By Mark Lagerkvist
My new career in television skyrocketed in 1980 with the success of “King of Newaygo” at WZZM. It was a time of high ratings, wide recognition and sudden celebrity in West Michigan.
Watch the King of Newaygo video on the front page of Lagerkvist Online.
I was the antithesis of what TV consultants thought a reporter should look like. I was bearded, balding and bespectacled. Yet my work resonated with viewers. People I had never met acted like they knew me well. They’d approach me in restaurants, bars, shopping centers, street corners and even public bathrooms to tell me their life stories and suggest who I should investigate next.
I was especially notorious in Newaygo. One source handed me a copy of an audiotape that led to another national award for investigative reporting.
The Newaygo County sheriff had telephoned his own office to instruct an employee to swipe groceries from the jail kitchen for him. Unfortunately for the sheriff, he unwittingly called on a recorded line.
Newaygo was not the only county where a sheriff improperly profited from both local taxpayers and a federal food program intended to feed the needy.
In a follow-up series – “Short Order Sheriffs” – WZZM found similar abuses in six other Michigan counties. While the sheriffs were never prosecuted, three incumbent sheriffs in TV-13’s region were voted out of office in the next election in favor of reform candidates.
For the double-barreled series of reports, I won a prestigious IRE Award from Investigative Reporters and Editors.
Here is a selection of videos from other notable WZZM investigations:
Bad Apples offers an investigative lesson about on an educational system that allowed kept pedophiles and other offenders to remain in classrooms.
Because of secrecy and confidential severance agreements, those “bad apples” were often able to quietly move from school to school, district to district and state to state.
For the series, I was named a Livingston Award national finalist for best reporting by a journalist under age 35.
Lies That Kill linked fatal truck accidents to falsified safety records. The series won the 1982 Michigan UPI Award for investigative reporting
Dr. Drugs examined the practice of a prolific one-man prescription mill who flooded Grand Rapids with frequently-abused narcotics. Following the reports, state authorities cracked down on the physician, who soon moved to Florida.
Not even WZZM advertisers were spared from investigative reports. One series focused on a high-profile chiropractor who spent more time cracking insurance codes than helping patients.
X-rays were a big profit center for the chiropractor, but questions were raised over whether clinicians paid attention to the diagnostic images. In the case of one patient, a life-threatening malignant tumor the size of an orange was overlook.
Michigan regulators took action against the chiropractor, who moved his practice to Missouri.
The chiropractor’s account was handled by WZZM sales rep Tim Siegel. After the reports, I started kidding him: “Hey, I need new ideas for investigations. Can I see your client list?” Tim was a good sport though my reports cost him business.
In a long and winding career, WZZM was my favorite job. We had a great staff filled with fun characters. Sadly, we knew the station would take a turn for the worse under a new owner, waiting to take control in early 1986.
One last hurrah was “Eyewitness Rap” – a gag reel shown at the TV-13 Christmas party in December 1985.
That was 35 years ago, yet the memory is as fresh as yesterday.
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A Paean to the gods of SEO
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WZZM TV-13 investigative reporter Lagerkvist
WZZM TV-13 investigative reporter Lagerkvist
WZZM TV-13 investigative reporter Lagerkvist
WZZM TV-13 investigative reporter Lagerkvist
WZZM TV-13 investigative reporter Lagerkvist
WZZM TV-13 investigative reporter Lagerkvist
WZZM TV-13 investigative reporter Lagerkvist
WZZM TV-13 investigative reporter Lagerkvist