing age may impair that part of your brain responsible for evaluating the consequences of your financial actions.

If you or members of your family are elderly, simple reminders can help, like a note next to the phone that says, "Hang up on telemarketers," or a Post-It note on your PC that reads, "never open unsolicited email."

(Adapted from a Money Magazine article, "Are you wired for wealth," by financial writer Jason Sweig and research papers of Dr. Antoine Bechara.)

Chapter 26/International con artists

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One of the biggest threats that consumers face today is from international rip-off artists. With cheap long distance rates and e-mail, foreign con artists now have access to the United States. Law enforcement officials have trouble finding and prosecuting these criminals.

Many con artists I have been chasing have gone over the border to Canada. More Americans are being ripped-off from Toronto than any other city in the world.

It's estimated that rip-off artists over the border take about 500 Wisconsin consumers for millions of dollars every year with you've won-the-prize calls or advance fee loan scams (we have that loan you want but you have to pay the fee first). Wisconsin refers a lot of complaints to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

When you go on the Internet, con artists around the world are watching you, figuring out a way to steal your money.

Counterfeit checks are flooding into Wisconsin from con artists in places such as Nigeria and Canada who are stealing money from unwary victims selling cars and other items on the Internet.

The counterfeit checks are high quality, and it takes banks about five days to discover the checks are bad. This gives foreigners time to pull off their confidence games.

Take the following case history for example. A Wisconsin man is selling his car on the Internet for $5000. A Nigerian says he will buy the car for the asking price of $5000, and will also send an additional $5000 for shipping the car to Africa.

The Wisconsin seller receives the Nigerian's cashier's check for $10,000, and deposits it in his bank account. Then the Nigerian asks him to send the extra $5000 for shipping to an address in Africa.

After writing the check and sending it off to Africa, the seller receives a call from his bank and it's bad news. The Nigerian's check is counterfeit and the bank demands reimbursement by the seller for the $5000. The seller doesn't have $5000 so the bank forces him to take out a loan and pay back the money with interest. What's more, his car remains unsold. And the Nigerians will hound him for more money because he is now on a "sucker" list.

Never pay out money from a check sent to you by a stranger unless you know for sure the check has cleared! Even if the bank says a check is good, it may be counterfeit.

Con artists also send counterfeit checks to laid off workers desperate for employment. The "hired" victim is asked to open a new branch office funded with the check from the (fake) home office located in another state.

After the job seeker deposits the check into his bank account, the home office tells him to withdraw most of the money and send it by Western Union for a company purchase. This is a cruel con to play on someone who has lost his job.

Chapter 25/Glen Loyd's Annual Care and Share Party

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Thousands of people in Dallas and the Green Bay area contributed toys to the Glen Loyd Care and Share Christmas Parties for Salvation Army children, which were a 20-year tradition.

This is the 1988 Party when I was with WFRV-TV:

Dear Glen:

I've been watching all the announcements on your news show about the Christmas party and I think it's wonderful. I hope the children enjoy these dolls as much as I enjoyed making them.

Kelly Tassoul
Brussels, WI.

Dear Glen:

Thank you for your help getting Oconto children involved in your Care and Share Christmas party. Children and adults alike had an enjoyable time. The children spent the bus ride home exploring their gifts. We delivered excited and happy children to their parents .

Lynn Hollander
Health/Nutrition Coordinator

Glen:

I just wanted to send you a card and say thanks for help making this Christmas possible for my family. There are so many wonderful people out there and you helped show us that. It really warms our hearts to know this and that's just one miracle God has given us.

[Young mother]

Mr. Loyd:

Thank you and all those others who helped you for getting little George his new bike. He has thoroughly enjoyed it and has been riding it every minute possible since you left. Best of all, he actually brings it in the house in order to keep it safe! Before, he didn't want to carry it up the stairs but now that he learned that wasn't safe enough, he's doing everything in his power not to let his bike get stolen again.

I know you and those involved in helping you went to a great deal of trouble for one little boy and I just wanted you to know how much happiness you have given him and how very, very thankful his mother is to you. My heart beats warm, a smile comes to my lips and tears well up in my eyes every time I see how happy you have made him. Thank you so very much. [Scrawled: Thank you very much for my new bike. I love it very much.]

Young mother
Appleton

Chapter 24/a Grandson's funeral

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Dear Glen:

In February I wrote you a letter of complaint about the high costs of airfare for senior citizens and myself traveling from Sturgeon Bay to Pensacola, Florida. Thanks for your letter and the list of airlines with reasonable rates you sent. Now I can get cheaper airfares. A week ago, I had to make an emergency trip by plane to Florida. My oldest grandson got killed in a motorcycle accident. With the help of your letter and the list I was able to fly to Florida for my grandson's funeral. I showed the people at the travel agency your letter and they came up with a flight that I could afford. Being on Social Security, it was a really big help. They gave me a savings of close to $500.

Thank you again and keep up the good work that you are doing, in helping not only myself, but also a lot of other people.

Mrs. Mamie Jacobs
Sturgeon Bay, WI

Chapter 23/This Scout does not back down

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Dear Mr. Loyd:

My name is Mike Gromala. I'm 12 years old from Menominee, Michigan. I have been getting the run-around from the Menominee County Board of Commissioners. They leave the American flag up all night without it being lighted. They told me they didn't have to light it up. I told them I was a Boy Scout and I knew it had to be.

The local newspaper carried a story about Gromala telling the local U.S. Congressman's office that he "wanted resolution to the flag problem in a week or he was prepared to carry his battle to President Reagan or Glen Loyd. The congressman's aide knew who Reagan was, but wasn't familiar with the Green Bay TV problem-solver."

"He's a man who gets action," Mike told him."

Follow-up letter from Mike to Glen:

Thanks for all your help. Menominee County finally got a light on the flag. The light was first turned on in April. When I first saw the flag that night I said it looks great. Thanks once again.

Sincerely
Mike Gromala

Chapter 22/Little Travis gets his kidney transplant

2005-03-03T07:12:00.000-08:00

I've been asked to do a lot of stories with people needing organ transplants.

The first kidney transplant I taped was at Parkland Hospital in Dallas (where a decade earlier President John Kennedy was pronounced dead after being assassinated). I was doing a story about a generous and loving sister donating a kidney to her brother. I also taped a similar story at University Hospital in Madison.

Recently a 38-year-old woman from Northeast Wisconsin paid me a visit while getting a check up at University Hospital in Madison. I had interviewed Leann Pomplun of Berlin when she was a 13-year-old teenager with a new kidney. The kidney was still going strong 25 years after the transplant.

Leigh Ann got her kidney from a deceased 12-year-old Wausau girl who was killed by a motorist who ran a stop sign. The families of the two girls found each other shortly after the transplant and have spent every Christmas together and often go on vacation with one another.

"They told me the kidney would last up to seven years," Leann told a newspaper reporter recently. "Then they changed it to 12 years. Well, here I am and it's still good after 25!"

After my initial story with Leann, her parents, Marvin and Laurine Pomplun, asked me to tell about another area child needing a kidney.

I did that story about little Travis Hilgart and received the following letter from his mother, Donna.

Dear Glen:

Thank you so much for taking the time to come out and do the story on Travis. It really means a lot to me that people realize that Travis, along with many others, are in need of kidneys and are unable to receive one from a family member. I hope this made people realize the importance of signing donor cards. I appreciate everything that everyone is doing to help us out, such as putting stories in papers and on TV.

I really like how you captured Travis saying he wanted to "grow up." [The boy's condition had made him smaller than others his age.] That brought tears to my eyes.

Follow up letter from Travis' Mother:

Dear Glen:

Back in February you did a wonderful story on our little boy, Travis, who was in need of a kidney transplant. [She describes a long ordeal that Travis went through with temporary dialysis in which infection set in after a catheter had been put in his abdomen.]
He was supposed to go home from the hospital but the transplant team came into his room and said they had a possible kidney for him.
He was out of surgery the next day at midnight. Everything went real well. I was so relieved after waiting more than five years that I almost fainted.

At the time of the transplant, he weighed a mere 24 pounds. Now, almost nine months later, he weights 35 pounds. He's also 2.5 inches taller.

Our dream came true for him to get a kidney. Now his dream to "grow up" is working its way for him. He may be small, but to me he is grown-up already. He's been through so much in his life that he is emotionally very strong.

He seemed quite full of energy before, but now he has enough for 10 kids. He runs and plays hard all day, after his morning kindergarten and is still going when the rest want to go to bed!

This kidney was donated from a family that lost a 15-year-old in a fatal fall from a ladder. That is all we know and possibly all we will ever know. We are so very grateful for their thoughtfulness and we did send them a card and letter through the transplant co-ordinators.

We would also like to express our thanks to all of those who have donated kidneys or have signed their cards to intend to. There are many more children out there that are still patiently waiting.

Donna and Wes Hilgart
Berlin, WI.

[When Travis died a few years ago as a young man, his kidney was still working.]

Chapter 21/Losing Cheryl's light

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Cheryl Ross of Pembine, Wisconsin was a beautiful young mother who had everything going for her. She loved her family, but she also had an intense love of life, itself, and was always optimistic.

But immediately after the birth of her second baby, Alea, doctors discovered that Cheryl had breast cancer. Even after removing her breast, the doctors said her chances for survival were not good.

Cheryl and her kind and creative husband, Dan, an artist, lived in a lovely but isolated cottage out in the country. Now, Cheryl needed to talk with people.

After she wrote me a long letter about how precious life is, I began to tell her story on TV. People responded with cheerful letters and visits to Cheryl. One group even had a picnic for her family and put up a swing set for her little boy, Autumn. This is a letter she wrote after one of our stories:

Dear Glen:

Well, today's excitement is over and the kids are finally settled down for the night after a story, drink, catching and disposing of a woodtick on Autumn etc. etc.

It's really quiet and the emotional part of the whole deal today just came over me. Writing is the only way I know to get over it.

There was so much activity and so many people here today that I wasn't sure if I had thanked you for your part in getting Autumn and Alea the swing set. Thank you. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and I treasure your friendship. It has meant a lot to me throughout the past year, the most difficult and the most rewarding year of my life.

I hope the next time we get together it will be a celebration of life and good health. Meanwhile, remember that each day is a big, juicy, red strawberry there for you (and all of us) to enjoy fully.

Sincerely
Cheryl

Cheryl seemed to be holding her own for about six months but despite her optimism, the cancer began to spread.

"At first, I was terrified," she said after the doctor gave her the bad news. "The terror is still there but not as consuming. I can't sleep and have been hanging on to my kids."

Cheryl said that her little boy, Autumn, sensed that something was wrong and was concerned. Cheryl comforted him the best she could.

"I don't think about the future," she said. "I've lost control over my life."

But Cheryl continued to tell her story to help other people appreciate their lives and families.

Then I received this letter from Cheryl's friend, Carol:

It is a real comfort to me knowing that so many people care about Cheryl.

Her condition has taken a turn for the worse: she is struggling with fluid in her lungs. I'm sure she would appreciate hearing from you in the near future.

I called Cheryl immediately. They put the phone to her ear and I told her how much she meant to everyone. But she couldn't talk back to me.

When I announced her death on the air, my voice cracked with emotion. We had lost Cheryl's light.

I made a tape of her stories, so that when Cheryl and Dan's kids grew up they would know how special their young mother was.

Dear Glen:

Thanks for making the tape of the interviews with Cheryl, Dan wrote.

Cheryl and myself thought of you as a very good friend. It is nice to know there are people like you out there in a world that often seems uncaring.

Thank you again for all you have done.

Love,
Dan Ross and kids and Cheryl in spirit.

Dan is an artist and several months later at Christmas he sent me a card that he had made. There was a lovely sketch of his cottage on the cover. Inside was this poem:

I looked for my soul but soul I could not see.

I looked for my God but my God eluded me.

I looked for a friend and then I found all three.

Anonymous

Chapter 20/My most emotional story

2005-03-03T06:36:00.000-08:00

Dear Glen Loyd:

You were the only one who took the time to say, "I care," in all the letters we wrote for help for our children that Protective Services is stealing. Although you were unable to do anything for us, you at least took the time to phone us that you cared.

We know we have lost our children for good. God knows the Mother was a good mother and done no harm to her children.

We'll always love them and miss them forever!

Thanks again for your phone call.

Grandmother and Mother

"They are taking our children from us this afternoon! Can you help?" This plea came into my helpline at TV-11 in Green Bay. Brown County Social Services was going to take away the couple's two little children because of neglect.

The couple was honest with me, admitting to drug problems but said they loved their children and were not going to let anyone take them away. At one point, they said they were going to run from Social Services and leave town.

I advised them not to do this. It would just be harder on the children. "Why don't you cooperate, try to turn your lives around, and get the kids back?" I suggested.

They said they didn't know what to do. They didn't even have food.

I said I would come to their home and bring my photographer.

I bought some burgers and fries for the family. The kids were about three and four and didn't know what was going on. After lunch they played and seemed to be happy, but the parents were in bad shape physically and emotionally. And they were sick at the thought of losing their kids.

I continued to encourage them to cooperate with Social Services, but I was to learn that Social Services needed improvement in the way it handled these situations.

Later that afternoon, Social Services arrived with a police officer. I had a skilled cameraman with me that day and he turned on his camera and left it on.

The kids got scared and started clinging to their parents. After some false starts, the Social Services workers finally ripped the children out of their parents' arms and took them to a station wagon. The cameraman recorded this heart-wrenching scene and then got close-ups of the kids in the car looking back and screaming for their parents. The cameraman stayed on the car until it drove out of sight. Then he turned around to capture the pathetic parents wailing on their front porch, and he kept filming until the wails turned to whimpers.

Why would Social Services handle things this way? Couldn't they make it a more humane transition? It wasn't good for the children to be ripped away from their parents. And it was not good to leave the parents in this devastated condition. Sure the parents were at fault, but eventually they
would get the children back. Why wasn't there some kind of immediate counseling for the parents?

I called a clergyman to come and console the parents.

When I got back to the station, I conferred with the news director and executive producer about the story and the emotional scene we had on film. They give me extra time on the newscast and I let the story unfold uncut from the time Social Services ripped away the children until the parents cried on the porch watching their children going away in the car.

It was the most emotional story I had every done, and the phone lines at the TV station were jammed for days with people commenting about the story. Brown County Social Service workers came off so badly they stopped talking to TV-11 reporters for months.

It was a controversial story, but I would do it again the same way.

Chapter 19/Human interest stories

2005-03-03T06:32:00.000-08:00

Mr. Loyd:

A few months ago I asked for your help concerning my 26-year-old handicapped tenant. He can't hear and can't speak. He worked part time at the post office and was told his hours were going to be drastically cut. I asked Housing Allowance how he was to pay his rent and they said evict him. Then you helped.

He was called back to work and now he had a steady job with a raise in pay. Now he pays his own way and receives no help from any source. How wonderful. I just want you to know how you helped.

Thank you. God will give you a special star.

Clara Rettman
Green Bay

Because investigative stories take a long time to do and don't come along every week, I did a lot of human interest stories.

For example, in Green Bay, I learned that friends of a young man getting married got him drunk at a bachelor party, and he drowned in a treacherous river in back of the tavern.

Research disclosed that similar tragedies happened a number of times. There are many bars lining the river and a long tradition in Green Bay of getting grooms plastered.

Hopefully I put a dent in that tradition, when I interviewed the young man's devastated fiance. She talked about loving him and how they had planned to have a family. Their wedding, she said, had turned into his funeral.

These tragedies still occur in Wisconsin because of heavy alcohol consumption and the barbaric custom of getting the groom drunk.

Several of my human interest stories were carried nationally on ABC's That's Incredible:

A little boy in Eau Claire survived to live a normal life after falling through the ice and staying under water for 20 minutes before rescue.

When a woman in Algoma, Wisconsin went to the hospital to have a baby, doctors discovered another baby not ready for birth. She had the first baby and came back to the hospital in a month to have the second one. Now one of the twins is a month older than the other!

Here's a story I did in the early 1970's at WLUK-TV on a boy who was tired of living behind the bars on Green Bay's Broadway St. where he would find drunks and cigarette butts in his garden. Joe and his parents wanted him to have the opportunity of living on a farm for the summer. In addition to Joe, I helped place a number of other city kids on farms.

Chapter 18/Helping Chris Wallace

2005-03-03T06:26:00.000-08:00

Dear Glen:

This week we received a check from Kirby. Without your help we would still be getting the run-around.

Thanks a million. You made a couple old people happy.

Charles Weber
Shawano, WI

One of the grouchiest journalists I've ever worked with is Chris Wallace. Or maybe Chris was just having bad day. But I was glad that he was in a foul mood because he was in Wisconsin to confront a door-to-door vacuum cleaner company that had taken advantage of many consumers.

According to the State of Wisconsin, in the past Kirby salespeople have allegedly misled senior citizens suffering from blindness, illiteracy, dementia, Alzheimer's and other ailments. In many instances the elderly were subjected to a three-hour or more high-pressure sales pitch to buy vacuums for up to $1700. Some said they signed the contract out of fear, or simply to get the salespeople to leave.

Wallace, ABC-TV's Chief Investigative Reporter (now with Fox News), came to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to get information about Kirby and to catch Kirby on videotape pressuring consumers. As the spokesperson for Consumer Protection, I helped to arrange the visit.

A producer with ABC's Primetime Live 20/20 arrived in the morning from Washington, D.C. Beautiful Kim Skeen, a former anchorwoman, had a distinguished 20-year career in television and has won a number of awards for investigative reporting. She was putting the story together.

A six-man, two-camera crew arrived a little later from Chicago and began turning our boardroom into a TV studio.

Chris Wallace arrived just before his interview with us. Like his dad, Mike Wallace, Chris is a fearless, no nonsense reporter. And he can be just as abrasive as his famous father.

It was fun meeting Chris and seeing him in action. Although a little edgy, Chris was polite to us all at the Department and treated us with respect.

But Chris was different with his crew. Chris was under pressure because after the interview, he had a two-hour trip to Sheboygan to ambush a Kirby salesman in a consumer's home. He couldn't be late or he would lose the confrontation.

When the camera crew seemed to be taking too long with the set up, Chris started getting impatient.

"Come on, guys, what's taking you so long," he kept saying. Then he got irritated with the make-up man. "Come on, it looks fine," he said, "let's get going."

Finally, the cameras started rolling and Chris began the interview with us.

It seemed to be going fine, but suddenly he said, "Stop. Stop," in a frustrated, irritated voice. Then he began admonishing the producer, Kim Skeen, and the director for talking to each other while he was doing the interview. "I can't do this interview while you two are talking. I just can't do it."

Chris continued the interview. After being quiet for a short while, Kim and the director continued to whisper about shot selection. Although off-camera whispering is often necessary and tolerated by professionals, Chris stopped the interview again to scold them. Although he was treating this prize-winning producer like an intern, she apologized.

After a while, she started whispering again, but Chris turned his wrath on another crewmember that forgot to turn on an audio switch.

It went on this way for about 45 minutes. But who wants to see a Wallace without a wallop?

Chris made it up to Sheboygan on time, captured the high-pressure salesman on a hidden camera and then stepped out from where he was hiding to confront him. It looked like the salesman was trying bail out of the house, but Chris was in his way and kept peppering him embarrassing questions.

A few weeks later on Primetime Live, Chris warned all of America about the door-to-door vacuum cleaner people. It was a hard hitting report.

By the way, Consumer Reports magazine advises consumers that they don't have to pay big bucks to buy a vacuum cleaner that cleans well. You can get a good one for $300 or $400.

Chapter 17/Working with TV photographers

2005-03-03T06:18:00.000-08:00

I've been fortunate for my entire television career to be virtually my own boss. Most of the time in TV news, jobs are specialized with assignment editors, producers, tape editors, etc. But I did all those things myself to make sure it was done my way.

I did, however, depend heavily on photographers and shared a lot of windshield time with them. Photographers never get much credit for the wonderful jobs they do.

News photography can be hazardous. For example, climbing up a fire lookout tower with a heavy camera for a better shot or filming a fire or a disaster at close range.

A photographer at my station at KDFW-TV in Dallas was killed when a gas station exploded during a fire. Another KDFW photographer and assignment editor Buster McGregor died when a news chopper crashed.

Most photographers are braver than I am. One of my photographers covering a flood in Green Bay put down his camera, jumped into a river and rescued victims. He is now the news director at the CBS TV station in town. In addition to being brave, Lee Hitter is also a very nice man and a loving father.

Two very talented photographers I worked with lost their nerve momentarily at crucial moments. In Dallas, I was going after a rip-off appliance repair company that had shot-gunned the yellow pages with 21 listings using different names. Most of the listing ads used one of three telephone numbers. So, if you needed someone to fix your stove or refrigerator, you would probably get this company that would overcharge you for unnecessary repairs.

I took a young photographer with me to ambush the owner of this company. We walked into his shop and confronted him on camera. But when I started accusing him of cheating consumers, I noticed my photographer had not switched on the camera as he was supposed to when we walked in the door.

"Turn on the camera," I commanded and continued confronting this big man, who was the owner of the company. But the photographer seemed frozen. I found myself arguing with both of them: "Turn on the camera, damn it." Turning back to the store operator, "Why are you using phony names in the yellow pages?"

Finally, the photographer turned on the camera, and I got what I came for.

On the way back to the station, the photog told me he had been scared to death and asked me not to tell anyone. I didn't.

For a human-interest story about a man donating a kidney to his brother, a photographer and I documented the transplant at University Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin.

I asked the photographer to tape the precious kidney being taken from the removal operating room to the recipient operating room.

As a surgeon carried the kidney in a stainless steel bowl, the photographer backed into a wall and jostled the surgeon who almost dropped the kidney on the floor.

The famous transplant surgeon didn't appear bothered by what happened. But the photographer stopped what he was doing and started cursing me for putting him in this precarious situation. He got over it quickly and continued his excellent work.

Everyone in the operating room cheered when that transplanted kidney started making urine. The photographer captured it on tape.

One of my Green Bay photographers also piloted a news chopper. I got him in trouble when I asked him to pick up a little boy dying of cancer and take him to Bay Beach Park where his class was having a field trip.

City officials bawled us out for landing in city neighborhoods, but it was worth it.

"It's the best thing I ever did," said the little boy as we took off from the park after he saw his friends. He died a few weeks later.

Chapter 16/Picketing questionable businesses

2005-03-03T06:12:00.000-08:00

Mr. Loyd:

Again, many thanks for your super effort. You accomplished in a few days what I had been unable to settle in over a year.

Miriam Stallsmith
Green Bay, WI

In addition to "Rip-off of the Month," I also use another one of my TV techniques to expose and warn about con artists. I picket local hotel meetings advertised in those infomercial get-rich-quick schemes.

Recently, I recently warned consumers about a California business asking for as much as $70,000 for vending machines. The company was holding hotel meetings throughout Wisconsin.

Standing outside the hotels, I told consumers the company paid a million dollars to the federal government for misleading consumers. Many invitees turned around and went back home. We confront these companies because when out-of-state companies take your life savings and leave, it's really hard to get the money back. We warn consumers before it happens. In a Milwaukee Journal story, the Federal Trade Commission called this strategy innovative and "unique that they would be doing this and to be as aggressive as they have."

Here is story about that a Milwaukee TV station did when I led a picketing party:

Another out-of-state company cancels when WI Consumer Protection pickets:

Often company managers get mad and will come outside and argue with me and try to convince me they aren't doing anything wrong.

When that doesn't work, they may call the police on me. Most of the time, that doesn't work because I've already told the police what I am doing. In fact, most of the time, I call the police for protection.

I was assaulted a year ago in Madison handing out warnings. The seminar manager tried to rip the papers out of my hands, setting off a chain reaction and the 75-year-old man I was handing a warning to teetered and almost fell on the pavement. I filed charges, but the company left Wisconsin in a hurry. More recently, I was confronted by an angry seminar man, saying I was "talking food out of his baby's mouth" and reducing his income by "thousands of dollars."

Some people wonder why I would spend a Saturday morning standing in front of a hotel knowing that some kind of confrontation will occur. For me, it is actually a rewarding experience. Virtually all of the people I warn say "thanks" and really mean it. You know that you are protecting their life savings.

Finally, you get to see and confront these questionable salespeople in person. Most often conartists like this mislead people by telephone and you never see them.

Lately, I've also been picketing restaurants where meetings are being held. Out-of-state companies send postcards to consumers offering a free restaurant dinner to those who will listen to their sales pitches.

One company's postcard says, "learn what prominent physicians and major medical universities have to say about our safe and easy way to get healthy and stay healthy; relieve pain; sleep better, improve circulation, reduce inflammation."

At the restaurant, the invitees learn the company is selling magnetic mattress pads.

But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says to date, no manufacturer has ever presented data demonstrating the effectiveness of magnets to relieve pain and offer other therapeutic benefits.
Despite a myriad of testimonials by companies selling magnet therapy, it is actually an unproven remedy.

More than 70 Wisconsin residents complained they paid as much as $1000 to four magnetic mattress companies that have been referred for prosecution.

The products didn't work and the companies didn't honor their money-back guarantees. Now the companies are out of business.

"While the health magnet industry hasn't offered credible evidence that its products work," says Lynnette Horwath of the Arthritis Foundation-Wisconsin Chapter, "people who are hurting spend $1.5 billion a year on them for every conceivable illness. These products probably don't cause physical harm, but they are be dangerous to your wallet."

Chapter 15/Rip-off of the month

2005-03-03T06:09:00.000-08:00

Dear Glen Loyd:

All I had to do was use your name for "extra clout" and the company immediately came through with a remedy for our hot water tank problem. This week we will be getting the electric tank we requested.

Thanks for your help.

Lois Zolkowski
Menasha, WI.

Government bureaucrats are pretty conservative and play it safe for the most part, but somehow when I got to Consumer Protection I talked them into letting me start an outrageous monthly feature: "Rip-off of the Month." It was not only popular statewide with newspapers and TV news, but also got national press.

For example, Newsweek carried our warning about department store bait-and-switch photo portrait services. A Wisconsin mother went in for an advertised $4.95 photo of her little girl. The photo they gave her turned out to be poorly composed with the child's hands cut off. To get professionally composed photos that had been taken, with the child smiling, the woman was asked to buy packages that cost up to $100.
By the way, parents can protect themselves from these tactics by asking if they get to select the bargain photo or if the company chooses it. If you don't get your choice, you may want to shop elsewhere.

Good morning America and CNBC's Steals and Deals carried our warning about Therapy Plus for pain, a $50 "magic wand" for arthritis which didn't work.

Recently CBS carried a warning about so-called ultrasonic devices that are supposed to protect you from mosquitoes, cockroaches, fleas, bats, mice and rats. There is even one specially designed to protect babies. I had exposed these questionable devices several years earlier in a Rip-Off of the Month. The Centers for Disease Control say ultrasonic products are not effective at preventing mosquito bites.

A lot of the Rip-Off of the Month products were sold on late night TV. Be wary of buying those gimmick products. Lots of people send money for the products and never get them.

For example, a Wisconsin couple sent $21 for pasta pots that drain through the lids. They waited for almost two months for the pots and when they didn't, complained to Consumer Protection.

Finally, after Consumer Protection got involved, the couple got the pots in April, almost four months after seeing the commercial and sending in their money.

Two companies filling orders for more than 100 TV-commercial products, from weight-reduction pills to the Sew Smart Sewing Machines, have unsatisfactory records with the Better Business Bureau due to unanswered complaints.

Be careful when sending money out of state for any product. Mail orders are consistently in the Top 10 list of complaints. Buy locally when you can. For example, you could have bought the pasta pots locally cheaper than what they were selling for on TV.

Before you send money, ask yourself what you are you going to do if the product isn't delivered. Not much, when all you have is an address in a city a thousand miles away and the company doesn't respond to complaints.

Chapter 14/Civil servant

2005-03-03T06:03:00.000-08:00

"The Governor of Wisconsin is calling for you," a voice said when I answered the phone. A moment later the Governor came on the line and said, "Hello, this is Tommy Thompson."

Governor Thompson asked me to run for Wisconsin's 90th Assembly District, which includes Green Bay. "You and I are
the kind of men who always have to take the next step," he said.

Well, Tommy eventually took the next step and was appointed Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health. My next step was to become public information officer with state Consumer Protection at the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

I had already run for the Assembly in 1990 against the incumbent and lost by only 55 votes. Tommy ran radio ads asking people to vote for me. And he also asked me to campaign with him at a Packer game. Tommy was a popular governor and the crowd at Lambeau Field loved him and shouted his name. They recognized me, too, and called my name.

Later, Governor Thompson gave me the pen he used to sign important consumer protection legislation. I also had the honor of meeting our current Governor Jim Doyle who sued Publishers Clearinghouse for misleading seniors and fought for the No Call list, which stops telemarketing calls. "It's nice to be on your side," I said to him. "It's nice to have you on my side," Governor Doyle responded.

I've been at the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection since 1992 and have had fun and good luck working with newspeople around the state. I have relied on the skill and creativity of these reporters to take raw information supplied by our investigators and specialists and turn it into interesting stories that warn and educate consumers.

The Department has had more front-page consumer alerts in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel than I can remember. Recently Mark Maley, the paper's former state editor, sent me this email: "It's been a pleasure working with you over the years. I think we've had a good relationship and you've been a big help to us."

Chapter 13/Lawsuits #4, 5 and 6

2005-03-03T05:58:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Loyd:

I am enclosing a card with a vacation prize. I thought possibly you would be interested in this, as it sounds suspicious to me.

I also want to extend my best wishes in your suit with the plumber. He has been swindling gullible people with his silver tongue for years. I'm sure there are a lot of people pulling for you so please don't be intimidated by his threat.

Rosemary
Oconto, WI.

Back in Green Bay a tall muscular stranger showed up at the front door of my home while I was working nearby at TV-11. My young son answered his knock on the door.

"Is your father Glen Loyd?"

"Yes," said my son.

"Is he home?" the man asked.

"No," my son said, "he's at work."

"Is your mother home?" the man asked.

"Yes, she's in the kitchen," my son said.

The man opened the door, walked into my house without permission and into my kitchen where he startled my wife who was preparing dinner.
He identified himself as an U.S. Marshall, handed her a summons and told her to give it to me. I was being sued again, for $14 million by a plumber I had warned consumers about.

(You can imagine how my wife and I felt about this marshall walking into our house. I got on the phone to his boss and complained that the marshal was either too stupid or lazy to find me in person when most people in Green Bay knew where I would be at that time of day: WLUK-TV. He didn't even try me at work.)

Actually I was being sued twice by the plumber: In Brown County District Court and in federal court.

It all started when a woman in Appleton, Wisconsin called me with a complaint. Her basement was full of raw sewage. She had given $500 dollars to the plumber, but he never came back to complete the job. The plumber turned out to be a criminal who had a flood of complaints against him. In addition to the consumer complaints, he would hire employees and not pay them. He would rent tools and not return them. He rented an apartment and stopped paying rent. And he wrote bad checks. He had a rap sheet that literally stretched from floor to ceiling. (Criminal contractors are not uncommon in Wisconsin, especially during the summer. Always check out contractors by calling the toll free hotline of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection and ask for brochures on hiring them: 1-800-422-7128).

WLUK-TV and I fought the case in circuit court and won. We fought the other lawsuit in federal court and won.

But acting as his own lawyer, the plumber went to the Appellate Court of Wisconsin.

A clerk at the Appellate Court told me that the plumber had appealed more verdicts than any other person in the history of Wisconsin.
When we won in Appellate Court, the plumber appealed to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin. And we won there.

While much of this was taking place, the plumber was actually running from the law. He had been found guilty of a number of crimes, but before he could be sentenced, he disappeared.

Despite the fact that he was a convicted criminal at large, he took legal action against me and continued to rip-off consumers.

After letting people know that the state wanted him, I got a call from a consumer who had hired him. I told the consumer to contact the Shawano County Sheriff's Department, and a trap was set. The plumber was lured to the consumer's home with the promise of more money and was arrested and jailed on the spot. He was sentenced to five years as a career criminal.

I was sued by another criminal in Wisconsin, an inmate of the Green Bay Reformatory, who was misusing military benefits. Although he said he was using the money for college, he was actually getting his education paid for by the State of Wisconsin. He used his federal benefits to buy a color TV.

After I reported on him, he sat down on the bunk in his cell and wrote out a jailhouse lawsuit against me.

In a personal letter to me, a Brown County judge said he was dismissing the case but that this type of lawsuit by prisoners was common, time consuming and expensive for the state.

That was the sixth time I was sued. "My Six Lawsuits" is now the title of a talk that I give to hundreds of civic groups around Wisconsin.
Although these lawsuits and other legal threats caused me a lot of worry, I wear them now like medals on solder's chest. Decisions in these cases protect freedom of the press.

Chapter 12/Coming to a career crossroads

2005-03-03T05:50:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Loyd:

My car had one of the defective transmissions. I called the 800 number and followed through with the other steps involved. Eventually, I was offered $365 settlement against $468 cost of replacement. I was very happy with the outcome. I had given up on getting anything.

Charles McCormack
Sturgeon Bay, WI

I was coming to a crossroads in my career. I had won a major Texas journalism award for investigative reporting. I was also part of the KDFW-TV station entry that won the prestigious Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for "meritorious performance of public service by aggressive, consistently excellent and accurate gathering and reporting of news."

In addition to the awards, I was a well-known personality in Dallas/Fort Worth who stuck up for the little guy. I was touched when walking into an old folk's home in Dallas and having residents there start clapping for me spontaneously.

On occasion, the other TV stations in Dallas would send reporters to cover stories that I was breaking. Two of those reporters became network reporters.

I could get through to people on the phone like movie director Steven Spielberg and singer Charley Pride who had criminals selling unauthorized copies of their movies and music. Art Linkletter told me that he didn't know a con artist in Dallas who had been dropping his name in a scam salespitch. I chatted with Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach who occasionally was a sportscaster at my station. I even had some Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders write to me for help with a problem I can't remember now.

I was 39 years old and had conquered one of the largest television markets in the United States. Yet if I kept up my aggressive reporting it seemed that I would be sued every year. I had survived three lawsuits, but how many more would the station tolerate? (I have been sued more often than Mike Wallace.)

What's more, the Dallas TV market is very competitive in a negative way. Fox News commentator Bill O'Riley was a young reporter at that time in Dallas and writes about how many people at his TV station wanted him to fail rather than succeed. There was some of that at my station, too.

Although, I had some good friends at KDFW-TV, it wasn't like TV-11 news in Green Bay where you helped each other, taught the younger journalists and rooted for everyone on your team to do well.
Personal achievement was everything at KDFW-TV where most of the news staff were single, divorced, or married without children.

I left Dallas in 1979 at the top of my investigative reporting career, and moved back to Green Bay where I could enjoy my family, have a long and stable career and walk to work. What's more, they didn't sue you in Wisconsin. (I thought.)

In 1979, WLUK-TV in Green Bay
sent a news crew to Dallas, Texas,
to do a story on me at the CBS-TV
affiliate there. Then, I returned to
WLUK-TV after being away four years.

Chapter 11/Lawsuit #3: Weight loss clinics

2005-03-03T05:40:00.000-08:00

Several times in my career I have documented how people have been misled and endangered by companies peddling weight reduction products. In Green Bay, I investigated a weight reduction center that put women on starvation diets to the point that gobs of their hair fell out. One woman who was pregnant was put on a diet that could harm her unborn baby. Just because you walk into a weight reduction clinic and talk to someone with a white lab coat on doesn't mean you'll get good nutritional advice. Those people in the lab coats probably are not registered dietitians. More likely, they are salespeople.

I also exposed a woman who got her Ph.D. in nutrition from a diploma mill whose founder was arrested for nutrition fraud. The woman claimed that juvenile delinquents could be more easily reformed if sugar was removed from their diets. To demonstrate her theory, she had college students grasp sugar cubes in their fists and hold their arms straight out. When the students could no longer hold their arms out, she declared that the sugar made them weak. A Milwaukee newspaper carried this story without questioning her theory or degree.

If you want nutritional advice, talk to a registered dietitian. You can find them by calling your local hospital.

My first encounter with questionable weight reduction clinics was as a reporter in Dallas. A woman called me about a weight reduction clinic she was going to near Fort Worth. She went to the clinic almost every day to get a shot of HCG, human chorionic gonadotropin, made from the urine of pregnant woman. She worked at a hospital and when she told doctors there about what she was doing, they advised her to bail out of the weight reduction clinic. She asked me to check out the clinic.

I learned that many weight reduction centers in the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex were using HCG. A nutritionist I had worked with at the American Medical Association told me that an Air Force physician in San Antonio had studied the HCG diet. So I hopped on a plane and interviewed him. This doctor, an endocrinologist, said he found that the HCG did nothing to help a person lose weight. The diet clinics were putting consumers on 500 calories a day, which would cause anyone to lose weight. He said that HCG was a hormone and should not be given to a patient without a good reason.

After I aired a series of diet clinic stories on KDFW-TV, which included a woman who had her sciatic nerve injured while getting a shot of the hormone, area weight reduction clinics dropped HCG and went on to the next fad, liquid protein.

The liquid protein diet was developed by George Blackburn, M.D., of Harvard for hospital use with morbidly obese patients. But without his approval, liquid protein was becoming a popular weight reduction "magic bullet."

When I called Dr. Blackburn, he said that using liquid protein outside the confines of a hospital could have serious consequences. He was coming to Dallas for a medical convention and was willing to be interviewed.

As a result of my interview with Dr. Blackburn, I was one of the first reporters to tell consumers that you could die on the liquid protein diet. Dr. Blackburn said the Centers for Disease Control had confirmed a number of cases around the country where young, healthy women, a number of them mothers, died on the liquid protein diet. Dr. Blackburn said that long-term use without medical supervision could bring on or aggravate such problems as kidney and heart conditions, diabetes and gout.

Dr. Blackburn is a world-renowned expert in weight reduction and is on the editorial board of the Journal of the American Medical Association and New England Journal of Medicine, but the largest chain of weight reduction centers in the Southwest sued him and me.

Although we most likely saved lives with this accurate report, the lawsuit was my third in as many years. My news director was not happy. I was so concerned that I actually lost my appetite for a day. (Talk about weight loss!)

Then I started wondering what kind of people were running these weight control centers. I did some checking and found out that the operator who was suing me also owned 12 nude dancing clubs in Houston, Austin, and Killeen and had several brushes with the law, including a violation of federal firearms law and a felony conviction for interstate transportation of a woman for immoral purposes. KDFW-TV's law firm sent some young attorneys to Houston and began subpoenaing his business records. The lawsuit was eventually dropped.

Chapter 10/Lawsuit #2: Curse of the Pharaoh

2005-03-02T11:55:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Glen:

I received a check for $80 as a refund. Busting up scams like you do is sure fun to see. It's nice to know that someone looks out for the common folks and for people who are gullible. Watching you expose the people you do, does our heart good, not to mention helping the people to sometimes get their money back. So please keep up your good deeds.

Sue Love
Menasha, WI

The next person who sued me was also involved with antiquities. Gala Tawfic was an Egyptian who opened a shop in an expensive North Dallas mall. Riding the popularity of the King Tut exhibition touring the United States, Tawfic was selling Egyptian artifacts he claimed were from King Tut's time. Some items such as bows and arrows sold for as much as $7,000.

But a woman who had just come back from vacationing in Egypt called me at KDFW-TV and said something was wrong. She had been told that there are no Egyptian artifacts for sale and hadn't been for hundreds of years. I checked with an expert at Southern Methodist University who confirmed what the woman said. I also called legendary Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade to let him know what was going on. I was invited to his office.

The courthouse is just a few blocks from KDFW-TV so I set out on foot. This was the route taken by President Kennedy's motorcade when he was assassinated in 1963. The Texas Schoolbook Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald waited for the motorcade, is across the street from the courthouse. When shots were fired, CBS reporter Dan Rather ran to KDFW-TV, a CBS affiliate, and began phoning the latest information to his anchorman Walter Cronkite, broadcasting live in New York to the entire country. Eventually, the news came from the KDFW that President Kennedy was dead at Parkland Hospital.

As I was ushered into Henry Wade's office I was aware of the history hatched here: untold assassination investigations; prepping for the prosecution of Jack Ruby for the murder of Oswald; and strategy that failed in the landmark abortion case Roe vs. Wade, which made abortion legal in the United States.

The Chief, as Wade was known in the Dallas County Courthouse, had a big office and his desk was elevated on a wooden platform so he looked down at me from on high. Wade told me he was on to Tawfic, the Egyptian, and asked me to hold off on my story until they could arrest him.

"We'll let you know when we are going to get him and you can come along and have an exclusive," Wade said.

He asked me about other stories I was working on. As he listened, Wade rocked back and forth in his office chair. At the side of his chair was a tall wastepaper basket that seemed to have a black garbage sack in it. I couldn't figure out what it was for until Henry Wade turned to the basket, bent over and spit tobacco juice into it.

When I left Wade, the deal was set. His men would call me when they were ready to arrest Tawfic.

I was the only newsperson to have the story of Gala Tawfic's arrest. They handcuffed him at his shop and led him through the mall crowd out to the police cars. I asked him if he was selling fake Egyptian artifacts, and he said, "No!"

To keep me out of the courtroom, Tawfic's attorney claimed I would be a witness and invoked the rule that I couldn't be there. Henry Wade brought in Egyptologists from Cleveland and New York City museums. Examining Tawfic's wares, the experts said they were not authentic.

As a memento, the woman who had originally called me about Tawfic gave me a beautiful jade carving of a beetle regarded as sacred by the ancient Egyptians. The scarab as it is called was supposed to bring me good luck, but the day after Tawfic was convicted of felony theft, he filed a lawsuit against me.

Back in my attorney's office, which seemed to have a few more antiques, I was told that Tawfic was appealing his case because of the threat of deportation.

My attorney felt that the lawsuit was an attempt to keep me quiet. But I was on to another great story that would get me sued again and make my attorney a little richer.

Chapter 9/Getting sued in Dallas

2005-03-02T11:32:00.000-08:00

Dear Glen Loyd:

Thanks again for your help. I learned a lesson. Stick up for your rights and you can get what you paid for.

Mrs. Willis Kwakkel
Pickett, WI.

KDFW-TV, the CBS affiliate in Dallas, Texas, asked me to step up to the major leagues of TV news in 1975.

Dallas is a great city with wonderful people, but it is also the home of a lot of con artists. Getting complaints from ripped-off consumers, I went after the perpetrators with vengeance tempered by curiosity. What kind of mechanics charge for unnecessary car repairs? Why do some contractors take thousands of dollars and not perform the work? How could you live with yourself after bilking seniors out of their life savings?

My ultimate goal was to confront these people on camera, letting the TV audience see the skunks in person.

As a result, I started getting sued, three times in four years. I learned that guilty people often threaten to sue to save face with their families, keep businesses going, and get reporters off their necks.

As the popular "Action 4 Reporter," I received about 100 letters and 100 phone calls a day from people needing assistance. I had a full-time assistant and two college interns helping me resolve consumer problems.

But how popular would I be with my own news director if I kept getting sued? Even when you are right? which I was, it's expensive to defend yourself. When consumer reporters get sued a lot, they can become liabilities no matter how much good they are doing.

The first lawsuit came when I exposed con artists taking advantage of laid off employees who were desperate for work.

These families contacted me at KDFW-TV and told me they had been misled by Wilson International, an overseas job search firm. Consumers were told that if they gave $500 to Wilson International, the company would get them wonderful overseas jobs that would pay them up to $70,000 a year with free room and board.

When they paid the $500, families were told to come to a Dallas hotel where Wilson International would arrange overseas transportation. So families took their children out of school, sold everything they had and came to the hotel. Unfortunately, Wilson International didn't show up.

I interviewed the families as well as Joe Wilson who said it was all a misunderstanding. I wrote the script and had my secretary hand carry it several blocks away to the station's attorney for approval. When the newscast started and the red light on my camera came on, I read the lawyer-approved script on the teleprompter. But then at the end I ad-libbed, "It's a rip-off."

Well, the lawyer hadn't approved that statement and sure enough, Joe Wilson sued me for calling his company a "rip-off." The lawsuit catapulted me back into the newspaper headlines because a local judge ruled that I couldn't do any more stories on Joe Wilson, a prior restraint and violation of freedom of speech.

Here is the way the Dallas Times Herald covered the story: "Judge Dee Brown Walker of the 162nd District Court has issued a temporary injunction against KDFW-TV, Channel 4, and its consumer reporter Glen Loyd to stop publication of future items on the job search firm of Alaska Worldwide, which is doing business here as Wilson International. Judge Walker, who describes himself as one of the strongest believers of freedom of the press you'll find, termed his ruling very serious, but said he thought the order was necessary to protect Wilson International's right to earn a living."

Staring down at me from the bench, Judge Walker asked me if I thought I could say anything about anybody anytime regardless of the consequences?

"Yes," I replied.

Dallas attorney David Westfall, who represented Wilson International, said later in court, "if he believes he can say anything about anyone anytime, he's wrong."

But my attorney called 12 witnesses, who testified Wilson International did not keep promises to provide jobs in Arab countries. Each said he was asked to pay $420 to $450 for getting them a job. The witnesses testified they were promised jobs paying $30,000 to $80,000 plus housing and medical benefits. Wilson, however, said that under the contract signed by the firm's client, the firm's only obligation was to
print 500 copies of a resume on the individual and provide him a list of companies with overseas operations.

The Dallas Court of Appeals quickly overthrew Judge Walker's attempt to stifle free press in Dallas. The court said Judge Walker's restraining order was a violation of the U.S. and Texas constitutions. Later, Judge Walker was voted the worst area judge by Dallas Magazine.

All of the publicity about Wilson International sparked the interest of the FBI and the Texas Attorney General.

David Barchard Lookingland, an employee of Wilson International, was arrested by FBI agents in Houston on California grand theft and forgery charges in a land fraud case. The Texas Attorney General was also investigating.

Then the Dallas Police Department came to KDFW-TV and asked me for a photo of Joe Wilson. Later, I learned that Joe had been identified by a grade school girl who said he allegedly was the man who sat in a car outside of her school exposing himself. The little girl had the man's license plate number, which was traced to a car rented by Wilson. She also identified his photo.

Joe Wilson was arrested in Houston. Out on bail, he went home and got a gun and drove to a secluded park and killed himself.

This, of course, was a shock. And I was shocked again when I learned that Wilson had been exposing himself at my children's grade school in Dallas. The little girl who identified him was my daughter's classmate. How did this man from Houston end up at my daughter's school in Dallas? All we knew is that it happened when Wilson was in Dallas to appear in court.

Although I couldn't be blamed for his death, I did play a vital role in the collapse of Wilson's business and the pressure put on him before his arrest and suicide. Why was he at my daughter's school? All of this was troubling to me.

A final thought: People who are desperate for a job are still being taken for thousands of dollars by companies talking high-paying jobs but only giving resumes. Think twice about paying to get a job. Most of the time you will be ripped off.

I had become one of the most popular TV personalities in Dallas, and my boss was happy about it. Walking by my desk in the newsroom, he would say, "Glen Loyd, there's trouble." But he was smiling. After two more lawsuits he would be saying the same thing but not smiling any more.
My law firm in Dallas was happy, too. They were getting spectacular cases and making money. The firm's office was furnished with antiques and oriental rugs. And every time I had to pay them a visit, it seemed that they had added another expensive antique.

Chapter 8/TV-11 News, purposely outrageous

2005-03-02T10:45:00.000-08:00

Mr. Loyd:

How can you ever know, how much happiness you spread in this troubled world, if no one ever tells you? I watch the 11:30 news daily and feel like I'm having company when I see and listen to all of you. I was thrilled when you replaced the boy's bicycle.

Best wishes and I hope you live to a ripe old age and never have any troubles that you and the Lord can't handle.

anonymous

It was fun working for TV-11 in Green Bay because the station was purposely outrageous. As TV-11 historian and former sports anchor Bob Schulze says:

We knew the audience had to have some compelling reason to watch a new newscast when they already were comfortable with what they were viewing on TV-2 and 5. We wanted to make viewers uncomfortable if they failed to tune in. The answer was a newscast so "off the wall" in its approach that it would be the topic of conversation the next day around the water cooler at work. If you hadn't watched, you didn't know what they were talking about. You were out of the loop. You weren't with it.

Being with it started with Stanley Siegel.In the video below made for the 25th anniversary of TV-11 news, you'll see updates on Stanley, anchorman Ray Wheeler, weatherman Bob Thomas, sportscaster Bob Schulze, and Action Man Glen Loyd.

Stanley was the son of a rich southern California banking family. He was ahead of his time, if that time ever came. Try to imagine the skits on Saturday Night Live (a late-night network comedy show that would debut later on NBC) done as semi-serious news.

We tried for comic, timely openings to the newscasts that bordered on the absurd.

In one of the most memorable, we came out of a World War II network movie to three of us [including co-anchor Ray Wheeler] on set in Nazi uniforms. "If the Germans had won the war," Stanley intoned, "this is how your news might look." My contribution that night: "Der ver two hafs to die Packer-Raider game today. Die furst haf vas very interesting. Die udder haf vas yucky."

On another Monday night, the first season for ABC's Monday Night Football and the first of those games in Green Bay, we parodied the television game show I've Got a Secret. The three of us were in silhouette as we did our best to imitate ABC's controversial and colorful sportscaster. When we got to the fourth person on the set, the lights came up. It was him.

"Good evening everyone. I am Howard Cosell, and this is TV-11 News."

Nothing was too outrageous for Stan. How about eating dog food to check out the diet of man's best friend? Or driving a Volkswagen into a lake to see if it really did float the way they showed in the television commercials? Arm wrestling George Wallace, the notorious racist governor of Alabama and a presidential candidate? Challenging Senator Bill Proxmire, a physical fitness freak, to see who could do the most push-ups? Rolling out competitive toilet tissues the length of Lambeau Field to see which really gave you more for your money? Going through the garbage of Green Bay's most famous and finding a bunch of booze bottles in the trash of a competing anchor? Stanley applying massive quantities of Nair to his hairy legs to see what women had to put up with as part of their beauty ritual? Trying to chip his way out of a block of ice to verify the strength of a Bic pen? Having a train at the Railroad Museum crash into a piece of American Touristor luggage to see how tough it was? Or submerging himself in a bathtub full of Jello so he could envision what it would be like to be a maraschino cherry?

Here is Stanley Siegal talking about being fired from WLUK-TV:

It wasn't a surprise a year-and-a-half into our run that he was gone. In November of 1972, he hooked on with a station in Nashville where he was soon notorious enough to earn a guest spot on the syndicated Hee-Haw show. His next stop was his own talk show in New York City. His very personal, live-on-the-air sessions with his shrink were enough to briefly put him ahead of Phil Donahue, the biggest name in the country at the time.

Stanley invited me on his New York talk show in the late 1970's. Waiting in the Green Room, I chatted with famous heart surgeon Michael E. Debakey and Joe Torre, manager of the New York Yankees. When it was my turn, Stanley asked me to describe his firing at TV-11 the day after the Jello in the bathtub news feature.

Stan and I were pals, and I had helped him with the stunt. When he was fired, Kaaps, his favorite restaurant in Green Bay, wouldn't take his check anymore. I invited him to my house for dinner. When my two little children had gone to bed and my wife was cleaning up in the kitchen, Stan began to cry. He told me I was fortunate to have a family. He said that because he was so ambitious that he would probably never have one of his own.

After a very successful run on ABC-TV and CBS in New York, Stanley continued on in cable TV and now produces his travel show called "On the go with Stanley Seigel" in Los Angeles. His lives in a hotel near Beverly Hills.

Another famous personality working for TV-11 News was Bob Thomas, our chief meteorologist, says historian Schulze. He was looking to get out of the business when he came to Green Bay in 1971. He had a successful career at WMAQ-TV in Chicago, one of the premier stations in the country, but wanted to be someplace that would give him more time for and access to his passion for sailing. Our proximity to Door County was just right. Bob and his wife, Alice (also a meteorologist), had a master plan to hone their skills during the latter years of his broadcast career so they could retire early and sail around the world.

After their round-the-world journey, they finally retired far from water to the deserts of northern Arizona. [Bob and Alice are now back in Wisconsin.]

TV-11 became the most popular news show in Northeast Wisconsin in just four years. And because of the headlines I was creating in Green Bay, some of the larger TV markets began to notice me.

Chapter 7/What were they thinking?

2005-03-02T09:34:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Loyd:

Thank you so much for your help. You gave me the courage to stick it out and I won. I also learned a very good lesson. God bless you for all the good you are doing.

Lorraine Paltzer
Appleton

As a crusading journalist, I had many quarrels with the City of Green Bay. For example, I took on the Green Bay Fire Department after an explosion that killed and injured members of a crew constructing a utility service tunnel under the Fox River.

At first, the cause of the explosion was a mystery. I witnessed Fire Department investigators going down into the tunnel to find out why the explosion occurred. One of the firemen was smoking a cigarette!

Going down there with a lit cigarette was obviously not a good idea. There was speculation that naturally occurring methane gas may have been involved in the explosion.

Because the Fire Department didn't seem to know what it was doing, I decided to mount an investigation of my own. I went to St. Vincent hospital and talked to one of the injured workers until I was asked to leave. The worker revealed that some members of his crew were smoking in the tunnel even though they were told not to.

Then I went to the mortuary where two dead workers were being prepared for burial. I asked to see their clothing and the contents of their pockets. Their clothing was burned and frayed. Reaching inside a pocket, the mortician found a cigarette lighter and handed it to me. However, the Fire Department was reluctant to accept my theory that smoking and methane gas caused the explosion. But months later, in a final report about what happened, the accident was blamed on methane gas and smoking.

The men and women of the Fire Department put their lives on the line for the people of Green Bay, and for the most part they have been helpful and friendly to me. But I had other run-ins.

Another example: The Fire Department hooked up with a rip-off fund raiser who kept most of the money collected for the Green Bay Fire Fighters Benevolent Fund, which turned out to be a fund to buy TV sets for the firefighters.

Just because firefighters and police lend their name to a fundraiser, doesn't necessarily mean it's wise to give to that "charity."

Chapter 6/War on stench

2005-03-02T09:19:00.000-08:00

Dear Glen Loyd:

It's a good thing "We the People" have someone like you.

Eloise Jones

Despite the placid little city seen by national TV audiences when the Packers play on Monday Night Football, Green Bay smelled terrible back in the 1970s:

The paper mills had a bad industrial odor.
There were several dead animal-rendering plants.
The Green Bay metropolitan sewage treatment plant often produced a gut-wrenching stink.
There was even a pig farmer in town.

People called and wrote me letters saying it smelled so bad they couldn't cook out in the summer, and their children had to play inside. A newspaper writer said, "any normally functioning nose can detect that portions of this city are at times laden with unbearable odors."

Declaring "War on Stench," I asked five other Green Bay citizens to join me in an environmental lawsuit against eight sources: Charmin Paper; American Can; Armour and Company; Green Bay Packaging; Green Bay Soap; Packerland Packing; the Green Bay Metropolitan Sewage District and the pig farmer. (I was one of the first citizens to take advantage of a new state law, which allowed environ- mental lawsuits under the jurisdiction of a hearing examiner from the State Department of Natural Resources.)

Fifteen lawyers took part in the three-day hearing. The Milwaukee Journal was there and news of the unusual lawsuit was reported around the country.

In addition to my TV-11 news crew, the two other Green Bay TV stations covered the hearing. Five of the eight firms wanted the TV cameras out of the courtroom so I had to immediately fight for freedom of the press.

Circuit Court Judge Robert Parins granted a temporary stay, but then ruled against the attempt to restrict news coverage, saying that the right of the public to be informed overrode arguments that unrestricted coverage could possibly result in prejudice, harm or denial of due process to the defendants.

Tom Brooker of the Brown County Chronicle (now the Green Bay News Chronicle) wrote, "neither the Scopes-Monkey trial nor the Sacco-Vansetti case has anything on the hearing held by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Periodically at stake was the credibility of seven of the largest industrial complexes in the area as well as freedom of the press, the authority of the DNR, and the rights of the common man to control his environment."

Although I had talked my TV station into letting me file the lawsuit, I was in big trouble. These giant companies hired first class law firms with skilled attorneys to defend them. I had no budget for hiring even one attorney. In fact, I had my assistant subpoena the companies to testify at the hearing. Fortunately, New York environronmental attorney Victor J. Yannacone, Jr. liked to sail in Door County, Wisconsin, which is close to Green Bay. He said if I paid his airfare to Green Bay, he would represent me for free and then go sailing with local friends.

Yannacone had been to Green Bay on the first Earth Day in 1970 as the featured speaker at a new university which focused on ecology. The Associated Press identified the University of Wisconsin Green Bay as a new and radical academic experiment that would concentrate on environmental problems. The chancellor said faculty members would share their expertise in community projects to make the planet safe and fit humans. But when Yannacone came back for the stench hearings, the University was afraid of offending local industry. I could only get one professor to testify and he backed out at the last minute.

Writing about Yannacone, Brooker of the Brown County Chronicle said a New York David had come to slay the Goliaths of Green Bay industry on behalf of area citizens with a distaste for stench: "Tenacious and surly, at times obnoxious and at times placating, Yannacone lived up to his reputation during the exhaustive three-day affair and was the dominant force throughout. For Yannacone is simply regarded as the best environmental lawyer in the entire nation, as well as the most unorthodox. Never failing to feed his consummate ego, he claims to have been thrown out of the Supreme Court more times in a single month than most barristers have in a lifetime. One-time head man of a militant conservation group called the Environmental Defense Fund, Yannacone's motto is, "sue the bastards."

"But for all his unpleasant qualities, the Long Island attorney gets results. It was Victor J. Yannacone who fought DDT [the pesticide that was killing birds and other wildlife] in the courts and had it abolished."

At the end of the three-day stench hearing, six of the companies promised to install odor equipment or showed their plants were already equipped to control odor. And the pig farmer agreed to move out of town. I was accused of starting the "War on Stench" as part of a promotion scheme to garner higher TV ratings.

But Yannacone argued, "For the first time the largest industries have been forced to give information that was never available before. Under oath they have stipulated what their programs are and what they would accomplish. Now, if they fail to live up to their testimony, the Department of Natural Resources can use this record and testimony to find them in contempt and prosecute them under the power of the attorney general's office."

Tom Brooker wrote, "In representing the Metropolitan Sewerage District, Meyer Cohen was the most vociferous attacker of WLUK-TV's motives. He lashed out at unethical journalism, selfish promotions, and embarrassing harassment. In response, Yannacone jumped up, thrust a finger toward Cohen's picturesque face, and shouted, "Mr. Examiner! My client [Glen Loyd] is being slandered!"

"Don't you raise your voice at me, you insane idiot!," Cohen retorted in equal volume.

"Gentlemen! Gentlemen," Examiner David Schwarz shouted, pounding his gavel in a futile effort to retain order.

"Yannacone leaned even closer to Cohen, blasting his face with charges. "You are just trying to confuse the matter, and you are mad that I've proved my case from the mouth of your own witness!"

"Visibly reddened and shaking with anger, Cohen countered, "You've proved nothing." The hearing examiner threw his gavel back to the table and walked out of the room. When all had settled, Cohen muttered toward the absent examiner, "Aw come on back and accept our apologies."

With my lawyer's spectacular victory in court, I kept on fighting on TV for the Green Bay neighborhoods plagued by odors and got dozens of families to show up regularly at city hall to complain when the stench reached high levels.

It began to smell a lot better in Green Bay. People who had lived in the smelly neighborhoods had an outdoor picnic to celebrate. I was their honored guest. United Press International presented me with an award for my "War on Stench."

A final thought: Before people in Green Bay got organized, they were powerless to stop the stench. "It's the smell of money," everyone said. But when some families called and wrote a TV station to complain and showed up in mass to protest the fouling of their neighborhoods, the city of Green Bay knew it had to do something and started cracking down on companies making a stink.

Chapter 5/Bart Starr and the fitness center

2005-03-02T09:12:00.000-08:00

Mr. Loyd:

We enjoy your spot on the news. In these days of high prices and unethical people, we need more help like yours!

Mrs. Henry Gaab
Ripon, WI.

I quickly became known as the "Action Man" in northeast Wisconsin and people with problems contacted me for help.

"Truth is, Glen Loyd wasn't really a polished reporter," says Bob Schulze, who was sports director at TV-11. "But there was a combination of honesty, sincerity and integrity about him that connected with viewers. The Action Man was his very promotable nickname. It was the early era of the consumer reporter protecting the little guys from the big bad ones. It didn't matter if it was the scam home repair contractor ripping-off a senior citizen or an arrogant corporate polluter, Action was an equal opportunity bulldog."

I went after a railroad secretly dumping waste oil into the Bay of Green Bay. I helped tenants having trouble with slum landlords. I exposed a fitness center high-pressuring consumers. Cruel salespeople there told young wives, "You are getting fat and are going to have trouble with your husband because of your appearance." They pressured the women into signing multi-year contracts financed at a very high interest rate. "Don't tell your husband," the salespeople said. "It will be a nice surprise for him when you lose weight."

Most people who sign up for fitness centers stop going after several visits but they can't cancel the contracts. Bill collectors plagued the Green Bay women.

Eventually the husbands discovered what was going on and got mad, and the wives were humiliated because they had secretly caused financial problems and had not lost any weight.

Some Green Bay Packer players were being paid to promote the fitness center. So I decided to call new head coach Bart Starr, who as quarterback had led Green Bay to 5 NFL titles and 2 Super Bowl wins. He was doing his TV show at my station, and we knew each other.

I told Bart that his players were involved with a questionable business. I thought Bart would want to know this so his players wouldn't get into trouble, and fans wouldn't be misled. Instead, Bart got irritated with me. He was a new coach and I was pestering him at a time when he was extremely busy.

"I was called out of an important meeting to take your call," he said. "Preseason planning is crucial to us, and you just can't bother me with this stuff."

Although I was disappointed in Bart's response, in later years he always had time to help children I was working with in the Big Brother Big Sisters organization. Like a gentle father, he would take their hand and show these kids around Lambeau field and be very nice to them. Bart took football seriously and had a tendency to over explain the technical aspects of it to little kids. While not understanding what he was talking about, the kids knew this was a famous man who was treating them like his own children. When Bart lost a son to drugs, he began helping families cope with abuse problems.

When Bart wouldn't help me, I turned over 50 complaints about the fitness center to the Brown County District Attorney, and eventually the spa people left town. I got money back for many unhappy consumers.

Over the years, I have received hundreds of fitness center complaints. Many have signed up consumers with long term contracts and then gone out of business.

Because people who join fitness clubs may quit after a short time, it's important for consumers not to sign long-term contracts.

By the way, another Green Bay Packer coach was a spokesman for a rip-off product I investigated. Nolan Cromwell, a former football star turned Packer special teams coach, went on a TV infomercial praising Therapy Plus, a $50 "magic wand" claimed to relieve arthritis pain. The company pulled the infomercial in Wisconsin when the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection went after them because of unproven claims.

Chapter 4/An investigative reporter on TV

2005-03-02T08:58:00.000-08:00

I had majored in magazine journalism at Southern Illinois University, but as a 30-year-old reporter in Chicago I found that the days of mass circulation magazines were dwindling. Life magazine, Look and my own employer, Today Health, were about to go under because they had lost too much advertising to television. TV had become king of the mass audience.

I concluded I was in the wrong business. I wanted to have the impact that TV could bring to a story. I was inspired by 60 Minutes on CBS, which had just begun with hosts Mike Wallace and Harry Reasoner. In fact, I wrote to Reasoner about becoming a writer for 60 Minutes. I still have the letter he wrote back to me on his typewriter more than 30 years ago, advising that there weren't really writers in television news. "The producers and reporters write the shows," he said.

Although 60 Minutes didn't need me, the stories I was writing for Today's Health were getting me national attention and invitations to go on TV talk shows.

My first television appearance was October 7, 1969, the day I turned 30. WJZ-TV's Contact show with Arnold Zenker in Baltimore, Maryland, paid for my trip there to talk about my series on Hunger in America in Today's Health. (The series was reprinted in a book entitled, Hunger, Problems of American Society, which also included Charles Kuralt's famous Harvest of Shame documentary on CBS-TV.)

Another story I wrote on quackery got me on WGN-TV in Chicago.

In 1971, I learned that a new TV news show in Green Bay, Wisconsin was starting up from scratch and needed an investigative reporter like me. When I was hired by TV-11, they also wanted me to be their weekend anchorman. "Just think, me an anchorman," I said to my wife, Chris.

I was so busy at TV-11 learning a new business that I asked Chris to find us a house where I could walk to work. You can do that in little Green Bay. We ended up with a home three blocks from TV-11 and famous Lambeau Field.

In Chicago, I had spent three hours a day commuting back and forth to the Loop. Now it took just five minutes to get home. Green Bay worked out nicely for my family. Although I sometimes worked 12-hour days, I could eat lunch with my wife and two little children on many days. When the Packers made touchdowns on Sunday afternoon games, I would open up our front door and the roar of the crowd rolled into our living room like thunder.

I knew I was a pretty good investigative reporter, but how would I do as an anchor? I was worried about that aspect of the job even though it was an honor to be asked. That first weekend I anchored they told me at the last minute I would be the weatherman, too.

On Saturday, I was pretty rough on the air, I admit that. I thought I did a lot better on Sunday. I wasn't stumbling so much and mispronouncing so many local Indian names such as Shawano and Ashwaubenon. And maybe people wouldn't remember that I predicted sunshine when it rained all day.

But after just one weekend, the news director called me into his office and said I was no longer an anchorman. He wanted me to stick to consumer reporting. Fortunately, I was a lot better reporter than an anchor.

Chapter 3/Warning consumers about asbestos

2005-03-02T08:50:00.000-08:00

Mr. Glen Loyd:

Why, Glen, did we have to threaten exposure before we were extended the common courtesy of good business?

We thought it only proper to thank you and inform you that the mild mannered, smiling Glen Loyd we watch on TV strikes terror in the hearts of those who choose to ignore the so-called little guy.

Thank you, Glen, for the help you gave us, unknowingly. You solved our problem that started in December and ended in July.

Roy and Alice Hull
Saxeville, WI.

Before I was the "mild mannered" TV consumer advocate, I was a young investigative print journalist in Chicago, working for Today's Health magazine, published by the American Medical Association, and writing articles for the Chicago Daily News.

This was the late 1960s and the first time someone said they were going to sue me. The threatening company was mad about a story I had written about one of their asbestos products.

I was among the first reporters to warn about the dangers of asbestos to people in their homes and cities.

Today's Health sent me to Mt. Sinai Hospital and Medical School in New York to interview Dr. Irving Sellikoff, a medical doctor and world renown expert on asbestos diseases.

Dr. Sellikoff told me that medical examiners in cities like New York and Chicago were finding that city people had asbestos in their lungs. Dr. Sellikoff was worried about what he called "a cancer threat to the general population."

Previously asbestos miners, shipbuilders and insulation workers were the only people thought to be at risk for asbestos related diseases such as the lung cancer mesothelioma.

Now asbestos was being discovered in motor-vehicle brake pads, ironing-board covers, oven mitts, and building products
including floor tile and pipe insulation.

What's more, I observed and reported that the steel skeletons of new skyscrapers going up in Chicago were being sprayed with asbestos fireproofing to keep them from bending during a fire. The asbestos overspray came down like snow on pedestrians below.

When my story was published in Today's Health and the Chicago Daily News, a red-faced executive, working for the company producing the sprayed insulation and other asbestos products, stormed into my office at the American Medical Association. He yelled that his company's products didn't cause cancer and he was going to sue me.

The threat concerned me but the company never sued. Now, 33 years later, the company has gone into Chapter 11 bankruptcy because of asbestos lawsuits.

As a result of my reporting, Chicago outlawed sprayed asbestos. "The City Council, by a unanimous 42-0 vote, enacted the nation's first ban against the use of sprayed asbestos in construction," reported the Chicago Daily News. "Dr. Murray Brown, Chicago health commissioner, said sprayed asbestos was a health hazard to the general public."

Think you are safe from asbestos now? Not according to U.S. Senator Patty Murray of Washington State: "Most Americans
believe that asbestos has already been banned. People have this misconception. While new uses of asbestos were banned, existing ones were not. As a result, products such as asbestos clothing, pipeline wrap, roofing felt, vinyl-asbestos floor tile, asbestos-cement shingle, disc brake pads, gasket and roof coatings still contain asbestos today."

Asbestos currently kills about 10,000 Americans a year, according to a study by the Environmental Working Group in Washington, D.C. At least 716 Wisconsin residents have died since 1979. Deaths are increasing as more Americans exposed during the peak years of asbestos use, the 1960s and 1970s, reach old age. Currently, more than 400,000 asbestos' related claims are pending before U.S. and state courts.

Chapter 2/Courts of last resort

2005-03-02T08:34:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Loyd:

Thanks to you we got action. It's nice to know that we have someone like you to turn to, when nobody else will listen.

Jacob Schlothauer
Two Rivers, WI

Reporters like me are often the courts of last resort for desperate people such as Corrine Kaczmarek and consumers who have been wronged.

During my 40-year career, I've had the honor of helping thousands of people and telling their fascinating stories via TV, radio, magazines, newspapers and speeches.

Along with the satisfaction that comes with this kind of reporting has been concern about people like Rickman retaliating in some manner.

A Northeast Wisconsin man who allegedly stole dogs to sell to research labs threatened me with a gun when I confronted him with a news camera. He pointed his rifle directly at me and held it there. He didn't pull the trigger but I died a thousand deaths anyway. On another occasion, he hit and bloodied a news photographer.

I was physically assaulted twice. The first time by two bearded and bare-chested brothers in Wisconsin who were allegedly mistreating migrant farm workers. They ripped the microphone out of my hand and wrestled me to the ground.

More recently, I was assaulted by a coat-and-tie conman holding a get-rich-quick meeting in a Madison, Wisconsin hotel. He objected to me standing outside and warning people.

I have been unsuccessfully sued six times for more than 14 million dollars!

Among the many lawyers who have disagreed with my stories:

F. Lee Bailey
Melvin Belli
Leonard Garment (advisor to President Nixon)
Former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson who plays the district attorney on the Law and Order TV show

2005-02-28T12:29:00.000-08:00

I
My life as an investigative reporter
1. Portrayed in a CBS-TV Movie
2. Courts of last resort
3. Warning consumers about asbestos
4. An investigative reporter on TV
5. Bart Starr and the fitness center
6. War on stench
7. What were they thinking?
8. TV-11 News: Purposely outrageous
9. Getting sued in Dallas, Texas
10. Lawsuit #2: The curse of the Pharaoh
11. Lawsuit #3: Weight reduction
12. Career crossroads
13. Lawsuits # 4, 5 and 6
14.Tommy Thompson calling
15. Rip-off of the month
16. Picketing questionable businesses

II
People
17. Working with TV photographers
18. Helping Chris Wallace
19. Human interest stories
20. My most emotional story
21. Losing Cheryl‚Äôs light
22. Little Travis gets his kidney
23. Scout doesn‚Äôt take no for answer
24. A Grandson‚Äôs funeral
25. Glen Loyd‚Äôs Care and Share Party

III
New concerns
26. International con artists
27. Why the elderly are conned so often
28. Strangers at your door
29. My advice about health advertising

IV
Piercing other minds
30. My hero at the Milwaukee Journal

Warning!

2005-02-28T08:40:00.000-08:00

Mark Twain said he admired an older journalist he knew who wasn't going to "inflict" his memoirs on the public. "If there is anything more uncalled for, it is one of those tearful, blubbering, long-winded "valedictories" when a man who has been annoying the public for years, cannot take leave of them without sitting down to cry. He feels that the country is saved. His satisfaction over it, something enormous."

When Twain asked the admired writer why he was going quietly, he replied, "I am journalistically dead, at present, ain't I?"

"Yes"

"Well, wouldn't you consider it disgraceful in a corpse to sit up and comment on the funeral?"

Knowing that I risk being perceived as a self-serving, egotistical, and disgraceful corpse, I inflict my memoir on you.

Chapter 1/Portrayed in a CBS-TV Movie

2005-02-28T06:41:00.000-08:00

You have bragging rights when portrayed in a CBS-TV Movie. And I was bragging until I actually saw the movie: The Disappearance of Vonnie, a true story about a murder in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

I am the hotshot On-Your-Side TV reporter who people in trouble turn to for help. Unfortunately, the movie was accurate when it shows me trying to give the brush off to the heroine of the movie.

She comes to my TV station and interrupts me in an editing room where I'm putting a story together and trying to eat my lunch. I try to tell her it would be better if she came back later. But Corrine Kaczmarek, played by Ann Jillian, is persistent and gets the help she so desperately needs.

Her sister, Vonnie Rickman, had disappeared. "We live across the street from each other," Corrine told me. "I used to speak to her every single day of my life. I know Vonnie better than anyone else and she would never have left us voluntarily."

Vonnie's new husband, Ron Rickman, played by Joe Penny, claimed she left him in a huff outside a Kmart store in Appleton and never came back, not only abandoning him but also her daughter.

"The thing that she loves most is that six-year-old girl," Corrine told me. "Vonnie had her late in life and she's her whole life."

Corrine had also gone to the police who at first rejected her suspicion that Rickman had done something to Vonnie. The police were friendly with Rickman because of a youth group he mentored. Ron Rickman was respected around town. I met him one time when he was taking the teenagers on a tour of my TV station.

But Corrine kept up her campaign against Rickman, which included writing me long letters. "Vonnie is like another part of me," she wrote. "I feel lost."

I came to believe there was something to what she said. When I called the police, they had become suspicious, too.

Then they made a horrific discovery. Before coming to Green Bay and marrying Vonnie, Rickman had been in a mental institution for the criminally insane. He had murdered two people with a gun! Corrine disclosed this confidential information to me but said the police couldn't arrest Rickman. Killing two people 20 years ago didn't give them a case against him now.

Helping Corrine document her brother-in-law's secret past with old newspaper clippings of the murders, I persuaded the management of my TV station to go with the story even though there were no charges against Rickman.

After I laid the groundwork, another reporter at my station made invaluable contributions. Patrick Doris discovered that state parole officers had lost track of Rickman after he was released from confinement.

"The detectives told me my reports played a key role in nailing Rickman," says Doris, now a reporter at KGW-TV in Portland, Oregon. "They generated news tips from people who never put two and two together until they saw stories on the air and then remembering some interaction with Richman, a comment about his wife, or asking them to hold on to a gun, for example."

Rickman was arrested for parole violations and made an incriminating admission to a fellow inmate. This led District Attorney John Zakowski to charge Rickman with first degree murder and then successfully prosecute him.

It was the first case in Wisconsin of a murder conviction without a body or murder weapon being found.

Rickman was sentenced to life in prison. While Corrine was victorious, a part of her was lost forever.

Glen Loyd On Your Side in Wisconsin

Contents

Glen Loyd on getting sued

Glen Loyd on freedom of speech

Contents

If you need help

Chapter 30/My hero at the Milwaukee Journal

Chapter 29/My advice about health advertising

Chapter 28/Strangers at your door

Chapter 27/Why the elderly are conned so often

Chapter 26/International con artists

Chapter 25/Glen Loyd's Annual Care and Share Party

Chapter 24/a Grandson's funeral

Chapter 23/This Scout does not back down

Chapter 22/Little Travis gets his kidney transplant

Chapter 21/Losing Cheryl's light

Chapter 20/My most emotional story

Chapter 19/Human interest stories

Chapter 18/Helping Chris Wallace

Chapter 17/Working with TV photographers

Chapter 16/Picketing questionable businesses

Chapter 15/Rip-off of the month

Chapter 14/Civil servant

Chapter 13/Lawsuits #4, 5 and 6

Chapter 12/Coming to a career crossroads

Chapter 11/Lawsuit #3: Weight loss clinics

Chapter 10/Lawsuit #2: Curse of the Pharaoh

Chapter 9/Getting sued in Dallas

Chapter 8/TV-11 News, purposely outrageous

Chapter 7/What were they thinking?

Chapter 6/War on stench

Chapter 5/Bart Starr and the fitness center

Chapter 4/An investigative reporter on TV

Chapter 3/Warning consumers about asbestos

Chapter 2/Courts of last resort

Contents

Warning!

Chapter 1/Portrayed in a CBS-TV Movie