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Mike Forrest 1963 - 1965 News Bio Archive Gallery

I learned my craft as a news reporter, from the greatest street reporter ever, Jim Gash. I was his driver...but much more as I acquired the skills needed to become one hell of a nasty reporter in my own right. I spent 11 years in San Francisco as "Jim Gash West Coast" evolved into Mike Forrest, Metromedia News, and then into television as a Sports Anchor first in San Francisco at KPIX-TV and then KTVU-TV. In 1978 I was hired as Sports Anchor at KYW-TV in Philadelphia, where I just missed working with someone I worked with in my early years at WNEW AM. Mort Crim had just left KYW-TV for Detroit, as I was arriving.

I should have taken the hint. Though I loved the job..(and let's face it, being a broadcaster-journalist is the best job in the world) the time and place was wrong. Management of the station changed 9 times in the 5 years I was held captive there.

I was immediately picked up by a fledgling broadcast company out of Bristol, Conn. ESPN was in it's first years and I jumped aboard as the train was picking up speed. Believe it or not during the next 7 years, working on just a handshake I covered over 31 hundred stories. Shades of my training under Gash. I even was the reporter/producer of the first live shot ever done on SportsCenter.

I got off the train in the 90's and wound up behind the camera, directing and producing a 1 minute a day interstitial known as The Green Grocer's, Produce Tip of the Day. We sold this to as many as 65 broadcast stations. Syndication is great for the bank account.

After 10 years of The Green Grocer, I gleefully went back to my first, and always love. From 2000 to 2006, I again worked as a news reporter, for News12NewJersey, a 24-7 all news cable delivered service. The last several years as their Trenton, Capitol Bureau Chief.

And I continue to work as I travel from Cherry Hill, NJ to New York City on a semi-regular basis, where I work as an "extra", now called "Background Actor". If you don't blink, you may have seen me in a few motion pictures or TV shows such as "Rescue Me", "In Treatment", "Damages" to name a few.

And this unbelievable odyssey all started at the Greatest Radio Station in the World.....WNEW AM

Thanks for the opportunity Mr. Kluge and you too John V.B. Sullivan, and bless you Jim Gash.