The Wind in the Trees

The Wind in the Trees is a personal tour through the evolution and emergence of radio and television as major corporate entities. Additionally, it chronicles the personal and professional life of a broadcast executive who struggled to balance the business of running a television network with the social responsibility that is inherent in the industry.

This is a candid, poignant, powerful and often humorous story based on Jim Duffy's life and professional experience in the worlds of broadcasting, media, and entertainment. A farm boy from Moweaqua, Illinois, Duffy spent fifty years in the business, and in a dizzying ride, reached the executive suites of Manhattan and Hollywood.

The reader gets a revealing look into how decisions are made by the powerbrokers of the broadcasting industry, which affects millions of lives every day. Duffy has strong feelings on the growing influence of the mega-mergers in communications by the giants of industry. He writes candidly how those mergers, often strained by heavy debt loads and with an insatiable thirst for profits, affect the quality of programming and messages that are received by the American public.

As the president of the ABC Television Network, Duffy rubbed shoulders with dignitaries, athletes, international celebrities and show business personalities in America and Europe. The book delineates his adventures with some of the personalities, and features pictures from his own life and with many dignitaries and celebrities.

The author also describes the public service dimension of broadcasting, illustrated by his work with Barbara Bush in the Project Literacy US (PLUS) campaign.

The book's title has strong personal meaning to the author. Duffy found inspiration and guidance from listening to "the wind in the trees" from the time he was a young boy. Later in his life, he suffered severe tragedies, losing three children. From those deaths, he has found solace and a spiritual connection to the sounds and beauty of nature.

In a much broader sense, Duffy, with deep love for the broadcasting industry, feels the wind in the trees symbolizes the programs, messages and commercials that are presented to television and radio audiences everyday. He expresses great concern that too many programs and producers are conveying and portraying inappropriate and destructive messages to the value system and basic principles of our country.

The Wind in the Trees issues a critical challenge to those who will steward the communications industry into the twenty-first century.

James E. Duffy, during his half-century in broadcasting, was considered one of the media world's most innovative, versatile and accomplished executives. He was a journalist, commentator, publicist, salesman, programmer, spokesman, statesman and public servant.

From his extensive experience in the industry he gained an incomparable perspective on the extraordinary power and influence as well as the tremendous responsibility and potential of mass media.

Always fascinated by the world of broadcasting, Mr. Duffy started in the business as a writer and announcer while still attending Beloit (Wisconsin) College. He joined the American Broadcasting Company in Chicago in 1949 as a public relations writer. He has worked in almost every broadcast sector in television and radio during the ensuing years, including being executive vice president of the ABC Radio Network, president of ABC-TV and president of communications for Capital Cities/ABC, Inc. In his management years with ABC Television, he was instrumental in making the network number one in program ratings and national sales, and increasing the number and quality of affiliated stations.

Mr. Duffy's accomplishments have had a resounding impact on television today. His innovations issued in new concepts in programming for children, in public service projects, in different forms of audience measurements, and in new procedures in sales and affiliate relations.

In celebration of his 30th anniversary with ABC, in 1979, the ABC Affiliate Association presented Mr. Duffy with a crystal statue inscribed, "He is the statesman among us all. He always sensed and did what had to be done-now, not tomorrow. His is the road to progress. He speaks and lives by the words: 'Here is a way we can go together."

The author has received innumerable honors including President Reagan's Action Volunteer Award, The Gabriel Award for Individual Achievement, the National Association of Broadcasters' Distinguished Service Award, the National Literacy Coalition's Lifetime Achievement Award and the American Legion Distinguished Service Award.