Renowned Utah radio journalist, Doug Fabrizio, will be the guest speaker at this year’s Homecoming Emeritus Reunion at the University of Utah. The event is targeted to alumni above the age of 60 and will celebrate their successes, as well as the U’s.
Fabrizio, who graduated in 1988, is the host and executive producer for KUER’s RadioWest. He has been reporting for KUER News since 1987, and he slowly rose through the ranks from reporter to his current position. He spent some time as the station’s news director. RadioWest is an hour-long radio show that brings in public figures and guest experts on a wide range of topics to have conversations with Fabrizio on the air. The show was picked up by Sirius XM Radio for about five years, and it continues to run on KUER today.
“I’ve spent the past couple of years going around telling anyone who will listen about the importance of listening,” Fabrizio said, explaining why he loves the radio. “Where we are right now in terms of technology and our inability to listen to each other, our political conflicts, … what we need more than anything is to pay real attention and to listen to each other.”
Fabrizio is known for his thoughtful style. He studied theater and broadcast journalism at the U and loved them both — theater for the drama and performance elements and journalism as a medium to tell stories.
“I just always loved storytelling,” Fabrizio said.
He has won numerous awards from various organizations for his reporting with RadioWest, including the Society of Professional Journalists, the Utah Broadcasters Association and the Public Radio News Directors Association. Still, all of his success has not led him to forget his time as a journalism student at the U.
“I remember dreading being edited by a former communications professor named Roy Gibson,” Fabrizio said. “He used a red flair pen and marked up the whole manuscript. They looked bloody by the end, just a massacre. I do remember that it always made me better, though.”
Fabrizio enjoyed his time at the U, and when the Homecoming Emeritus Reunion planners asked him to give a speech, he readily agreed. He plans to discuss the difference between hearing and listening. Fabrizio believes that it is crucial in today’s world, where it’s so easy to shut others out in favor of technology, to remind people why they should genuinely engage with one another.
The annual reunion will take place on Oct. 2 at 6 p.m. in the U’s S.J. Quinney College of Law Building and the speech will be recorded for students who want to watch afterward.
Despite all of his successes, Fabrizio has made some mistakes in his career. A couple of years ago he had the opportunity to interview the Dalai Lama.
“Somehow I managed to not to press the record button and I blew the interview,” Fabrizio said. “We only had 30 minutes to interview him and at the end of it that was it. Missed opportunity.”
To up and coming journalists, Fabrizio urged, “Always press record.”