Anchorman Sam Dick retires at Lexington's WKYT-TV; he went public with his prostate cancer, surely saving the lives of others

Sam Dick goes public with his cancer. (WKYT-TV image Tuesday, from broadcast several years ago)

Sam Dick, a familiar face to millions of Kentuckians over a record 34 years as evening anchor on Lexington television, did his last newscast Wednesday night. Thousands of Kentuckians remembered him as the man who used his own case of prostate cancer as a teachable moment that surely saved lives.

The story began with “Three words from my doctor that changed my life,” Dick said. “We found something.” Soon, he shared his journey, through surgery, follow-up tests and, after the cancer returned, radiation treatments.

“The first few times, I was pretty anxious and a little nervous about it,” Dick said in a story by Garrett Wymer, broadcast Tuesday evening on WKYT-TV. “I definitely said some prayers. But after about five or six days of the radiation, I got more comfortable, and actually, I try to take a nap.”

Wymer reports, “He used his platform to open up a dialogue, talking about the importance of annual prostate exams and early detection. . . . It was personal to Sam even before his own diagnosis. His father, David, passed away after a 17-year fight against prostate cancer. He pushed Sam to get annual exams, starting in his 40s.” David Dick was a former CBS News correspondent who directed the University of Kentucky journalism school.

Going public with his story made Sam Dick a resource for other men battling prostate cancer.

Rusty Parsons told Wymer, “Sam’s response was: ‘This is my phone number. Call me.’ We talked and we talked, and I cried. and he said the words that came out of his mouth was: ‘I’ve been through everything you’re going through. You are normal. There is nothing wrong with you.’”

Kentucky Sports Radio is spending a week on the road in low-vaccinated counties to promote coronavirus immunization

Matt Jones talks with sidekicks Drew Franklin and Shannon "The Dude" Grigsby on the first stop of their "Shots Across the Bluegrass" tour, Dinosaur World in Cave City, on Monday. (Photo by Tyler Glick)

He's not counting the number of jabs, but Matt Jones of Kentucky Sports Radio is waving the vaccination banner at stops in the southern half (and lesser vaccinated part) of Kentucky this week.

"Shots Across the Bluegrass" is the theme of Jones's tour to Cave City, Greensburg, Paducah, Manchester and London, in which he does a remote broadcast from 10 to noon ET and vaccinators stand ready to jab audience members from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. local time, without tickets or appointments. Friday he will be at Wildcat Harley Davidson, 575 E. Hal Rogers Parkway in London.

The tour is going mainly to counties with low coronavirus-vaccination rates, Jones said in an interview Thursday, because for "a lot of our audience, especially in the rural parts of the state, we might be one of the few voices they hear really promoting the vaccine. . . . At this point, people are kind of done modifying their behavior, so the best thing you can do is vaccination."

Jones said he hasn't been tallying the shots, but "I've had a lot of people write and say that through it, they’ve gone and gotten and it somewhere else."

He said in a press release, “Getting the shot was one of the best decisions I’ve made in a long time. It gave me peace of mind because not only am I protected, but I’m helping to protect others.”

The host said he and his three sidekicks -- Ryan Lemond, Drew Franklin and Shannon "The Dude" Grigsby, have all been vaccinated, and are "happy we did it," which helps because their listeners are accustomed to hearing them disagree.

Their tour is sponsored by the Kentucky Association of Health Plans, a trade group of companies that provide health insurance in the state. Its press release said its members are using "a range of tactics to promote vaccine access and acceptance such as digital and radio ads, member incentives, coordinated transportation for plan members, pop-up clinics, homebound vaccination visits, text and email campaigns, yard signs, billboards, outbound calls to members prioritized by risk tier, personalized assistance from advocates with sign-ups and digital site navigation, letters, and follow-up on second dose appointments if a plan is alerted that a member has not received the second dose based on claims data."

Positive-test rate hits new high, likely due to less testing, state says, but cases also had a spike, and so did Covid-19 deaths

Kentucky Health News graph, based on state reports; for a larger version, click on it.

By Al Cross
Kentucky Health News

FRANKFORT, Ky., Jan. 2 -- As the new year began, the pandemic in Kentucky had spikes of Covid-19 deaths and the seven-day average of residents who tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

The last day of 2020 was Kentucky's third most deadly of the pandemic, as the state attributed 39 deaths to Covid-19, its third highest one-day total. As with most daily reports, some deaths likely occurred earlier, but 14 deaths Friday and 22 Saturday made a total of 75, and one of the pandemic's more deadly three-day periods.

The percentage of positive tests hit a new high Saturday, 10.79%, but state officials attributed the spike to fewer tests, and a resulting concentration of tests in circumstances where infection was more likely.

"Gov. Andy Beshear said the state’s elevated positivity rate is likely due to some labs and public testing sites being closed over the holiday, which increases the percentage of tests conducted in medical settings where patients are experiencing symptoms and suspect they have the virus," said a release from Beshear's office.

The seven-day average rose significantly every day since Sunday, probably reflecting lab closures during last week's Christmas holidays and this week's New Year's holidays. The rates were 7.97% Monday, 8.41% Tuesday, 9.09% Wednesday, 9.89% Thursday, 10.32% Friday and 10.79% Saturday. The previous high was 10.07% on Dec. 3, a week after Thanksgiving.

The holiday schedule has also skewed the number of new infection cases. On Thursday, Dec, 31, the state reported 4,145 new cases, its third largest one-day figure. Friday and Saturday saw 3,124 and 1,470 cases, respectively, and Saturday's seven-day average of new cases was 2,640, the most since Dec. 24.

The most stable measurements, hospital cases, remained mostly stable. From Monday to Tuesday, Covid-19 hospitalizations in Kentucky hospitals jumped 5.3%, but trended downward the next three days. Saturday's total was 1,635, with 428 of them in intensive care and 211 of those on ventilators.

For the first time, the state's daily report showed a red flag for hospital capacity in northeastern Kentucky, where 82% of inpatient beds and 72% of intensive-care beds were reported to be in use. The state's threshold for flagging a region is 80 percent.

The report continued to flag the easternmost and Lake Cumberland hospital-readiness regions, where ICU beds were 82% and 96% full, respectively. In the Barren River region, ICU beds were 76% full. On Thursday, all four of those regions were flagged.

Beshear said in the release, “Every day we are reminded how fragile the progress we have made in defeating this virus really is. We will wait and watch closely over the coming days and weeks to gauge the impact the holidays may have had on our recent success in slowing new case growth. With more vaccines arriving in 2021, we have a new sense of hope but right now we must all continue to do our part to stop this virus, including wearing a mask and avoiding large in-person gatherings.”

The 75 deaths in the last three days brought the state's total to 2,698, 71% of which have been in long-term care facilities, the second highest rate in the nation.

The state released age, gender and county information only for Thursday's 39 fatalities: a Bell County man, 82; a Boone County man, 77; a Bullitt County man, 87; a Campbell County man, 78; a Daviess County man and woman, 63 and 66; a Fayette County woman, 84; a Franklin County man, 83; a Grant County man, 62; a Harlan County man, 72; a Henderson County man, 31; a Jackson County man, 87; four Jefferson County women, 73, 77, 80 and 96; two Jefferson County men, 72 and 87; a Kenton County woman, 95; a Lewis County man, 80; A Livingston County man and woman, 88 and 92; two Madison County women, 87 and 98; a Madison County man, 79; a Mason County woman, 91; a Muhlenberg County woman, 87; a Perry County woman, 83, Two Pulaski County women, 86 and 89; a Russell County man and woman, 48 and 90; a Shelby County woman, 60; a Taylor County woman, 81; two Washington County man, 62 and 68; and a Whitley County woman, 59.

The state did not release county-by-county information on new cases recorded Friday. Counties with more than 10 new cases Saturday were: Jefferson, 353; Pike, 77; Fayette, 67; Kenton, 49; Hardin, 37; Greenup, 35; Campbell, 33; Daviess, 30; Madison, 29; Christian, 27; Knox, Mercer and Oldham, 26; Bullitt and Shelby, 25; Harrison, 24; Bell and Hopkins, 23; Boyle, Carter, Floyd, Letcher and Warren, 21; Graves, 19; Franklin, 17; Lawrence, 16; Calloway and Perry, 15; Clay, Scott and Trigg, 14; Boone, 13; and Estill, McCracken and Muhlenberg, 11.

Counties with more than 10 new cases Thursday were: Jefferson, 524; Fayette, 411; Kenton, 179; Boone, 146; Oldham, 126; Daviess, 125, Warren, 122; Hardin, 121; Boyd, 105; Christian, 80; Campbell, 72; Boyle and Pike, 70; Madison, 67; Graves and Hopkins, 63; Laurel, 59; Nelson, 54; Whitley, 49; Carter, 47; Rowan, 44; Bullitt, 43; Muhlenberg, 39; Harlan and Shelby, 38; Floyd and Jessamine, 37; Knox, 36; Wayne, 35; Greenup and Pulaski, 34; Letcher and McCracken, 33; Clay, 32; Fleming, 29; Anderson, Marshall and Taylor, 28; McCreary, 27; Logan, 26; Bell and Lewis, 25; Barren, Calloway and Harrison, 24; Mason, Mercer, Ohio and Rockcastle, 23; Breathitt, Monroe, Perry and Woodford, 22; Lawrence, 20; Allen and Grant, 19; Henderson, Lincoln, Meade, Scott and Todd, 17; Elliott, Garrard, Marion and Simpson, 16; Grayson, Hancock and Johnson, 15; Clinton, 14; Bourbon, Jackson, Morgan and Nicholas, 13; Butler, Cumberland and LaRue, 12; and Carroll, Franklin and Menifee, 11.

In other coronavirus news:

• Only one treatment for Covid-19 is designed to keep people out of the hospital, but "Many overburdened hospitals are not offering it," The Washington Post reports. "Because of logistical challenges, only 20 percent of monoclonal antibodies distributed by the government have been used, officials say."
• Media Matters, a liberal media-criticism newsroom, named Fox News "Misinformer of the Year" for promoting "coronavirus misinformation an estimated 13,551 times on its weekday programs over the course of the pandemic," not including the channel's popular nighttime commentary shows.

Online program for journalists about covering pandemic Oct. 22

The world’s biggest story in 75 years is also a local story for everyone: the coronavirus pandemic. It has posed special challenges for news organizations at a time when they were already challenged: the politicization of public health, pushback from audiences, confusing data, and pandemic fatigue – among audiences and journalists.

To help journalists with this story, the Bluegrass Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists will hold an online panel discussion, “Covering the Pandemic,” at 7 p.m. ET Thursday, Oct. 22. The panelists will be:

• Alex Acquisto, health reporter, Lexington Herald-Leader

• Jennifer P. Brown of Hopkinsville, who recovered from Covid-19 and wrote about it in her online newspaper, Hoptown Chronicle

• Ben Sheroan, editor, The News-Enterprise of Elizabethtown, who can speak to the pushback newspapers receive from their coverage of the pandemic

• Brian Neal, news director at Lexington’s WLEX-TV, who will address the fatigue factor experienced by journalists

• Susan Dunlap, executive director of the Office of Public Affairs of the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services, who will speak to the communications challenges of government agencies

The discussion will be moderated by Melissa Patrick, reporter for Kentucky Health News.

There is no charge to attend the program, which will be held via Zoom, but registration to receive the Zoom link is required. To register, send an email to john.nelson24@gmail.com.

The Society of Professional Journalists has stood for improving and protecting journalism since 1909. For more information, see www.spj.org or visit the Bluegrass SPJ Chapter’s page on Facebook.

Some conservative talkers, including a leading one heard in Ky., downplayed the covid-19 threat and criticized efforts to blunt it

President Trump and Mark Levin in the Oval Office on Oct. 8
(Photo by Leah Millis, Reuters)

Several conservative radio talk-show hosts, including one who is heard most nights on leading stations in Louisville and Lexington, "have downplayed the threat of the coronavirus and criticized efforts to blunt its spread," Jack Gillum and Derek Willis report for ProPublica.

The reporters did their research in archives of TVEyes.com and Cortico, a noprofit that says it works with the MIT Media Lab "to foster constructive public conversation in communities and the media that improves our understanding of one another."

Even after President Trump declared March 13 that the coronavirus and its covid-19 disease constituted a national emergency, "Some hosts groused that aggressive measures to contain the disease were a political ploy to undercut the president or ram through unpopular Democratic legislation," ProPublica reports. Polling before Trump's declaration showed considerably less concern among Republicans about the virus than among Democrats; that gap has since narrowed.

ProPublica said the subjects of its story included "at least four of the 12 most listened to as measured by Talkers," an industry magazine, including the nationally syndicated Mark Levin, who is heard weeknights on WHAS in Louisville and WVLK in Lexington.

Several hosts, including Levin, compared covid-19 to seasonal flu, even though it has a higher mortality rate, a much higher hospitalization rate, and a much longer incubation period, allowing people who don't have symptoms to spread the virus unwittingly. "Also, unlike the flu, covid-19 has no vaccine or approved treatment," the reporters note. "Although the hosts conceded that some level of concern about covid-19 is justified, their skepticism could deter their audiences from self-quarantining, social distancing and other behavioral changes that health officials say are necessary."