the repurposed journalist

This isn’t how Ben Saboonchian would have written the script. It doesn’t have an ending.

At 58, Saboonchian is starting over. After producing documentaries for 22 years at KIRO-TV 7 in Seattle, he was laid off on October 17. Today Saboonchian attended a mandatory orientation at the local unemployment agency. He’s meeting me for coffee to debrief afterwards while the impressions of the morning are still fresh.

He had to wait three hours for a job consultation and a tip for how to look for work online. When he typed “documentary producer” in the search field, “Not much came up,” says Ben, “Zero.”  Saboonchian has been in television documentary production since 1980, that’s 32 years writing, producing, directing, reporting and editing hour-long, prime-time documentaries. He’s won 74 awards, including 19 regional Emmys, 10 national awards including a prestigious George Foster Peabody Award, an Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Silver Baton and 6 regional Edward R. Murrow Awards. For 19 years, he’s been a co-instructor for a certificate program in documentary filmmaking at the University of Washington Extension. He also composes and performs original music for films and documentaries and has written and produced industrial films for non-profit organizations.

But today he’s just another 58-year-old looking for work.

“I felt a real sense of humility,” Saboonchian tells me. “When you’re 58 and you’re trying to reinvent yourself, it’s not easy. KIRO was my family,” he says.

He says the break from KIRO TV after 22 years was amicable. “We weren’t meeting budget,” says Saboonchian. “Cuts had to be made.” Still Ben says, he didn’t see it coming. He saw the human resources rep at the meeting and thought at first he’d been re-assigned.  Ben says, “They reassigned me right out the door.”

Documentary topics ranged from street kids to Doppler radar to global warming to taking care of mom and dad, a topic he knew well because of his parents struggle with health issues. His father, Esahak Saboonchian, died just two weeks before Ben was let go. He’d just finished “Voices of the Inner City” a behind-the-scenes look at local charity World Vision’s Youth Empowerment Program. The production focused on local teens’ year-long  mentorship program sponsored by World Vision, the international charity in Federal Way. The project took six months to shoot.

He’s always felt lucky to do documentary work. He called KIRO TV the “last man standing” when it comes to long-form local TV production. Saboonchian produced three or four hour-long prime-time specials a year. He felt he was really serving the community.

“Local news just doesn’t do MUCH of that kind of long-form programming any more.”, he said. A lot of his friends in the TV business couldn’t believe he made it this long. “I had a dream job,” Ben says. “I always complained about lack of resources, but I had a dream job.”

So how will this journalist get repurposed?

He’d like to find a way to continue producing feature-length documentaries locally or on a national level. “I really don’t know about independent film making.” But he says, “I think I can do the work.”  His number one priority is to take care of his elderly mother. Saboonchian says he’s relying on his Christian faith right now. “I have a feeling God has other work for me.”

Ben Saboonchian will tell you he sees the blessing in this script without an ending. His massage therapist told him that since the termination, she’s noticed his back is getting a lot more loose. The muscles he’s told are not as tight. “I miss my friends,” he says. “But I don’t miss the stress.”