Saldo returns to area with ‘Connecting Point’

Feb. 8, 2018 | G. Michael Dobbs
news@thereminder.com

Carrie saldo is returning to WGBY with a new five-day a week version of "Connecting Point."
Reminder Publications submitted photo.

SPRINGFIELD – A favorite local TV program is coming back with a new schedule, a new host and a renewed commitment to local journalism.

“Connecting Point” will return for its eighth season on Feb. 19 on WGBY and will expand from a three-night a week series to five nights a week with “The State We're In” as the fifth night every Friday starting Feb. 23.

Journalist Carrie Saldo is returning as the host of the program, a role she served from 2010 to 2013. She is replacing the recently retired Jim Madigan.

In a press release noting her return to the station, WGBY Deputy General Manager Lynn Page said Saldo was an obvious choice for the job. “Carrie Saldo is the perfect addition to our team,” Page said. “She worked closely with Jim Madigan in the past and knows the region and its leadership very well. Carrie cares deeply for western New England. She understands the people, traditions, and cultures. She will continue Jim’s legacy as well as the mission of WGBY to connect the people of our region.”

Saldo’s work in journalism has garnered awards from the Heartland Emmy Chapter, Colorado Broadcasters Association, Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, and others.

Saldo and Anthony Dunne, the show’s executive producer, spoke with Reminder Publications about the revised program.

After studying film and television production at Emerson College and the University of Massachusetts, Dunne has spent the past 15 years working as a producer in news, commercial, independent, and most recently public television. He has produced magazine programs, nightly newscasts, quiz shows, lifestyle and health programming, as well as the nationally-distributed documentary “Things That Go Bump in the Night: Tales of Haunted New England” for PBS.

Saldo explained the five-days-a-week schedule “positions us very uniquely in the PBS system. We’re the only small market station that has a nightly news show.”

Dunne sees the program’s service market as including all of Western Massachusetts, Worcester, southern Vermont and south to Hartford, CT. The program’s staff is diverse, He said and represents the four western counties.

Saldo said the program would be committed to presenting “the best stories possible.” The show will establish relationships with other media outlets

Although the programs will not be broadcast live, Dunne stressed they will be topical, but with “more hows and whys.” Segments will be done both in the studio and in the field and could run as long as four to five minutes, something seldom seen in commercial TV, he explained.

He added, “We committed to in-depth story-telling.” Subjects will not only include “hard” news, but also arts and culture, Dunne added.

Saldo noted the decision to how to “choose to carve up the real estate” [what stories to put on the air]” is being left up to her and Dunne and is a testimony to the confidence station management has in the team.

“It’s an investment in the community,” Dunne said.

Each episode of the program will be available on-line, Saldo said.

“Public media is a trusted source for information," General Manager Anthony Hayes said in a statement. “It's extremely important that our current affairs team lives up to the PBS reputation and provides western New England with the content it expects from us. I have full confidence that Carrie Saldo will produce and deliver that quality local content to viewers."

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