Meet Keith Fletcher of Communications in Grand Prairie

Today we’d like to introduce you to Keith Fletcher.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I was born in Dallas at Methodist Hospital when my family lived in Grand Prairie. After my parents divorced, my mother remarried and I lived in DeSoto from 2nd grade until graduating from DHS. On a college plan that ended up taking six years, I ended up graduating from the University of North Texas. I started doing phone-in radio reports for Craig Way’s high school scoreboard show on KRLD even before I got to UNT. When I got to Denton, I then started writing high school sports for “The Dallas Morning News.” Before graduating from UNT, I was helping Craig do his high school football TV shows and had a full-time job with that production company before I actually graduated. I did two high school sports shows, the Texas Rangers TV-magazine show, and then the Big 12 formed about that time and we started doing “Big 12 Showcase.” I started transitioning from reporting to producing, and in 2003, Jon Heidtke hired me at Fox Sports Southwest to be the “Big 12 Guy” at the network. I was able to squeeze 14 years out of that gig before the industry started unraveling, one cut cable cord at a time. Management and veterans were the first to go, then original college programming, then me. It was one of those deals where by the time I walked out the door I knew I would keep many friendships, but man, was I ready to get the heck out of that place. I landed at LDWW, where I had known and respected Ken Luce for a couple of years and the work he did for the Big 12, and I knew I wanted to work with him. I also knew and had worked with Annabel Stephan. It’s a pretty diverse place for being a smaller, boutique-type operation, doing PR, marketing, advertising, and creating a lot of their own original digital content for clients. Two of the bigger clients being the Big 12 Conference and the National Football Foundation, so I’m still working around sports. It was a neat fit. I work around a lot of great people and we do a lot of interesting work.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The Journalism business from top to bottom has changed. Not just with opinionated, editorialized themes substituting real news reporting, but the whole move from traditional TV and cable/satellite networks to mobile streaming. It’s incredible to think that I thought I made it in the newspaper business when the Dallas Morning News gave me this portable word processor. That’s not just old-timey language for a laptop computer, I mean it was a word processor that you sent stories remotely by running a phone line from the word processor to some coupling device, then you’d set the phone receiver of a traditional old land-line phone onto the coupler and it would somehow send your data back to the newsroom. My TV classes at UNT were with cameras that shot VHS. So, I’ve seen technology grow, for all the better and worse. First, it became this sophisticated lingo of the industry to know what you’re talking about. Now the consumer market is no different from the industry. And that’s just my professional challenges. Certainly, wherever you go, there are people that make things miserable and make you not enjoy what you do. And then in my personal life, I’ve had my own share of ups and downs. I didn’t marry until I was 34 and became a dad at 38. But I now realize that’s my priority, and even if it gives me some of my biggest hardships, it also gives me my biggest joy. And for that reason, all the work-related headaches don’t bother me as they would have 15 years ago. You come across difficult people and assholes, but it doesn’t bother you as much if you don’t live for them. I live for many things before I live for work now, or for people I work around. That’s a departure from where I was before I was married.  So, the whole concept of challenges and obstacles, especially professionally, takes on a different meaning.

Please tell us more about your work, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
I started out as a decent writer, and then when my voice got deeper people thought I had a good voice. I don’t know if either one set me apart from the crowd but I think the combination of the two made my career choice bearable and I did some fun things, I’ve been to nearly 20 different college football bowl games, I’ve traveled to 40 states in the U.S. I just like storytelling. I’m interested in interesting things, I’m kinda one of those trivia nerds that have my specialty in world geography, because of my son now I know a lot more about space and the galaxy that I used to, stuff like that. I find interesting things that I would like to write about or talk about everywhere. I’m proud of the work we’re doing for the National Football Foundation and for the game of football in a very broad sense. It’s fascinating to tell that story from a real data-driven perspective and so many macro-topics around the game. It’s a lot like TV producing again, crafting a story, getting all the details and making it look great – then letting people prettier and more important than me tell the story.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
We did a show called the “Big 12 Showcase Women’s Sports Special” and when our host could no longer host the show because he got a sweet NBA play-by-play gig, I figured it was time for a woman to host the show. But, Emily Jones’ schedule was too hectic and this was when she was doing more studio work at FSSW. So, I figured that I had run across enough talented female athletes in the Big 12 to where they could host quick segments. Get in two or three on a show. So, it amounted to giving several women a big break, not just being the subject of a sports TV show, but taking the lead role as a show host. I was a great video for them to put on a resume reel. It was win-win all around. And, many of them became friends and have remained friends. I’ve watched them grow up and get married and become mothers. And some still work in the business and remember the start they got on my show when they were in college and say nice things. It’s gratifying to know that someone thinks you really stuck your neck out for them and it helped them in some way down the road.

Ten years ago, I would have mentioned Emmy Awards, big rating nights where our stuff went toe-to-toe with ESPN, or stuff like that, but I’m over all that. But, it all seems so meaningless now compared to the relationships I’ve made and kept.

Contact Info:

• Address: 1444 Oak Lawn Ave., Suite 119
  Dallas, TX 75207
• Website: https://www.ldwwgroup.com/
• Phone: 214.303.1342
• Email: keithf@ldwwgroup.com

Image Credit:
The two Fox photos where I’m looking INTO the camera are courtesy of Fox Sports, the rest are mine.

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