WDAF Kansas City, Mo.
1947-65

Moving on

In the early 1960s, Bodine began to suffer from retinitis pigmentosa, an optical disorder that results in a progressively narrowed field of vision. In April 1964, Taft Broadcasting Company of Cinncinati, Ohio, bought WDAF-TV for $26.9 million, an industry record at the time. For Walt, trouble began almost immediately.

• "Conversation" was moved to 10:30 p.m., despite healthy mid-day ratings.
• The new management was backing Barry Goldwater in that year's presidential election and suggested that that none of its affiliate stations run opinion polls on the air. (Goldwater trailed in most of these polls leading up to a historic landslide for his opponent Lyndon Johnson.) As news director, Walt ignored the suggestion.
• Taft later complained that WDAF's reporter was covering Goldwater's spoken comments, rather than the written text of his speeches.(Goldwater had a tendency to wander off the script.)

In the meantime, Walt's vision was deteriorating.

I had noticed for a while that it was becoming harder to take a strip of film from a photographer, hold it up to the light and decide what we would include in a story.I realized it would be a news director or anchor on television, and decided it would be better to jump back into radio.
(My Times, My Town)

By 1965, as a result of ongoing disputes with station management, his vision and the stresses of daily news (“My ulcer was getting an ulcer”), Walt decided to leave WDAF to host Nitebeat on WHB.