From camera to courtroom

Mike Owens finally put his neglected Saint Louis University law degree to work almost two months ago. The hard-hitting and often controversial investigative reporter, who spent most of his career at Gannett Co.’s KSDK NewsChannel 5, joined what is now a four-attorney criminal defense and employment firm: Pleban & Petruska Law.

In an interview, Owens talked about flunking the bar, getting sued as a reporter, and what drove him out of television news.

KSDK responded to Owens’ comments about pressure on news content from the sales department with an e-mailed statement from News Director Mike Shipley: “We maintain our longstanding policy of clear separation between our editorial content and sales efforts.”

Veteran TV reporter Mike Owens, left, is the newest attorney in Chet Pleban’s Richmond Heights law firm, Pleban & Petruska. Photo by Karen Elshout

In response to Owens’ comments on why he left the station, Shipley said in the statement that it is station policy not to comment publicly on contract, negotiation or personnel matters. “Mike Owens has served our station for many years and we are indeed grateful for his service,” Shipley said.

Owens was interviewed at his Richmond Heights office.

Do you miss reporting? I miss the people. People in TV are pretty interesting. That’s about the extent of it. I don’t miss the story selection. Or the tension of walking on the porch at a house where someone died and knocking on the door and asking for a picture. I don’t miss that.

I bet you don’t miss the hours. I think I work more hours here. Because I don’t know anything. I’m learning. There’s a steep learning curve. You go to law school and learn all you want, but you’re still not a lawyer, even though you graduated from law school. There’s a nuance to being a lawyer that I never saw.

You flunked the bar three times? I did. I admit it. Then, 10 years after I took it, after my children were no longer 6 and 7 and 10, they were 20 and 17, sort of able to maintain their own lifestyle. I had a furlough … everyone at Gannett got two weeks off. Thank you very much. I took those two weeks, my vacation, plus I took some sick time and studied for the bar. First time I had that much time in a lump to study for it. I feel terrible I flunked it three times, but I know people who flunked it more times than that. I think that it shows my perseverance. And the fact that even though my head is old, I can still stuff facts in it.

How old are you? I am 60.

Did that have anything to do with the [career] change? I think it does. I think you start realizing that you’ve got this other career that you can do. For 35 years, I was a reporter. That industry doesn’t want you anymore. So you go do something else.

How’d you work out compensation? This offer was happening while my employment at Channel 5 was changing. And you know what, it’s a pretty good deal for me. I talked with similar-sized law firms, both in Clayton, about working with them part-time while working full-time at Channel 5. But the full-time job at Channel 5 disappeared.

Are you saying you were pushed out? Yeah. I’m not mad at them. They wanted me to sign a contract that I couldn’t sign. And if you don’t have a contract, you don’t work. I guess I could’ve signed the contract, but I’m not going to work that I don’t want to do. And that work would be carrying a camera and shooting video.

Did you ever get sued as a reporter? A bunch of times. That’s part of the reason I became a lawyer, because I saw the work lawyers did. I thought it’s quite a talent to go into a room full of people and communicate effectively and tell them a story that helps somebody. As a reporter, that’s what I did. I communicated with people. Unfortunately, or interestingly, I guess, my communicating skill as a reporter really didn’t help anybody. It helped me. It helped the people I worked for.

When you’re a reporter you’re not trying to please someone. You haven’t been a reporter for a while, have you?

Trying to please someone I’m working for is different than trying to uncover something and not please anyone in particular. Frankly, what happened in the last year or so in television is advertisers started taking greater control of the content of news. I was warned off a story by a boss because it was going to really anger an advertiser.

Can you say what the story was? I’d really rather not. It was a story I spent some time investigating. That was frustrating as a reporter. That happened twice in the last year. That to me is twice too many.  The other was I’d done — it was basically a legal story — and I ended up making fun of a client of the TV station. The client didn’t call me to complain. Guess who he called to complain? The sales department. And the next thing I know, the sales department is down in the newsroom yelling at me. I’m thinking, “Wait a minute. What’s going on here? Who do we serve?”

So what you’re saying is now you know where the lines are drawn. Absolutely. I know exactly who I’m serving. I’m serving the client. Whereas the last year or so in television — are we serving the public, are we serving the client? We didn’t know any more.

Why here? Why Pleban & Petruska? I’ve known Chet Pleban a long time; I’ve known him more than 25 years. That’s one reason. The second reason is, I knew I wasn’t going to work for a big firm downtown. I wasn’t going to work for Bryan Cave or Thompson Coburn because they don’t want a 60-year-old first-year associate. What are they going to do with me? Am I going to work 80 hours a week? I don’t think I can do that. So that wasn’t going to happen. Am I going to open my own office? That’s not happening, because I don’t know how to do that. The final thing is to go to work as a prosecutor. I probably would have liked that. But I don’t think any prosecutor would have liked me. I’ve really kind of gone up against prosecutors over the years, and I don’t think they want me around.

How does it work that you have enough business to be worthwhile for the firm? What do you bring? I bring my communication skills. I also bring name recognition. People know who I am. People call here, looking for me. And that can be money in the bank. Finally, I think, “Can I monetize that?” Well, we’ll find out.