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Speaker 1: Former WIBC newsman extraordinariy Eric Berman passed away.

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Speaker 2: This morning.

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Speaker 1: And for those of you who know longtime WIBC listeners, look,

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Speaker 1: I think he was here for more than twenty years,

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Speaker 1: from the nineties all the way into I mean he

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Speaker 1: was here through parts of COVID and many of you

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Speaker 1: will remember Eric Berman as the longtime voice of the

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Speaker 1: State House back when WIBC used to have a permanent

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Speaker 1: entrenched like many other news outlets positioned in the state House.

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Speaker 1: He would do daily reports from the State House. He

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Speaker 1: would get the interviews with the politicians. And he was

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Speaker 1: a phenomenally interesting guy despite in addition to his reporting

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Speaker 1: that everybody knew him from best known probably as he

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Speaker 1: won on Jeopardy.

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Speaker 2: He was Jeopardy Champ. He was on it. He won

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Speaker 2: an episode of Jeopardy.

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Speaker 1: And Eric was a very interesting guy obviously if you

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Speaker 1: went on Jeopardy, guy whose IQ was off the charts.

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Speaker 1: And you know, when you deal with people who are

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Speaker 1: so ridiculously intelligent like an Eric Berman, and then you

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Speaker 1: have a guy like me, So what's up right? Like,

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Speaker 1: what do you even talk to a guy like that?

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Speaker 1: But I was talking to him about his appearance on Jeopardy,

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Speaker 1: and he said the biggest challenge of Jeopardy was not

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Speaker 1: the questions, but it was mastering the buzzer.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, buzzing in to answer the question.

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Speaker 1: Because there was really an art to doing the buzzer.

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Speaker 1: And what he said was he said a lot of times,

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Speaker 1: the people who will be very the most effective on

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Speaker 1: Jeopardy are not necessarily the smartest people. It obviously helps,

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Speaker 1: or even the most well rounded also helps, but the

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Speaker 1: people who can master the buzzer because it is a

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Speaker 1: sprint to get into that buzzer properly. So anyway, I

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Speaker 1: wanted to pass that along that he and he did

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Speaker 1: pass away this morning. I worked with Eric for I

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Speaker 1: say with I mean, he was over at the State

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Speaker 1: House most the time, but I'd see him in the

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Speaker 1: building and obviously we would air his reports and for

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Speaker 1: numerous years and just a really great sort of a

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Speaker 1: sort of he was a throwback a bygone era it

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Speaker 1: doesn't exist anymore in which media outlets had people Casey

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Speaker 1: totally entrenched in the state House every single day.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, a state House press corps.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's interesting I was having I mentioned that

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Speaker 1: I had lunch yesterday with a very prominent Democrat, not

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Speaker 1: an office holder, but somebody who's very entrenched in politics

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Speaker 1: for many, many years in the Democrat Party. And we

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Speaker 1: were talking about just this, about how he was saying that.

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Speaker 1: You think about even twenty five years ago or thirty

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Speaker 1: years ago, there were forty plus people with media credentials

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Speaker 1: there inside the state House, like you know, legitimate. I

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Speaker 1: worked for this newspaper. And they were from all over

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Speaker 1: the state. You had Louisville at Fort Wayne, you had

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Speaker 1: the region. They had people that they would send down here,

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Speaker 1: especially during session, and they were just entrenched. They lived here, right,

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Speaker 1: And you had all of these people trying to search

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Speaker 1: out all of these things, not just in terms there's

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Speaker 1: a policy, but hey, what's the Shenanigan's going on behind

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Speaker 1: the scenes, And through budget cuts and consolidations and more

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Speaker 1: budget cuts and more consolidations, there's only a handful of

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Speaker 1: people even there anymore.

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Speaker 2: And that's why these politicians do what they do. They

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Speaker 2: most can get away with it. Yeah, and for the

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Speaker 2: most part, they all live here in Indianapolis full time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and you think about I get this

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Speaker 1: all the time. I'm sure you get this all the time.

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Speaker 1: I know, are other friends in the media get this

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Speaker 1: all the time. Why aren't you covering blank? You should

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Speaker 1: look into.

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Speaker 2: Da da da da da.

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Speaker 1: And it's like, okay, but when do you expect me

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Speaker 1: to do whatever thing you want me to do in

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Speaker 1: addition to all the other things I do? And it

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Speaker 1: just really is hard. It's no, it's no fault of

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Speaker 1: the media into well, I mean in the sense they've

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Speaker 1: they've cutted their budgets, they've slashed their budgets, they don't

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Speaker 1: have this anymore. But in terms of the people that

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Speaker 1: are in the state House, there's only so many hours

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Speaker 1: in the day. You have to cover the nuts and

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Speaker 1: bolts of the stuff going on because that's actually affecting

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Speaker 1: people's lives. So then when you get all these sort

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Speaker 1: of like extracurricular things that are happening.

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Speaker 2: Can't do it all. You just can't. And that's why these

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Speaker 2: politicians pull the stuff they do.

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Speaker 1: It takes a very high bar, see someone maybe getting

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Speaker 1: indicted or being oh, I don't know, under a grand

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Speaker 1: jury investigation to actually draw the attention of the public

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Speaker 1: because you have to have some sort of paper trail

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Speaker 1: of something to get to be looking into these things.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but by all accounts. Eric Berman was a truly

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Speaker 2: kind person and had a thirst for knowledge.

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Speaker 1: Oh he was great. He was great, and he truly

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Speaker 1: was a throwback to a bygone era. Guys like him

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Speaker 1: just don't really exist anymore. And one of the things

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Speaker 1: about Eric Berman, who was it was fascinating to talk

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Speaker 1: to him because he never really gave his opinion on anything.

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Speaker 2: A true journalist.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean on these stories, on these stories he

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Speaker 1: would cover, you'd sit there and shoot the breeze with him,

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Speaker 1: and you know, he'd have opinions on things. But my

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Speaker 1: point is in his news reports, in the things he

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Speaker 1: covered fact based, he was just here's what happened. And

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Speaker 1: this is what the WBC newsroom still does so well

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Speaker 1: to this day. Now we don't have somebody in entrench

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Speaker 1: in the State House like we once did, but the

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Speaker 1: news department, they're totally separate from us. We talk about

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Speaker 1: this all the time that those guys are not us,

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Speaker 1: and we are not them, and they're certainly not accountable

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Speaker 1: to or for us. Right, they do a very good job,

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Speaker 1: the WIBC newsroom, as it has for generations, of just

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Speaker 1: simply giving you the facts and then letting you decide

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Speaker 1: what to do with that right, Letting you decide