Evening Exchange; Cathy Hughes Interview

Transcript

Thank you. Our radio stations in Washington and Baltimore qualify Kathy Hughes as a media logo. In addition to managing the empire, he also sits at the helm of a very popular local morning talk show by WOLAM. Kathy Hughes is with me today for a 191 conversation. Hi, I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

Joining me tonight is one of Washington's most popular radio talk show hosts, Kathy Hughes. What you might not know by Kathy Hughes is that she jumps up to her career right here at Harvard University. As a lecturer at the School of Communications, she then moved down to Howard's WHUR radio, which she worked first as a sales manager and then as my boss, the general manager of the station. She now owns radio stations in Baltimore and Washington. Kathy Hughes, media mogul, welcome to EMAX. I love you. And instead of phone calls, you try to charge, you call me a mogul, and I'm going to give you 25. I'm going to believe it myself. I like this new look. No socks. What California look is open? You know, I knew from the very beginning that she wouldn't allow me to host, and so she already started taking over a whole thing. You said, I'll get fast, the question. You didn't say anything about that. I like that. Maybe that's why I couldn't make it easy, because I'm a cold baby. I've got to learn to be more casual. It's Bernie McCandler. He always shows up here with my socks. Oh, that's right. I said, if Bernie can do it, he's older than I, but I do believe he's better. Now, this is going to be interesting, because I don't want to be your substitute, hopefully.

I did not hear you able to be on any of these issues. This is what my mogul's been inspiration for. I'd be more than happy to join the WOL family as a substitute for you. Thank you. Thank you. If you were in love, I would ask you as many times as you said, if you were in love, and I would ask you as many times as you said, if you were in love, and I would ask you to come over here and see each other and see each other. Every time we see each other, we try and then go on back to whatever we were doing. But this is how I'm saying it publicly. If you invite me, I'll be there. Thank you. Most people think of you as the host of the more rich people of WOL. That is not how you define yourself. How do you see yourself? I'm a broadcast entrepreneur. The show was really used to be, it was during the first five years of the existence of the radio station. I was paying them on wages, and no one wanted to get up at 4 o 'clock in the morning. I'd come in there, and I was before I would talk to somebody about the type of money I was offering. And so I didn't ask for one option, and I wasn't doing it myself, because I refuse to go strictly to use somebody who's going to do the broadcast on their state to just put a new step forward.

If you really wanted to follow the example that I would learn, it comes from you. And the Daily Tom and the news team at WHO, the more information you get to your music in a minute, I think the more assistance they are to your online communication system, the more creative, the more loyal, because it builds the AM news. It's a personal relationship that doesn't exist when you go to the medium of music. So I had to start doing this work, so it was the manager of the airport to run my company. And we run this for company with a damn fist from what I've been listening to you. But back to how you started, I dear, because a lot of people think that WHUR was your entire first experience radio, but you went back, I think, to Nebraska for your first experience. Tell us about that. So I have the radio in Ohio, Nebraska, as I am. Now, interestingly enough, the first moment, all the airwaves of the W.H. law, not much of income, as the nation's capital was, but a young lady by the name of Matthew Williams. So what I've seen now working this way is he on W.H., Omaha, Nebraska, Iowa, 24th of this station.

I see what you're saying to this. And then I started asking the question, why are there no witnesses doing anything at this radio station? Because that station was supposed to have for operating capital's industry in the early days of what it's going into radio, Oregon. And so it was with 15,5 people who wanted to volunteer. And L.P. was the first blanks here we had in Omaha. We got a star. Let's go. We got a star, let's go. Yeah, I mean, it was just, and so that was really my first involvement. That person was Tony Brown, who knew that I lost my good job with the Ford Foundation over my volunteering and the radio station because they thought it was a conflict of interest in the community and stuff called it. And I said, well, we need to go through the page and we're going from the Ford Foundation through my connections. And they didn't invest in my family, but they didn't invest in myself because I thought the folks needed all their work in the community and stuff like that.

A lot of names came up there that people would be interested in. Tony Brown became the dean of the School of Communications at Cambridge University, and I think he's the one who Brother Caffey is to Washington, D.C. Well, no, Milton Johnson, my teacher. Oh, I've never mentioned that. That's my name is the right. That's my name is the right. That's my name. I'm glad I would never have brought me to Washington, D.C. My name is that kid who brought me to Washington, D.C. And Milton John's faculty and faculty and faculty, I really wasn't interested in working in my father dot the week that I was supposed to move to Washington, D.C. He was noted from 10 years by the length of my childhood stress. I worked for my father primarily, but he's done a entrepreneur. He was born. My grandfather. And my grandfather. I'd like to talk a little bit about that, because Kathy comes from a long entrepreneurial tradition. This is not something she picked up on the night. And even more importantly, it's a tradition that's just peaceful. So start with your grandfather, please. My grandfather graduated from the University of Iowa, and was the only way that we still explain it to this day, because he took his Ph.D.

and got off a bus. One of the things he stepped out through, I don't know, I'm seeing a tree on the wall, and started taking Mississippi African Americans how to read it. And some of the everyone's like here, you know, there's this thing to do about the first thing. And then people are aware of it. It's pretty good. They keep it fun. And then they keep it fun. And so he was also an entrepreneur, and he knew that he had to put together a financial basis for his schools. And since the school worked and done, the school is going to be a number of years old, we still subsidize all of the children in the government. In fact, right now we have 50 children from Washington, D.C., there are the apps along with the W.S. Library. another 14, another 25 years to be found in the Youngstreet, they're going to- Oh, here's the name of the school. I was talking about the school, and there's a bunch of million that were working, and a year before we went, boys, through the school, still doing well.

They did the same time. My mother, they came on the- Before we do that, I've heard the story. I don't know if you've told it publicly before, but the Evening Exchange jurisprudence team had to do with the Grandfather and the only Ralph Edwards program and I mean, this is just a price that I can keep. Well, really, the grandpas over the country were always with the entrepreneurs, they were a traveling band, they had a traveling choir, they baked pies and sold, and they were forever raising money. But a group of people, they have been contributing money to his effort. It would be a wonderful gesture. Ralph Edwards and This Is Your Life was the number one television show at this time. They had made anyone going to call. So they just prized my grandfather, and you do a This Is Your Life episode of him. Well, number one, it was the worst thing that Samuel put in his breath home. He outwitted me because he said that if folks on the left, the black man was amounting millions of dollars to educate black children, particularly in Mississippi, and he had an interracial situation.

He and all of them must have left him back in the, um, almost 20-30s, where he threw, there were actually bitches of him on the horse with the rope around his neck and black folks with the rope. But he took down the rope. Oh, I swear to God, I could, dear friend. But he told him he said, please, how much the police police tell us how to be clean in the middle of the white people. We're going to stay on the line. Just clean and tell us getting the white folks with the people. Oh, let me see. See this man. Isn't that guy he's trying to start trouble? He's trying to make better donkeys be, you know, better come down on the planet, he can't keep full of them. And it worked, but anyway, um, this is your life. And at the end, Ralph Everett said, uh, he's crying. Okay, no, why are you crying? I think no, because he hasn't got nobody black up on the field before. He's like, oh, my God, this is so much. I'm going to have him all tell us from fighting at that time, he wouldn't cry. But anyway, what he articulated was, and that's what he did on that he said to him, because he's been a significant, uh, to the school. And I mean, he still is, and he's different stories

of human pregnancy. He had one million of his youth, which they have given the U.S. one million of the world's out of his youth was to each student learned a lot. Oh, my God. He's got two schools. Seven million out of his kids in the world. Oh, my God. And this was in the fifties. So he doesn't know all in the school what's worth between being a well-off black institution to being an incredibly left-ish black institution. I mean, he's still in that program. Well, you never heard anything else from him. I mean, most people are just not getting the story of the wrong voice. I mean, he wrote that. And he ripped away. He ripped away. He ripped away. And to, you know, be very local, though, he did not feel that it was in the best interest for African Americans to let the media into their lives. He didn't want to go. But if you were talking in the 1930s, when there were lost political models, was that white people and people could just come ISA

despite your mind. And he's like, it says that he out there was a religious thing. He'd be right. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. question from ph consolidated magnusional. lift up its head .候. What's the fact ?eth Damit you said? dann I had never heard of before Kathy began. She was talking about it. I didn't know what I was going to say. Right. She was talking about it. This is an education. So, mom and grandpa come to London here, which is a lot of talking. And I used to work with my mother, because to find one of the other of her classmates came from going to the other school, and they had these lunches, and they were called the cupboards and lunches where they were too excited. They didn't like that. Mama was kind of fast and hit the heart of her knees. They wanted to push what they had with coffee at home. And my grandfather said, no, you played football. That's right.

You played my kid. No. No. Exactly. That's a lot like when we were in the Caribbean trying to play that steel band music. If you were decent, you didn't do that. Exactly. So, mom and a group conspired, and they told the band around the house in the building, they were not, because they were the police. And so they went on their own, and they fussed about their own games. And they founded their own corporation, and for many years, they got to the National Seahawks in New York, where the creaking of all-girls orchestra hit the desk. And they all had a team and making those stage bands to the bricks, and another act would come off. They just wanted to talk. They're a team. It's a licensed thing on what they were in the role of us. Okay. Just a few. And that's how big they were. Yeah. A big. Well, in the role of this mentality of my grandfather, they didn't even know what you thought about them. Nobody had ever heard of them. And they were the hosts of the students in the 40s. If you guys didn't know anything about music, I mean, I know if you had killed all of them, when it was a game and they were like, oh, hey, do you know what your father was doing?

And for you? And for you? And for you? Okay. Then my mother married my father. Yeah. Well, she married in Ferguson. Right. Okay. Sorry about that, Mom. I didn't ever break that up. And he told them he wasn't a big sister. And unfortunately, that wasn't quite the truth. He worked for a bootleg of a man who was scared that he was scared. And my mother just said it was not proper for him to be working for a big gangster. And that came to me very bluntly. He was known. He had a club called the Brown Doors. Right. And I said, my mother, they, my father, used everyone's paintings of our business and go to school and become a CPA. And then they opened with the county's office. And so it's always been a good thing to everyone. Oh, thank you. And everyone, you know, we never wouldn't get them to do this. My family is really, you know, a couple things that were front of the bar. One, it's working for other people.

The second is marriage. And it's completely because of the community. We have very strong rules that we work for ourselves and we really understand. When you think of some of the major white families in this country that made money doing illegal things like gun running and running with these and then use that money to clean up the family image later on so that you would forget about that, it is amazing and the kind of discipline that those people wanted to cause them wanted to say, you know, you will not continue to do this. I don't want to have anything to clean up 40 years from now. Let's now enjoy the worst. He was going to be worst. He was going to be worst. He was going to be worst. He was going to be, standing in your face and running and telling the stories. He said, we're both innocent. Helen, make me give up. I'm going to be. I'm going to be. You're going to be. I see it over here. He's going to be making me sick. He was going to be a family business and he followed her all over the world. He was telling me that his family owned a six-year-old father and she would go to Tennessee and she would be a great person. He would go to Tennessee and she would go to Tennessee and go see a business. Why would I open a castle to see what would be fun? I thought everybody would do with us. And he called to see if he was fun because he became a family project to get him through

school so that he could open up a family business and meet the news of all fields. And he was a family business. Back during the day when both folks didn't have each one's name in their book. They definitely, now, black folks would just get to the point where they trusted black doctor. Uh-huh. Okay, they still weren't ready to leave a black accountant. And he was a copy of the money. But luckily, the great, the end of Elijah Muhammad, paid a title to a minister by the name of Reverend Clarence Combs for the first church of the university. I don't even know about Kathy Simon. And he went a little close to my father to see if he really knew what he was doing in a community. And afterwards, we knew the account of Muhammad Ali. We had the account of the name of Islam. We had the content of the first church of the university. And my father died quite young of a homicide. Right. And he was beginning to really point into a very good African American students. Really, we're not there, which was 19 other white folks' time.

But it was because of the honorable works of Muhammad that they were 19 big clubs really open for my father. But before then, we always had a lot of business, but he was doing a group for a 10th, but he was the most younger than you called a pumpkin in those. But tell us how you made it to college with a student. I didn't graduate. And I drove into class. And one of the reasons that I couldn't complete my college education was because the world blessed me with career opportunities that were so amazing that was not possible for you to get the most everything and use the shipping on your best place. I used to have a couple of other things that were coming up in the building to be there. I looked like I was coming up in the building to be there. I had a diaper bag in one. I had a book bag in one.

I had him straight to me because I couldn't see that I had a woman to be there. And living up that fit. And everything is the decision that you're leaving here. You didn't have any, which message was put on? I didn't have a car, so I had to get on the bus. I had two bags. I'm dragging this kid. But my career, we had a long day. Any type of homework is that is over my students. And I could not stand just continuing going to school because at that point in my career is that I'm still to get to my facilities. I mean, I need to stand up on myself. And if there's anything that I regret, it was not being able to go to school. There was a little indie that would always nag me if I could see the students coming across the youth. But I don't know what it is that luxury of going home in the evening and turning off a note of music.

And still here, I had to come home and cook dinner, wash diapers. It's a whole different thing. I used to see younger doctors, many of them have loved ones. Because my father had to work two jobs to go to college. I wanted to go out and try to go to school. It's so difficult when young ones to get a scholarship, a priority to get more of these decisions. Well, you come from a family of privilege they can afford to see them. You have no idea how blessed you are. But you indeed can be an example to those people who do not have all those things by the extent of hard work, dedication to family, and dedication to entrepreneurship. We're talking about Kathy Hughes, and we'd be right back to talk with her some more. So you stay right where you are. I want that Ken to take videos from Deus

We see the next episode from God They're going to show you the time they live. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. because of this, he was going back to Hollywood. I'm a regular producer. Right, because he's going to be called a star. I'm a regular producer. I wasn't going to hold him up. And that was the one I thought was eight years ago now, and many days now I'm asking if this people were you in Hollywood. What is the professional assessment of this one today? He's my first day. He's one of the students. Let me see you. You know, there's one of the first two of them. I thought it quite frankly because I was trying to increase the complexity of my video. I'm a general judge and I'm going to get a little discomfort. And the number one complaint that I'm getting is I can't think of this, but you know, I feel like you can get that. I was not looking at a fan about their mortgage, or something. Was it closing the vectors for two-year-old me? And then that closed and said to me that you could not put my mortgage with funds. And then that they met instead of receiving authorities, and I was too comfortable first here. I was going to be my next question.

Okay. All right. Let me do, let me do what they want. I have to stay in this emotion. I'm not getting ready to go home for one. I'm getting ready to go home for one. I'm really good to get cost for one. All right. I'm getting ready to say we have no idea what I'm going to do. Because I'll be in jail. Because I'm getting ready to kill from my house. I'm getting ready to get here. That's correct. And now they pulls me in the hallway. And I'm just going to be reading, let me do music. Let me do what they want. And one mistake, I'm just going to be watching. Oh, the what? Look at my page, you're being emotional. One, two, two, three. And I'm just going to be watching. It's one of the really most important things to me. And so I'll have to. What are you going to do with it? Now, we're in the hallway. They're here. They're sitting. Well, what's it all going to do? She's going to take the mother's turn.

OK, all right. It's $10 million, she's going to walk in. And I'm like, what a whole thing. Because that's all, it's legal, couldn't do it? And I'm sitting there. I mean, you see, welfare is not that they do go to me. Legal is not what gets me up. It's 445 % anymore. It really is hard to admit that you don't know what folks better understand what we should be doing, who we are, and where we're going. For those people who have known Kathy long before she followed that radio station or long before she had that torture, I got to know Kathy Hughes because of what she just said. She's a very opinionated woman who is very concerned about the welfare of black people. And I have to know because we would have hallway conversations and arguments constantly about that kind of thing. So when I heard the radio show, I said, that's Kathy. That is not a performer performing on the air, as a lot of people on radio and television do. That's her expressing her point of view. And they didn't want that. They didn't want that. And I said, let me run magic. And I said, I'm afraid. The only way I'll send these documents and go to close and run magic is you have to receive your responsibility

because it will be too painful for me. And we'll go back to doing the next three times. Oh, seven. I said, but I don't want you to hear me. I need to give me 30 days for the last 20 years to my number one list. And I accepted the challenge for an opportunity, once again, for the partnership between us and myself. Within three days, he hardly grew to 102.3. I would really tell that to you about programming. And this was the first time before he was working for me. And this was the first time he was working alone with us. And he had a picture because I can't cry. So I'm Melvin-Lindsey. And he was so big. I'm Melvin-Lindsey. Okay. All right, there's a new piece on the block. All right, move over. And you know, Melvin-Lindsey is a combination of it. It's an only form that he can go ahead and do research that has been replaced the numbers. So he comes to me. Oh, he comes to me and he says, I'm about to enroll with Melvin-Lindsey. And I see it.

And he says, what do you think should happen? I'm naive. I'm naive. And I said, oh, what do you think? And he said, I'd like to be the co-founder and general manager of our corporation. And once you were with me in California, he said, no. He said, I've fallen in love with working in the company. I love working in D.C. How do you think? And he said, your point was right. He said, it's a famous company. I have to say. He said, but I want to be your boss. I want to make the decision. I want to be your boss. And he said, excuse me. He just won't think that I can be of assistance to you in further culture that you think you're going to be with him. And number two, I believe you have a lot of the different operational stresses and stresses and pressures and responsibilities. He's been my president. He's been my president for about one and a half years. And my assessment is, I'm going to work for him than anyone else in the country. I hope he does his decision. I think that about once a year, I have to tell you how a talent has to do.

Okay, all right. I have to let him know. A major vote of contention, interestingly enough, is he running over. I am so tired. And number one is coming from my profession. Kathy gets going. She doesn't want to end the telephone. Well, Benji, I just don't wait. You know, we wanted to come out and do a thing. So, what made you decide to go over and buy the station in Baltimore? I'm afraid of him. It's a decision. It's a decision. It's truly important because now that he's been referred to his history and the inquisition of many to go to. The inquisition of. We have a mutual respect because I don't want to leave here on the first floor. We were closed for 15 months before the deal actually closed. Because, once again, I'm not closed. And I was able to let a lot of people to tell me twice because we admitted this is so And they started telling me things they didn't have to be done. And this time, after he had grown more, he didn't afford more.

He was more experienced in the managers and he laughed with me. We said, come on, you know, from, oh, we worked on our $40 million thing, but, oh, that we don't think it's a very right game. And they were like, well, when we came back and closed 15 months later, I think $2 million in the purchase plan for all the commitments that I'm afraid I wanted, 15 months probably we were able to get the economy changed, the ratings of the statement had improved, a whole lot of things that were very favorable and come into place. And so, how were you able to afford simply descending into big, and this is the result of those two experiences? Would you be a woman? You know that there are white articles that are much less comfortable than you coming into the sea, or much less experienced radio than you coming into the sea, who have been around to purchase radio stations without being questioned as to where the problem would be, how do you afford simply descending into complete the spirit that it is? I think that our bitterness is something I've never met.

And like I said, I have a little envy, I know. Okay, and it's usually for young people. I think that may have to do with our age to come to young people. But I don't experience bitterness. I'm constantly, it's a very good way, early age, praise the prayer. Forgive me, Lord, for my sins and forgive those who stand against me. I've pushed that constantly, and that's become part of my life. I'm going to take it first place. The other thing is, I didn't really give you a voice. I want to work very hard. You're wondering whether to say that you can just sit up in your house. I can't wait for a blessing and it knocks on the door, and you've got God helping those who help us. Mr. Smith, you can't have your energy now for you. I understand that she has to work hard. It's probably genetically inherited, but it is also a blessing. But I think it's very, very blessed. And I have a lot of obstacles to overcome. I think it's a great lesson. And I believe that, you know, it's not. There's a lot of things that people do that wrong. It's because they hear so much about big obstacles. The only things that make it into those areas are problems.

They don't hear the good part. Tell us a little bit about support systems that you have, people whom you can turn to when you are a little bit down or you're having a little bit of a problem. I've found a model that supports the systems of the county throughout the most difficult periods. Well, of course, you do that support. I'm going to start right here. I'm the capital of the university, the only one who just spoke to this community. You need to be aware of the old ones. It's a lot of news. She was supposed to be a parent. Yes, sir. I think we talked about 40 kids from one foreign videos. What's the name of our program? I don't know. It would have to be part of the program for everyone's We probably have to took care of us all to do next year challenge, remember? Yes, you understand. Well, let's talk with you. Well,ώρα Kim has seen you there young lady that you know who worked with the test. Oh, yes, senorin. Lori said you know that thousands of people in your lifetime that you can only count them on one hand. Again, one of my special blessings from God, I think it's all my fingers, my toes, my arms,

and a problem with them. I don't know why I've been living in terms of really since he supports these things, people who are there now. You may have talked to them for a few days, but all you have to do is get out of here. You pick right up where you left off, wasn't it? Yes, Father, yesterday. As the next number of difficulties, what I really must know and needed to know about someone from the University told me what I literally sat down with me and told me what I needed to know in order to do the job. John Paul Stumpkin, who, at that time, was special with Mr. Owen Nichols and Dr. James. These individuals literally befriended me and said, this is what I needed to do. When I had questions, when I needed assistance, they were always there. You find oftentimes that when you know you have good people, you know, you hear a bunch of folks say, you know, you've never been disappointed. You've never been disappointed. That's not always been amazing, right?

So, my thing. Right. Black folks have always thought of doing the job. Oh, right. Every now and then you'll find an individual or two will try to take it, but I think that in the final analysis, the more immediate people that you're interested are going to end up and end up being supportive of you. We do hesitate. I know this problem we'll look at when we come back. Maybe we'll look at the more controversial stuff that Kathy is. Sad. It's a Yes. Oh, hang off. Well modeled only. Do you move on? Yeah. It's a app. Yeah. Oh. Thank you. Thank you.

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