At the end of August, veteran sports and news journalist Art Holliday retired after 46 years at KSDK in St. Louis. But back in late July 1979, he was a lanky, 25-year-old Mizzou grad about to become a weekend sportscaster at a major station in his hometown — and freaking out about it.
“Instead of just focusing on the job, I was thinking, ‘Oh, my coaches are going to be watching, and my former teammates and my cousins and my neighbors and …’ I just made myself into a crazy person,” Holliday said. “I appreciate the fact, in retrospect, that the audience gave me time to become whatever I was going to become.”
His multidecade career at KSDK encompassed five positions, including roles as a general assignment reporter and an early-morning show producer. Holliday’s 22-year stint as co-anchor of Channel 5’s “Today in St. Louis” went a long way to establishing his status as a beloved public figure. He also made St. Louis media history when he became KSDK’s first Black news director. Holliday’s numerous and varied professional experiences to that point – “the joys and trials and tribulations” – informed his approach to that prominent leadership role.
Looking back on his work over the past 46 years, Holliday said the heart of it all was service-focused journalism.
“We're trying to make our communities better. Obviously the role is different, moving from sports to news, but in general, we're here to serve the public,” he said. “There's always an opportunity to get something right. And that's really the goal, to come up with a strategic plan to cover stories that are going to make people smarter, safer, make them care about their community more, introduce them to characters that they might not have ordinarily known about.”
Speaking of characters, Holliday said retirement won’t stop his dedication to sharing people’s stories. In fact, he’s long planned to use his post-retirement career to pursue another passion: producing documentary films. “I know how to tell a story, but there's a lot more to documentary filmmaking than just telling the story. There's also the business. You figure out a way that people can see it.”
Art Holliday is already on his way. “I have two documentaries I'm working on. I'm hoping that one day I can come on here and say it's actually going to be in a theater or being streamed somewhere,” Holliday said.
To hear what happened when Art Holliday persuaded St. Louis Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog to wear a wireless mic during a game and how his journalism work informed his first documentary film, listen to St. Louis on the Air on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, or click the play button below.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Darrious Varner is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.
