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(Lethbridge News Now)

Dori Modney retires after 32-year broadcasting career

Feb 28, 2022 | 12:42 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – A long-time broadcaster in Lethbridge is hanging up her boots.

Dori Modney is now retired, last serving as the News Director for Lethbridge News Now and the now-formerly-branded Country 95 News for Pattison Media.

As she gets ready to settle down into what is sure to be a less-stressful life, she said she is having mixed emotions.

“I made the decision to leave, to retire at this time last year, so, you know, I’ve been preparing for the past year. It still wasn’t an easy decision because I love the company I work for and I love the people that I work with, so I’m going to miss them a lot.”

Modney says her family has been bugging her for years to retire, saying things like, “When are you going to pull the plug and actually do it?”

Given the crew currently at LNN, she felt comfortable walking away as she feels the newsroom is in good hands.

Her interest in news started all the way back in high school when her guidance counselor suggested it based on her proficiency as a writer and inquisitive nature.

In 1975, she got her first job at the old CJOC TV and radio station in Lethbridge, which, at the time, was owned by Selkirk Communications. Her initial steps into the world of media came in the form of being an overnight country music disk jockey and resulted in her being the first female DJ in Southern Alberta.

After some time working in Lethbridge, Modney applied for a news job at a station in Saskatoon. She was granted an interview, but it did not exactly go the way she had hoped.

“I was told by the station manager when I was applying for a news job that, quote, ‘I already have one of you working here and I don’t want to have another one,’ and of course, he was referring to women.”

“He was quite blunt about it and said, you know, I don’t want another woman working here. I don’t think you guys are – I don’t think you’re right for this industry.”

She said this interaction was quite an eye-opener for her and described it as being “like running into a brick wall.”

At the time, there were very few women working in broadcasting and the industry was, by her admission, an “old boy’s club.”

Sexism is something that Modney had to contend with for much of her early career but says things gradually got better as attitudes changed and more women proved themselves in the industry.

After working at a different radio station in Saskatoon for a while, she moved back to Lethbridge, where she has remained for the duration of her career.

It was tough for her to pick out just a few career highlights as far as the people she has talked to and the stories she has covered.

One of her more interesting interactions came when she was questioned by Mikhail Gorbachev.

At the time, he was the Soviet Union’s agriculture minister and was touring farms in Southern Alberta to see how things are done here.

Modney was preparing for a newscast and Gorbachev entered the newsroom along with his translator.

“He, through an interpreter, asked me who from the government was here, who’s in the station to monitor what we were taking to air, and of course, I was shocked by that because we don’t have anybody from the government monitoring what’s going on and what we take to air.”

“At the time there, I was the assistant news director at the former LA-FM and I said, well, I do. I’m doing the newscast. I’m the editor. I determine what goes to air. We’ve got our fingers on the pulse of what the community is interested in and what’s going on and I make that decision and he was shocked. He was shocked by that, but also seemed to be quite interested.”

Years later, she recognized Gorbachev when he became the new leader of the Soviet Union as the same man who had questioned her in the newsroom.

Despite what some members of the public have accused LNN of today, we, and Pattison Media as a whole, do not receive any directives from any levels of government as to what does or does not get published or in what ways.

“The government has no say over what we take to air. Nothing, absolutely nothing.”

Another standout memory from Modney’s career was interviewing Chava Rosenfarb, a prominent Yiddish novelist. They spoke for over an hour and a half about Rosenfarb being a holocaust survivor who, along with her sister, survived two Nazi concentration camps.

She also heard from some of the wives of British soldiers during the Second World War who had to deliver their children inside of a burned-out house with no medical supplies or staff on hand.

A more positive news moment for Modney was covering the time that country singer Paul Brandt was awarded an honourary degree from the University of Lethbridge in 2009.

Brandt was a practicing pediatric nurse at the Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary when he broke out into the music industry and received an honouary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the U of L for his “outstanding achievements in music and humanitarianism.”

Modney has been employed by Pattison Media for the last 21 years, 18 of which have been as the news director.

“The company that I’m working for now has done a lot for women in the industry. In this particular company and this particular station here, Lethbridge, there is the program director, myself as the news director, and our engineer, we are all women. So three of the five department heads at this station here in Lethbridge are women, which, you know, as little as 10 years ago, you would never see that.”

Modney gave high praise to Pattison Media for being a great company to work for.

“Even though I’m the news director in the newsroom, my staff, I want them to have input, and as a news director, part of my job is has always been making sure that the other team members succeed at what they’re doing”

She was directly involved in the creation of Lethbridge News Now, which is the news branch of Country 95.5 FM and B 93.3 FM.

“I don’t think I’m going to be able to rip myself away because, as I said, it was my baby and I just – there’s going to be a new news director, but the team is still here and I have a lot of confidence in the team that has been set up to continue to provide quality news for LNN, and I’m really glad with the people who were there. They have great experience and great abilities, and I’m sure that they’re going to be able to take it even further than where it is now. And I have a lot of confidence in them. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be leaving here.”

Modney is still thinking about what she wants to do in retirement.

Pre-pandemic, she envisioned travelling abroad with her husband but COVID-19 has of course made those plans more difficult to follow through on.

For now, she plans to take care of some things around her house and enjoy a quiet, peaceful, stress-free existence.

We, at LNN, fully expect her to call every day and check in on us. Either way, we will miss you Dori.