The first time Nick Clooney came to Salt Lake City, it was pretty much by accident. It was World War II, and he was traveling to San Francisco with his mother.
"We were put off the train here because of military necessity," he said. "We ended up staying here for a week, in a big, beautiful, Victorian hotel - the Hotel Utah."Well, the Hotel Utah isn't a hotel anymore, and Clooney isn't in Utah by accident. He's here to anchor the brand-new newscast on KSTU-Ch. 13, which is set to debut Tuesday, Dec. 31 at 9 p.m.
When brash, youth-oriented KSTU - which is owned by brash, youth-oriented Fox Broadcasting - announced it was going to start up a news operation, it seemed a fairly good bet that Ch. 13 would head off in that direction.
But anyone betting that way would have lost money, at least as far as KSTU's main anchorman goes. Clooney has been in broadcast journalism for four decades and brings a wealth of experience to Salt Lake City.
He's worked at stations around the country, including the NBC affiliate in Los Angeles (the nation's No. 2 television market) and at all three network affiliates in Cincinnati.
He's bright, knowledgeable, articulate, curious and comes across as authoratative.
He even looks like the quintessential anchorman - thick gray hair and all.
All of which leaves one obvious question: Why would a man of Clooney's experience want to come to Salt Lake City (the nation's No. 41 television market) and work for a brand-new news operation?
"That's exactly it," he said. "I've been in the business for 40 years. I started when I was 16 years old. The one thing that I have never done in my life . . . is start a newscast from the beginning - to be part of the team that is actually going to put a newscast together."
This isn't the first time that KSTU news director Dick Tuininga has tried to hire Clooney. Tuininga tried to bring Clooney to stations in both Pittsburgh and Los Angeles.
"In both cases I said no. In both cases, I had done those jobs before," Clooney said. "I had gone to established stations that had suffered a drop in ratings and worked to bring those viewers back. I didn't want to do it again.
"This is an entirely different situation."
He compared it to making nightly news commentaries, which he has done in Cincinnati for the past several years.
"That's really putting yourself out there. That makes my palms sweat," Clooney said.
"This makes my palms sweat. This is something new, something interesting, something energizing, something that might actually contribute to the community."
Clooney is accustomed to a high profile. He was just a young boy when his older sisters, Rosemary and Betty, began performing as singers. Rosemary Clooney, of course, went on to worldwide fame.
And the sisters used to tell interviewers that young "Nicky" was the real musical talent in the family.
"None of that was true, of course," he said with a laugh. "They were just being overly supportive of their little brother.
"But I'm sure that's exactly where I got the confidence to go on the air and tackle this business. I had two sisters who were always building me up."
Rosemary, Betty and Nick, the "three musketeers," supported each other. Children of divorce, they spent part of their childhoods being shuffled from the home of one relative to another.
"Betty passed away, but Rosemary and I are still two of the three musketeers," he said. "We're very close. We talk all the time."
And Clooney's son, George, has become a successful television actor, co-starring in series like "E.R.," "Roseanne" and "Baby Talk," despite the fact that, "I tried to talk him out of acting," Nick Clooney said.
The newsman is not only working for an entirely new news source, but he's doing it in a new city.
"There's something that a native of an area can bring to a news broadcast," he said. "But there's also something that an outsider can bring - a fresh perspective, a different way of looking at things."
And he's determined to learn all he can about Salt Lake City and Utah. He's already spent time hanging out in laundromats, dry cleaners and restaurants.
After the recent, apparently random shooting outside the downtown Marriott Hotel, Clooney was on the streets asking everyone from shoppers to transients for their reactions.
Mind you, this was a month and a half before he's going to go on the air here.
"I think that to be a good anchor, you have to be a good reporter," Clooney said. "I'm not interested in just sitting behind the desk."
And he does more than just talk about getting out and reporting on stories. He spent a lot of time reporting in his years in Cincinnati.
As a matter of fact, that's why he left L.A. with three years remaining on his contract - because he wasn't allowed out of the studio.
One obvious difference that Utah viewers will note when tuning into the KSTU broadcast is that Clooney will be the sole anchor Monday through Friday. He's operated solo throughout most of his career.
"I'm comfortable with that. And it gives you the freedom to use your reporters a lot more," he said.
And, under the direction of Tuininga, KSTU will attempt to take local television news into its "next generation."
"We hope what you will see is an entirely different thought process in the development of the lead story," he said. "We are going to try to look and see if that spot-news story has resonance throughout the community and, if so, how.
"We're going to try to write the story so that everybody will understand why this is the most important story. If we can't, we're not going to make it the lead story."
Because the KSTU news staff will be producing just one broadcast a day, they'll have the time to concentrate more on that different way of thinking.
Creating a new news-gathering operation and putting a broadcast together is only half the battle - then KSTU is going to have to attract some viewers.
"We know it won't be easy. This is a strong news town," Clooney said. "But we can't be overly concerned about that right now. That's really out of our hands. It's up to the viewers."