David "Douglas" Cohen

2006

Hi, David (Douglas) Cohen here. I was exchanging email with Phil a few weeks back and he reminded me to visit the site. Thanks for including me on the 1970s pages. I wish I had some stuff from my time at WROV but I don't.

Where I am now...

I worked at WROV from January 1972 to January 1973. I worked first with Paul Houston in the newsroom, and then when Paul left, Darrell Hudnall. David Levine also did a newscast or two on occasion, and Dickie Bentz would fill in when needed. By the way, Darrell replaced me in Charleston when I left there to go to New York (And I believe he is still there).

Back in those days, election nights were special and you did election programming once it got dark until around midnight. On election night 1972, I convinced Burt that we could have an interesting dialogue. We brought in some political science types from the community college and Virginia Tech, rotated someone from the newspaper into the discussion, and it was pretty interesting. We put Jim Carroll's sports skills to work and he contributed election results two or three times per hour. Burt was courageous to allow a kid with some ideas to actually put them on the air, but that's what made him interesting to work for.

Another disc jockey who worked 7-12 midnight for a while was Joe Martin. Joe and I had gone to school together at the University of South Carolina. He later went onto produce the Miss Universe Pageant -- for some time, before it was sold to Donald Trump. Joe was from Alabama and haven't crossed paths with him for at least 25 years. Another interesting coincidence between Joe and I was that we both had a same license plate number BJA204. Mine were from Virginia. His from South Carolina.

So, what have I been up to for the past 33 years?

I left WROV in January 1973 and followed Phil Beckman to WLVA, Lynchburg. (He returned there after a short trip through Denver). In late 1973, I moved to WKZ, Charleston, West Virginia, and in 1975 joined ABC News in New York. I was there until 1991. I began by writing and editing newscasts on the radio networks -- including those heard on WROV, and moved into producing; I then jumped to television news at ABC and managed the central news desk in New York, was deputy bureau chief, then bureau chief in the midwest, and then did large event coverage like politics and space.

After the first gulf war I left ABC and moved into public relations, working for Fleishman-Hillard, one of the largest PR firms in the world. I then moved to Silicon Valley in California in 2000 and became a speechwriter for executives at some of biggest names in technology and for a number of area members of congress. In 2004, I went to work for Cadence Design Systems. I wrote speeches for their chairman of the board and their president and CEO. Cadence makes software used to design computer chips. And earlier this year, I came to this subsidiary of Hitachi as part of their communications team.

I've attached a current photo if you would like. I'm afraid I don't have anything from my year at WROV, but maybe I'll be the face no one could recognize in one of the old photos!