Staying Power: Dave Fortin has been Northern Michigan‘s Top TV Storyteller for 40 Years

May 26, 2004

Everyone in Northern Michigan knows Dave Fortin -- even people who’ve never met him. If you grew up here, chances are good that Dave’s face was one of the last things you saw before going to sleep each night.
That’s because Fortin has been dishing up the news on TV 7/4 for more than 40 years in a career that began back in 1963. And when Dave peers out of your TV tube each night, he shares a zest for his slice-o’-life stories that has burned with a steady flame across four decades of covering what’s new in Northern Michigan.
These days, Fortin, 64, covers the environmental, agriculture and outdoors beat for WPBN/WTOM 7/4 with a sideline in Charles Kurwalt-style road-trippin’ stories from around the region. His latest series has him driving to Michigan’s geographical extremities -- reporting from the tippy-tip of the Keewanaw Peninsula to more than 500 miles south to a sliver of land along the Indiana border. It’s the sort of loopy, gee-whiz story that livens up the regular broadcast of auto accidents and school board meetings, and Fortin punctuates his reports with such an earnest sense of urgency that he pulls the viewer into his circle.

TELLING THE STORY
With his grave face, untamed hair and droll sense of humor, some consider Fortin a bit of a character, but it’s the power to tell a story in his own singular style that has made him an institution on local TV in Northern Michigan.
“I’ve never modeled myself after anyone,” he responds thoughtfully when asked who his news influences were. “I’ve tried to avoid calling myself a journalist or even calling myself a reporter. I’ve tried to consider myself a storyteller. I’ve always felt that if you could turn on your television set and see my stories, it would be very similar to walking up and talking to the person involved. I try to make it just above the level of, ‘Well, I’ll tell ya.’ I have a story to tell, but I let other people tell it.”
That storytelling ability has made Fortin a survivor in what can be a merciless profession. In fact, one broadcast museum researcher believes that Fortin holds the record for the longest-serving newsman at a non-network station east of the Mississippi. He’s held his post through numerous shakeouts through the years, including the station’s notorious “Black Monday,” in which a former management company fired 17 employees in one day back in the ‘90s.
He’s grateful that the current management of Raycom Communications has been supportive of his efforts, extending a sense of faith in his stories. In January, the company threw a party for him with the gift of a Caribbean trip for two and praising Fortin with the words, “Through rain, sleet and snow and dark of night, you’ve always given 110% of each and every day in your 40-year tenure.”

BEST REPORTER
You get the feeling that those words are the real paycheck for Fortin, along with grass-roots awards he’s received for his environmental, agricultural and business coverage. He says that earning “best reporter” awards from Northern Express readers on two occasions touched him in a way that goes beyond professional honors.
“I’ve never deliberately entered a media competition,” he says. “I’ve always felt that if the people themselves take notice of me, that’s what means the most.”
Blessed with a resonant voice that ranges from a smokey husk to a smooth purr, Fortin can make heads turn in the supermarket, just asking his wife Joanie what brand she wants in the cart. “People may not recognize me in person, but when I say something, they know they’ve heard that voice somewhere and they’ll turn around to look,” he says with a smile.

EARLY DAYS Those characteristics have served him well over the past 40 years in an industry that’s gone through tremendous changes. Consider that when Fortin started in the business, Walter Cronkite was still winding up the CBS Nightly News by lighting his pipe on camera. Or that Fortin’s first few years of broadcasting were shot on 16 mm black & white film that he souped himself in a makeshift darkroom.
“It always took 90 minutes to develop the film before you knew if you had any good footage,” he says, adding that in the years between B&W and digital photography, reporters shot color Ektachrome which also involved an arduous development process.
Born in Muskegon, Fortin attended high school in Traverse City and went on to Northwestern Michigan College. While in college, he had the foresight to obtain a certificate in meteorology to fulfill a science requirement.
In the early ‘60s, Fortin moved to New York City to launch an off-Broadway acting career. While there, he performed on guitar and vocals at open mic nights at the famed Cafè Wha? in Greenwich Village where the likes of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Odetta and other folksingers were just starting out. “I was there one night when Peter, Paul and Mary had just gotten together and weren’t being paid like the other performers, so they just passed a hat around,” he recalls.

WEATHERMAN
An acting career didn’t pan out and Fortin returned home with his wife Joanie and a baby on the way (the first of two daughters, Michelle and Sonya). “I came back with the idea of finding a new direction and contemplating the idea of going back to New York or California, but after a couple of months, my wife said she thought it might be nicer to raise kids here,” he says.
By luck, Fortin met the manager of the local television station and learned that he had a shared interest in gardening and antiques (among his many other pursuits -- photography, acting, music, etc.). It led to a job offer as the station’s weatherman.
“Since acting is temporary work here and there and I had been out of work for awhile and out of money, both my wife and mother said the weatherman job would give me some income, so stick with it awhile,” he recalls. “But I was still thinking of it as a temporary job.”
But, backed by his certificate in meteorology, Fortin ended up going the distance. “One night there was an accident and I took the camera out and got some footage,” he says of an incident in the early ‘60s. “And the anchorman said, you were there -- why don’t you come on the set and tell us about what happened.”
The evening launched Fortin’s career from weatherman to reporter.
“I started shooting features and going to fires or presentations. Back then, a weatherman could do commercials and news. Just about everybody at the station did everything.”

TWO MILLION MILES
He did weather reports until 1980 and then got the okay to switch to reporting full-time.
Through the years, Fortin’s philosophy has been to be available 24-7 for 7/4’s news team.
“If there’s an emergency, I’m available wherever or whenever if the story warrants it,” he says. “I’m not God’s gift to television, but I think that if I’ve survived, it’s been through just the willingness to get out there and respond and be factual in my reports and be people-oriented. If I’m on the scene and there are three, four, five people there to make a comment, I let them tell the story.”
That esprit de corps has resulted in an estimated two million miles of travel throughout the region in pursuit of stories over the past 40 years, along with some 32,000 interviews.

CRACKING STORIES
Those who know him say that Fortin could spin stories for weeks on end of all the journalistic adventures he’s had. At times, he’s used innovative approaches to nail interviews with the likes of Johnny Cash and Bob Hope, who had “no interview” policies when they traveled. Fortin scored an interview with Hope by approaching the comedian’s traveling companion, football player Rosie Greer, who he had interviewed the year before.
A big score was gaining a three-part interview with then-General Motors chief Roger Smith. Fortin wanted to report on how changes in the auto industry would affect Northern Michigan.
“I called his secretary and she just laughed at me,” he recalls. “This was during the time of Michael Moore’s film, ‘Roger and Me.’ So I said why don’t you let him know who I am and what I want to do, and she said she couldn’t because Smith was vacationing in Harbor Springs. That was the clue I needed -- 17 phone calls later, I found out that Smith was going to visit a yacht in Harbor Springs. So I went up, walked down the dock and said, hi, I’m Dave Fortin.”
After hearing the pitch, Smith asked Fortin where his news crew was. Fortin replied that it was just him. The chairman of GM asked if it would be okay if he went and put his suit on so he’d look business-like in the interview. The result was a rare interview in which Smith outlined the future of the auto industry, with fewer workers replaced by those with better training and pay to match.

NOSE FOR NEWS
The story illustrates the lengths to which Fortin will go to bag a story -- driving 90 miles to Harbor Springs for a chance encounter on a dock. He also tells the time he spent driving all over the state, from Clare to Ludington, Manistee and back to Traverse City for a 1:40 second report on oil drilling for the 6 o’clock news.
“That’s the name of the game sometimes. You’re in the car driving all day to get the story. We have 20 counties to serve from the east end of the U.P. to Ludington.”
Besides his work ethic, Fortin has a nose for news, quirky and otherwise. Recently, for instance, he interviewed orchard farmer Earl Peterson, whose farm in Hart has landed a contract to provide tons of apples to MacDonald’s as part of the company’s push for healthier menu items. The story was picked up by NBC News.
And while Northern Michigan tends to be far from the news currents of the world, Fortin has managed to be in on some of its biggest stories. In 1972, for instance, he covered a freak gas well blow-out in Williamsburg that resulted in the evacuation of 80 families in the area and the shutdown of M-72 for the summer.

LOOKING AHEAD
Fortin’s sense of humanity provides the shine on his stories and serves him well on the funny bits he does, such as his annual “Santa Watch,” which is a 20-year tradition at the station. Reporting from a Coast Guard helicopter over Grand Traverse Bay, Fortin deadpans Santa’s arrival in staccato style as a cartoon sleigh flies across the screen. Maybe that’s what it takes to be a good storyteller -- a sense of drama, a touch of fun, a passion for finding out what makes the world tick and the ability to touch the listener’s heart. Dave Fortin has all of those things.