I grew up in one of the seemingly small number of Rochester families without a relative employed by Kodak.
But that doesn’t mean the once-mighty photographic empire didn’t touch my life. Kodak’s expected bankruptcy filing conjured up memories of sight, sound and even smell.
Anyone who lived in western New York in the 1970s and ‘80s likely remembers the spike in print and broadcast automobile advertising in March when the more than 50,000 Kodak workers cashed their annual “Kodak Bonus” check. The jingle “Piehler, Piehler, the Pontiac Dealer” still echoes in my brain.
Unfortunately, the stench of Kodak wasn’t nearly as pleasant as the Piehler jingle. Smokestacks near Kodak Park spewed acrid plumes and rained gritty particulate onto cars parked downwind.
As a teenage ice cream truck driver, I’d leave my car parked near the Lake and Ridgeway Skippy Ice Cream depot for long periods. The “Kodak rain” prompted plenty of pollution conspiracy theories – and hose downs of our cars. Around that same period, high levels of carcinogenic chemicals were detected in the ground water on nearby Rand Street.
One thing Kodak did very well – in addition to manufacturing film, batteries, copy machines and, more recently, inkjet printers — was generating news.
As the Rochester reporter for UPI, I was on the receiving end of many press releases produced by Kodak’s formidable media relations operation and blue chip PR firms like Hill & Knowlton. While most of the “news” was far from time-sensitive, Kodak’s quarterly earnings announcements were of critical importance.
Because Kodak was a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and other key indexes in those days, the financial newswires like Dow Jones and Reuters routinely issued a headline within seconds of the NYSE:EK release crossing PR Newswire or Business Wire.
But the secretary in Kodak’s PR department openly complained about lengthy service delays at the commercial newswires. Her solution to make sure market-moving news was quickly delivered to the Democrat & Chronicle, Times-Union and Rochester TV and radio stations was to assemble a line-up of taxicabs outside Kodak Office on State Street.
So that’s where I stood on the mornings Kodak issued its earnings. As Joan Miller delivered envelopes to the cabbies, I ran with the press release to a bank of pay phones at Kodak headquarters and called in the earnings numbers to UPI’s financial editor, Dottie Brooks. By 1985, I was using my first laptop computer — a Radio Shack TRS80 Model 100, complete with an acoustic cup modem — to write Kodak earnings stories.
Beating AP, Dow Jones and Reuters consistently on breaking news from Kodak was an obsession.
A defining moment in my relationship with Kodak came after a federal judge ruled that Kodak had infringed Polaroid’s patents in the creation of a Kodak instant camera. My editor at UPI, Steve Geimann, jazzed up the headline: “Kodak Convicted of Stealing Polaroid Trade Secrets.” The comms guy at Kodak, Charlie Smith, went too far in expressing his displeasure over the headline. A bridge was burned.
From that day on, I shot Fuji film.
I grew up in one of the seemingly small number of Rochester families without a relative employed by Kodak.
But that doesn’t mean the once-mighty photographic empire didn’t touch my life. Kodak’s bankruptcy filing conjured up memories of sight, smell and even taste.
Anyone who lived in western New York in the 1970s and ‘80s likely remembers the spike in print and broadcast automobile advertising in March when the more than 50,000 Kodak workers cashed their annual “Kodak Bonus” check. The jingle “Piehler, Piehler, the Pontiac Dealer” still echoes in my brain.
Unfortunately, the taste of Kodak wasn’t nearly as perky as the Piehler jingle. Smokestacks near Kodak Park spewed acrid plumes and rained gritty particulate onto cars parked downwind.
As a teenage Skippy ice cream truck driver, I’d leave my car parked near Lake and Ridgeway avenues for long periods. The “Kodak rain” prompted plenty of conversation – and hose downs of our cars. Around that same period, high levels of carcinogenic chemicals were detected in the ground water on nearby Rand Street.
One thing Kodak did very well – in addition to manufacturing film, batteries, copy machines and, more recently, inkjet printers — was generating news.
As the Rochester reporter for UPI, I was on the receiving end of many press releases produced by Kodak’s formidable media relations operation and blue chip PR firms like Hill & Knowlton. While most of the “news” was far from time-sensitive, Kodak’s quarterly earnings announcements were of critical importance.
Because Kodak was a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average in those days, the financial newswires like Dow Jones and Reuters routinely issued a headline within seconds of the NYSE:EK release crossing PR Newswire or Business Wire.
But the secretary in Kodak’s PR department openly shared her disgust over lengthy delays at the commercial newswires. Her solution to make sure market-moving news was delivered to the Democrat & Chronicle, Times-Union and Rochester TV and radio stations was to assemble a line-up of taxicabs outside Kodak Office on State Street.
So that’s where I stood on the mornings Kodak issued its earnings. As Joan Miller delivered envelopes to the cabbies, I ran with the press release to a bank of pay phones at Kodak headquarters and called in the numbers to UPI’s financial editor, Dottie Brooks.
Beating AP, Dow Jones and Reuters consistently on breaking news from Kodak was an obsession.
A defining moment in my relationship with Kodak came after a federal judge ruled that Kodak had infringed Polaroid’s patents in the creation of a Kodak instant camera. My editor at UPI, Steve Geimann, jazzed up the headline: “Kodak Convicted of Stealing Polaroid Trade Secrets.” The comms guy at Kodak, Charlie Smith, went too far in expressing his displeasure. A bridge was burned.
From that day on, I shot Fuji film.