Radio director’s documentary awarded

Betsey Anderson

It took two years of work and thousands of memories for Rick Fredericksen, news director for WOI Radio, to write the 22-minute documentary “Vietnam: A 25th Anniversary Anthology.”

The documentary received both the Edward R. Murrow regional and national awards by the Radio and Television News Directors Association.

A total of 548 news groups competed for the prestigious Murrow award, selected from 2,285 original entries, according to the Radio and Television News Directors Association.

The three-part documentary, which aired in April 1990, was the only Iowa radio or television program to receive a Murrow award this year.

Fredericksen said he couldn’t have been successful without the support of WOI-AM Radio.

“As a public radio station, WOI-AM allows time for research, writing and editing – something most commercial stations can’t do,” he said.

Judges for the award described his series as a “sometimes moving, sometimes witty, always powerful chronicle.”

Audio clips in the documentary go back to 1969, when Fredericksen was a member of the American Forces Radio Vietnam Network. Other dialogue includes interviews with Iowa Vietnam veterans.

The documentary is a combination of Fredericksen’s “own firsthand experience in Vietnam” and the experiences of other Iowa veterans who were involved in the conflict, he said.

Vietnam veterans, Fredericksen said, have been “unfairly marked as contributing to society’s low- lifes, when it’s really just the opposite.”

Disturbed by the stereotypes of Vietnam veterans, Fredericksen said he wanted to update WOI-AM Radio listeners about the leadership skills veterans gained as “survivors of a war that divided our country.”

Fredericksen said he has gone back and visited Vietnam dozens of times since the war.

“I have a love for it and the people,” said Fredericksen, who lived in Thailand from 1985 to 1995.

He said he was one of the first journalists to return to the area after it emerged from “communist victory,” which he describes as a defeat for the economy and the people.

When his bags were packed and tuxedo rented for the formal awards ceremony, the Sept. 11 tragedy cancelled the Sept. 12 event. Instead, Fredericksen received his award by mail, which he said is now proudly displayed in his WOI-AM Radio office at Iowa State.