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Mark Pape, a radio reporter for the Total Traffic & Weather Network, tells it like it is about reporting on traffic in the San Francisco Bay Area, the third-worst commute in the country. Interviewed in what traffic reporters call “the pit, ” an area ringed by computer workstations, large TV monitors and microphones, Pape, who has been on the job for 31 years, talks about the days of yesteryear when road information was gathered via airplane as opposed to what happens now, when data is gleaned from computer screens. 

“Back when I started, we had planes for a lot of different stations. Matter of fact, there would be a reporter in the front seat and another reporter in the back seat.” — Mark Pape 

Mel Baker is the producer and a contributor to The San Francisco Public Press radio program/podcast Civic. He has worked as a national network and Bay Area broadcaster for many decades. From early training in National Public Radio’s newscast unit, to stints in the newsrooms of KGO radio and KTVU-TV, and as a news anchor and reporter at KALW and other Bay Area stations, he has embraced the responsibility of broadcast media to “enlighten and inform” the community.