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Part of an interview with Roosevelt Toston conducted by Claytee D. White on July 11, 2006. Toston recalls how he began working in broadcasting.
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Roosevelt Toston oral history interview, 2006 July 11. OH-01839. [Audio recording] Oral History Research Center, Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Neva
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Once I came back, I told the people at the phone company that I was leaving. They wanted to know, well, why? I said, "I'm going to television. They want me to come over. I'm going to be a trainee at Channel 3." And they were just surprised that I would leave this secure job to try working in television. They pointed out how risky that was for me. I said, "You know, I understand all of that, but I'm not married, I don't have a lot of obligations at this point. If I fail at it, hopefully you'll hire me back here at the job." And so, anyway, I said, "You know, I wanted to get into marketing. You guys had a chance to promote me and you didn't allow me to do that. So I'm going to try something else." And so they said, "Okay, if that's what you want." So they bid me farewell and I went over to Channel 3. After being introduced to the all-white staff there, Mr. Howell, a very nice gentleman, a very liberal kind of guy, gray-haired fellow, small in stature and everything, he was telling me that what they wanted to do was give African-Americans a chance to break into this field. I suspect that the FCC had requirements at that time that they try to show either some diversity or show that they were responsive to the community and involvement and all — so they needed an African-American, I think, especially considering that the owner of KORK also owned the Las Vegas Review-Journal and also owned the radio station by the same name, KORK. So they needed to show something. So that's why they made this gesture, I think. He said, "Well, we're going to work with you about maybe six months before you would actually be on the air doing anything. So we will be training you, on-the-job training. And we're going to send you to Kodak School," because at that time reporters were required to learn how to shoot film. And, actually, that was a part of my job — reporter cameraman. So I went to California. I think it was Hollywood, California, where Kodak had a school that trained one to shoot news film. There's a special thing you have to know about shooting news film. You don't want to be panning and this kind of thing. I went to that school and got a certificate from there, and then started going around with some of the other reporters, one in particular. He was the reporter and I was his cameraman. So that's how we started. As it turned out, I was actually on the air in probably six weeks instead of six months.