Mark and Joe and a Silver Anniversary

This week WTNH will acknowledge Mark Davis’ 25th year on television here in Connecticut.  2009 also marks 25 years for  photographer Joe Sferrazza, with whom Mark has worked for most of that time. A press release is below. Congratulations to both of you!

Twenty-five years ago, Mark Davis was host of the state’s highest rated radio call-in show “Dial Mark Davis” on WTIC AM.  A show he had been hosting since 1980. In August of 1984 he began co-anchoring “Action News Midday” and “Action News at 5:30″ with Diane Smith on WTNH TV, Channel 8.   Davis continued the week night radio show, doing the double duty for the next three years.  It was a time  of great growth for the New Haven based ABC affiliate.  It was the first station in Connecticut to launch a 5 PM newscast and the anchor team of Al Terzi, Janet Peckinpaugh, Davis and Smith led it to the top of the ratings.   In addition to anchoring the televsion newscasts and the nightly radio show, Davis was often called upon to cover major political events around the state and at the State Capitol.

A rugged schedule of ‘on the road’ shows and other television committments led Davis to give up the radio shows in October of 1987 and scale back on the fifteen hour work days.

But a change in management two years later and a decision to terminate Mark Davis.  Viewers deluged the station with hundreds of letters and petitions and the station management offered him a new contract covering politics and govenment in Hartford.

Ironically, the following year, he was nominated as “Best TV Anchor In New England” by the Boston/New England Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and was presented the prestigious Emmy Award for his unique coverage of the three-way 1990 gubernatorial campaign that resulted in the election of Independent Lowell Weicker.  The following year he was awarded two more Emmy awards for his coverage of the income tax battle at the State Capitol.

Another change in WTNH management brought Davis back to the anchor desk to launch the state’s first, full length morning newscast then called “Action News Morning” with co-anchor Jocelyn Maminta.  At the same time, he was chosen to co-anchor the state’s first Saturday morning newscast “Good Morning Connecticut.”   He continued to cover major poltical events around the state, as well as at the State Capitol.

Of the many stories Davis has broken, perhaps the biggest was the resignation of Governor John Rowland in June of 2004.  His coverage of the “Rowland Scandal” received a special category Associated Press Broadcasters award and another Emmy award for “Best News Team Coverage” in New England that year.

Later that year, viewers were stunned when Davis fell off a dock a New Haven harbor during a live report on a new Homeland Security vessel.   He kept going despite injuring a hamstring and fracturing a finger.

Operating the camera that day was Davis’ twenty-five year partner, WTNH news photographer Joe Sferrazza.

They have collaborated on every major story together for all twenty-five years and have received a total of six Emmy awards together.  Ironically,  Sferrazza and Davis started at WTNH the very same day August 6, 1984 and met for the first time on that day.

A retrospective of Davis’ work is scheduled on News Channel 8’s early evening newscasts on Thursday, August 6, 2009.