‘It’s been a lot’: Popular Las Vegas newsman calls it a career
Jim Snyder is mic’d up and ready to go, just before the 11 p.m. KSNV News 3 broadcast. It’s the night before Snyder’s final broadcast, during the 6 p.m. cast Wednesday.
This appearance is a Snyder “bonus cut,” alongside his best friend for nearly 40 years and nighttime anchor, Dana Wagner.
Before going on-air, Snyder settles into a chair in the station’s green room and exhales.
“It’s been a lot,” he says.
Snyder is stepping down from a 30-year career as a Vegas broadcast journalist, and 38th overall. The news icon is relocating soon to Thermopolis, Wyoming (population 2,765). Deer, but no Sphere, in that burg. Snyder has always wanted to retire along a river and likes the town’s “slow and steady” lifestyle.
Snyder says he arrived at the decision in August, feeling the time was right after exhausting his emotions from covering news in Las Vegas.
“As of late, I would say the last several years, the stories that are the devastating stories that we cover, have been hitting me harder and harder,” says Snyder, who turned 60 on Oct. 17. “I believe that there’s a cumulative effect of doing this job for 38 years, if you do it with some empathy, which is the idea. You’re dealing with people who are grieving, and you are in that mindset. I think, by definition, a little bit sticks with you.”
A jarring telecast
Signs that Snyder would be changing his life were clearly evident when he halted his newscast the night of July 18. He learned on an emergency text from his younger brother, Mike, that his mom, Karen, had suffered a serious stroke in Oregon. Snyder was informed she would likely not make it through the night.
The broadcaster had promised his family he wold keep his phone open, risking that the news would hit him as he was in newscast mode himself (closing a report about first responders’ water rescues during flash flooding).
Snyder turned over the broadcast to News 3 chief meteorologist Bill Bellis, explaining to the viewers that his mom was in grave condition.
“Just give me a few seconds,” Snyder said, on live TV. “I knew there was a chance this was going to happen on the air … I told myself that if this happened on the air, it would be a sign that I was meant to tell you something. I will be forever blessed in my life, because two weeks ago I listened to a voice inside me that said, ‘Drop everything, and get on a plane to go see your mother.’”
Snyder did that, in a uniquely raw and moving moment on broadcast news.
“It was more exposed than I’d ever been in my career,” Snyder says. “I’ve never done anything close to that.” Karen passed as he was about to board a flight to see her in Hermiston, in Eastern Oregon. She died less than two weeks before her 83rd birthday. Snyder had many visits with his mother before that trip, and started advising those around him, “Call your loved ones.”
Snyder’s mom was a counsel in the late stages of his career, as he continued to extend his contract with the station one year at a time, rather than the usual three or five. By the time of her death, he’d been strongly leaning toward ending his time at KSNV at the end of this year.
“Every year, whenever we up for one more year, Mom would say, ‘Jimmy, you know, I think it’s hard on you. It’s getting harder,’” Snyder says. “And I was saying, ‘One more year, Mom, one more.’ So her passing made it a rough summer.”
‘Steady voice’
Snyder graduated from Washington State University’s Edward R. Murrow College of Communication (Wagner is also a WSU grad). He spent stints in Wanaatchee, Washington, that state’s Tri-Cities region; for KTVN in Reno; and at Seattle’s KOMO before settling permanently in Las Vegas.
Snyder covered every major news story in Las Vegas since the mid-1990s, from the Oct. 1 shootings, myriad major-resort openings, arrival of major-league sports, breaking news in and out of the city. He drove to Manhattan in two days to cover the 9/11 attacks, on live remote. He interviewed Presidents Barack Obama (twice), Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.
Wagner and Snyder met in October 1987, at Campus Caverns bar in Pullman, during Washington State’s football homecoming weekend. Wagner said on-air he was “truly blessed” to have his best friend at his side through his Las Vegas career.
“I think Jim’s biggest quality is being a steady voice, a familiar voice,” Wagner says. “When bad things happen, he’s the one you want to go to to get that bad news. He is someone you trust, someone you know.”
Pennant for the president
A favorite story, which Snyder shared with Wagner during that night’s broadcast, was his second meeting with Obama, when he showed the lifelong White Sox fan a Chicago Cubs pennant from Wrigley Field.
Snyder had kept the souvenir since he was a kid growing up in Chicago. It was the first baseball game Snyder had ever seen. The newsman knew Obama, a devout Sox fan, had just welcomed the Cubs to the White House after they beat the Indians to win the 2016 World Series.
“I kept that pennant for 40-some years,” Snyder says. “I reached in my pocket — the Secret Service is swirling around — and said, ‘President Obama, if you want to put this up in the White House, I’ll loan it to you.’ He bent over at the waist, laughing. He got it right away.”
Snyder is to be celebrated with a dinner on Wednesday night at Barry’s Downtown Prime at Circa, after closing the 6 p.m. telecast. Highlights of his 30 years in Las Vegas will be distilled into a seven-minute video near the end of that show.
A changing business
KSNV General Manager Larry Strumwasser says, “We are definitely going to miss Jim. Not only is Jim a great news talent, but he is such a terrific, kind, and thoughtful person. I only wish him the very best moving forward.”
Snyder is asked about the institution he’s about to leave.
“I’m only going to say good things about the people who are paying for dinner tomorrow night,” the anchor man says with a chuckle. “The business has changed, for sure. But I have no regrets. Life will go on here, and it’s in the very capable hands with the guy out there is doing his thing, right now.”
At that, Snyder checks the clock on his phone and says, “OK, let’s go.” It is time to do the news.
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.
