North Star Port

NE THING LOCAL BROADCASTERS can count on when a televised sporting event delays the nightly newscast is that viewers are going to call. So on Nov. 10, 1975, it was not surprising when the phone rang in the WDIO-TV newsroom during a broadcast of ABC's Monday Night Football. The Kansas City Chiefs were heading toward a 34-31 victory over the Dallas Cowboys in a game that kicked off at 8:07 p.m. Central Time and inched through a first half with six turnovers and 41 points. Folks in the newsroom knew they were in for a long night—and it was about to get a lot longer. "We interrupt this program…" "The woman on the phone was from Superior, and she said she was listening to her shortwave radio and heard a ship had gone down in Lake Superior," recalled Dennis Anderson, then news anchor of WDIO-TV in Duluth. "I told her I would check it out and thanked her for the tip." Moments later, a Duluth woman called with the same story. Anderson contacted the U.S. Coast Guard in Duluth. They con- firmed their understanding that a ship was down and gave him a phone number for the Coast Guard in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. "I hit paydirt on that second phone call," Anderson said. "They didn't know how many people were on board, but they told me it was the Edmund Fitzgerald and that it was being followed by the Arthur M. Anderson. The ship captains had been in contact with one another, and, suddenly there was no more communication from the Edmund Fitzgerald. They assumed it had gone down because it was a very stormy night." Anderson debated whether to break into the football game, wait for the game to end, or hold the story until the morning when more information would be available. "It was a story of such magnitude that I knew it couldn't wait," said Anderson, who opted to break in with audio only because studio cameras of that era had to "cook," or warm up, for several minutes before going on the air. "I went into the audio booth, did about a 45-second bulletin that a ship had gone down in Lake Superior, and promised to have further details. The phones lit up like Christmas trees with people wanting information … we were their only source at that point." 50 YEARS LATER, REPORTERS REFLECT ON COVERING THE EDMUND FITZGERALD By JULIE ZENNER 4 | NORTH STAR PORT | FALL 2025 BRE A KING NE WS: Ship Down ILLUSTRATION / Michael Iver Jacobsen ABC'S MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL TELECAST WAS ONE OF AMERICA'S MOST-WATCHED PROGRAMS ON NOV. 10, 1975, BUT WDIO-TV NEWS ANCHOR DENNIS ANDERSON HAD BREAKING NEWS THAT COULDN'T WAIT.

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