Remember WISH-TV’s Steve Sweitzer INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — One of WISH-TV’s very own, Steve Sweitzer, former chief photographer and news operations manager, passed away Thursday, surrounded by his loved ones. You may recognize Steve Sweitzer from his regular segments on “Great Day TV” with host Patty Spitler. Sweitzer would provide tips on how to navigate an ever-changing tech world, mostly geared toward an older audience. For many years, Sweitzer led WISH-TV’s photography team as chief photographer and news operations manager. Outside of that, Sweitzer was a devoted husband and father, and a patient mentor to generations of journalists – including several current faces at WISH. But Sweitzer’s WISH-TV era began nearly 50 years ago – and it was marked with many titles, stories, and incredible memories. His first stint at WISH began shortly before the Blizzard of ’78. “I had been waiting tables before I got hired here. I just absolutely loved it. I couldn’t believe somebody was actually willing to pay me. I really loved what I was doing,” Sweitzer previously shared for a special WISHtory segment honoring the station’s photographers. “(And) for the longest time, if you mentioned the Blizzard of ’78, everybody had stories, everybody knew where they were.” That storm cost Sweitzer the feeling in a few of his toes. The “new guy” on the job, Sweitzer worked the overnight shift, but after a while, he found his next calling: Working on longform stories. That wasn’t exactly something he could accomplish at WISH at that time, so Sweitzer left for Louisville, where he sharpened his skills in other facets of storytelling, adding “producer” to his long list of titles. Unfortunately, a show Sweitzer had been producing was eventually canceled – though the timing was just right, as a position had opened at WISH. “(And) then I was the chief of all the guys that had trained me. That was a little bit funny,” Sweitzer joked. That awkwardness aside, Sweitzer’s decades in that role saw WISH-TV’s first-in-the-country adoption of Sony’s Betacam videography technology, meaning new cameras for everyone! They were better received than the Sony U-Matic cameras they’d replaced, and in a nod to his future “Tech Talk” series, Sweitzer shot a story in the 1980s where he explained the ins and outs of buying the right consumer-grade camcorder. Always down for an adventure, Steve Sweitzer loved getting out in the field, telling a good story, taking the viewer there…even if that meant exploring Indianapolis’s sewers alongside another WISH-TV legend, Jim Shella. But when he started as chief photographer, he did face challenges in morale, as photographers often did not receive the same glory as the “famous faces” recognized from the TV screen would. “(Photogs) had been kind of beaten down at that point,” Sweitzer explained. “They’d hear, ‘Oh, you’re just a photog,’ and had that kind of mentality. My biggest job was convincing them that they were better than that.” A past president of the National Press Photographers Association, Steve Swetizer was also awarded the NPPA’s highest honor: the Sprague Award, for his contributions to the art. Later on, Sweitzer served as a field producer–coordinating satellite uplinks from scenes such as 2005’s Hurricane Katrina aftermath, or even right here in-house, with then-candidate Barack Obama’s 2008 Primary Day interviews from the WISH-TV newsroom. His 2009 retirement from WISH didn’t end those contributions, either. He taught courses at IUPUI’s School of Journalism for over a decade. Then, he answered the call of a WISH colleague, Patty Spitler, to be a videographer for “Pet Pals TV” and “Great Day TV,” and eventually added another title: “Video journalist,” or what we call in the industry, an “MMJ” – multimedia journalist. Sweitzer passed away on Thursday, May 21, surrounded in love, his legacy written in their hearts and across decades of WISHTV’s archives. To quote News 8’s Pam Elliott, one of many inspired by Sweitzer, “we were so fortunate” to have known the great Steve Sweitzer. ...read more read less