Barney Lerten
Digital Content Director
They call me the "face" of KTVZ.COM, but most of the time my face just shows in that little square box as the author or co-author of many of our news articles. I sometimes also post to our Website's online comments -- a lively place and one I try to not comment in too often, only when questions are (nicely) asked or some reminders of civility and sensitivity are needed.
I've been in journalism pretty much all my life, since second grade and the "Room 210 Tooter." At John Adams High School in Portland, I really caught the TV news bug, but only returned to it 25 years later. Journalism also was the focus of my four years at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore.
My first "real" journalism job was with the wire service United Press International -- kids, ask your folks what a "wire service" is/was -- and that was quite a fun, fascinating 14 years.
I've been covering news in Central Oregon for more than 30 years, at first with The Bulletin, then a five-year stint writing for Bend.com and The Bugle, before arriving here at NewsChannel 21 in early 2005.
At first, I was assistant news director and also a TV reporter, with only a little Web stuff to do (my video is lost to history -- trust me, that's a good thing), and then assumed the mantle of assignment editor for a few years, also doing weekly on-air commentaries called "Leave It to Barney" (which lives on as a blog I post to at times). But as KTVZ.COM has grown in importance, my time spent on it has grown as well. (Oh man, has it!)
It can be an all-consuming passion, I'll admit - and folks sometimes wonder whether I sleep. Believe me, I do, and live just about a mile from the station with my ever-patient (saintly, actually) wife of nearly 40 wonderful years, Deb, and our two crazy kitty-cats, Buddy and Oreo.
I love the promise of new technology (one of my favorite gadgets: my Nook tablets, chock full of magazines and books I fight to find time to read) and, like so many of you, get frustrated as heck at the reality of tech – the inevitable gotchas, illogic, inconsistencies and breakdowns. One day it’ll all work! Better! Perfectly! Thanks to AI! (Yeah, right:-) But until then, it’s a worthy challenge – and sometimes even fun!
