Date: Fri 13-Nov-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Quick Words:

Smith-Positively-Connecticut

Full Text:

Diane Smith's Outlook Is Positively Connecticut

(with book cover, cuts)

BY SHANNON HICKS

Oftentimes, television news reporters are hard put to find something positive to report about. Most any day's top stories, and certainly the majority of a broadcast's breaking news, is something that has to do with the downside of human nature.

News anchor and reporter Diane Smith says she was tired of people always telling her there is nothing but bad news on TV. While many people may still feel similarly, these are obviously television viewers who have not yet seen Ms Smith's wonderfully engaging series of reports called "Positively Connecticut."

Ms Smith began broadcasting her "Positively Connecticut" segments in 1985 on WTNH-TV, Connecticut's ABC affiliate. The series is now seen every week as a regular feature during the station's Monday evening broadcasts of "News Channel 8." In addition to her special segments, Diane Smith is also co-anchor for "News Channel 8 at Noon" and a general assignment reporter for the New Haven-based television station.

For "Positively Connecticut" Ms Smith has traversed the state's highways and back roads to find the unusual people and places that make our state so special. Her reports are welcome respites from the negativity that makes up the majority of the news. They are bright and cheerful, and introduce Connecticut residents to fellow residents most would never have the opportunity to meet. Ms Smith's reports also encourage intrastate travel to some extent, to meet the featured people in person, which her stories have briefly introduced viewers to.

Now Ms Smith has selected 70 segments from the over 400 she has broadcast over the past decade-plus and is offering Positively Connecticut: Selected Stories from the Award-Winning WTNH-TV Series (Globe-Pequot Press, Old Saybrook, Conn.; October 1998, 160 pgs, 300 color photos, $19.95 softcover) in book form. Like Ms Smith, the book is positively Connecticut, and unquestionably upbeat.

Ms Smith is seen as someone who cares about finding the "ordinary" folks in the Nutmeg State. She has met with dog racers in Higganum, visited the state's last operating cashmere mill in Stafford Springs, and spoken with the director of the Southern New England Military Museum in Danbury, among her jaunts.

The book is a beautiful homage to who and what Connecticut and its citizens are. Ms Smith's reports have been upbeat in their presentation from the start, and her book carries that practice right through from page one. A beautiful Introduction is written in the same exuberant, positive tone Ms Smith uses for her broadcasts.

Like their televised counterparts, the 64 segment overviews in Positively Connecticut are brief, to the point. The longest story, in fact, is the one which concerns the now internationally-famous Amistad incident, and even that story is only four pages long. But don't let the brevity fool you. The stories are still fascinating, interesting and enough to whet any reader's whistle.

The majority of the stories are two facing pages each, with excerpts from Ms Smith's interviews and the answers from the featured people she has met. Over 300 color illustrations decorate the 160-page book, using video stills from the original footage as photographs. Every story's title gives an idea of who is about to be introduced, or where a reader is about to travel — "A Gem of a Vineyard," "The Oyster Farmer," "The First American Cookbook," and so on.

Each story is also accompanied by an outline of the state map, with the name of the town where the story takes place and a star within the state lines to indicate where each adventure is taking place.

Readers learn everything from who the Salt and Pepper Singers are and who wrote the first cookbook with recipes from native American ingredients to where the hamburger was first created or what legendary New York Pops conductor Skitch Henderson does when he isn't using the baton at the concert hall.

While the "Positively Connecticut" series is over 15 years old, many of the people and places originally featured on "Positively Connecticut" are still around. Being the journalist she is, Ms Smith felt stories for the book should not only be featured again, but they were worthy of updates. What is nice about having the book is that Ms Smith was able to add small additions to most of the stories in Positively Connecticut.

The story concerning Bethlehem's Abbey of Regina Laudis, for example, includes the notation that a CD created by the nuns of the abbey, called Women in Chant, not only completely sold the original 3,000 issues printed, but also that the work is now available nationwide. (Sadly, there is still no news of when the abbey's always-popular fair, which was put on hold a few years ago, will be returning.) Some of the stories have updates for a story, while others have additional information that goes a bit deeper than what was originally broadcast.

Of course, the fact that the series has such a library already built up, not to mention the fact it's still going strong, leaves the door wide open for additional volumes of Positively Connecticut.

An Emmy Award winner for her broadcast journalism, Diane Smith takes immense pride in the state she calls her home. She and her husband live on the Connecticut shoreline.

Diane Smith is currently on a book tour around the state for Positively Connecticut. This week, she will be at the Norwalk Maritime Center on Sunday, November 15, from 1-3 pm, and then at Borders Books Music Cafe in Danbury on Tuesday, November 17, from 7 to 8 pm.