TBP 237: Charlie Specht, WKBW-TV

On this episode of Talking Buffalo Podcast, Patrick Moran has a conversation with WKBW-TV chief investigative reporter Charlie Specht on a wide variety of topics spanning his life and award-winning career.

Charlie talks about being born in South Buffalo and living there until he was 10 before moving to the suburbs and eventually going to Iroquois high school, where as an athlete he nearly won a state championship in football. Charlie would go onto college at St. Bonaventure, where he initially had dreams of becoming a sports reporter.

Expanding on his early career dreams, Charlie tells the story of being a finalist for a sports writing internship at The Buffalo News but lost out on the opportunity to Tyler Dunne, who after two stints with TBN is now a highly acclaimed national reporter at The Bleacher Report. Charlie would go on to work at The News in a non-sports capacity for three and half years and reveals how a newspaper column there after he left ultimately led to him applying and getting his career launched at WKBW-TV in 2016.

They discuss some of Charlie’s well documented work and the many accolades have have come has with it. Unfortunately there’s also a dark side to being an investigative reporter and they discuss a death threat made to Charlie that’s incredibly chilling and led to an arrest.

The guys also spend some time talking about the Buffalo and Charlie discusses what is he loves about the city so much and of course, they finish up with the traditional Fun Fact Finale where we learn a ton of quirky things about one of the most decorated investigative reporters the Western New York community has seen in quite a while.

You can follow Charlie on Twitter @Charlie_Reports and of course check out his award-winning work at WKBW-TV.

Take advantage of an opportunity to win a free large pizza AND 20 wings from Macy’s Place Pizzeria. To be eligible, you need to go to Patrick’s Twitter page (@PatMoranTweets) and there’s a tweet pinned at the top describing the contest. Read the tweet and enter to win before Thursday to have a chance to win!

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