Ruth Seymour, Warren Olney Recall the Origins of Which Way L.A.?

A few day into the ’92 riots, KCRW and Warren Olney hosted a town forum on the issue. That single show grew into the award-winning public affairs program Which Way L.A.?

Twenty years after that first broadcast, former general manager Ruth Seymour, WWLA‘s founding producer Sarah Spitz, and host Olney sat down with Steve Chiotakis to commemorate the show’s beginnings.

Recalls Seymour, “What Warren didn’t know at the time was that he was actually auditioning. He had no idea about this because we had not made any announcement. We came to the conclusion that we had to respond [to the riots.] We were going to do a one hour show for one month only through June. And we had absolutely not a penny to do this program on. I scraped up enough money to pay a host, but I didn’t have any more than that.”

“Did I get paid?” teased Olney.

“We recruited people on staff who did other jobs,” continued Seymour. “And that’s how Sarah ended up as really one of the most important, maybe the most important, the lead producer of Which Way LA?”

Olney added, “Without question, the most important.”

Listen to the full chat below, or on the KCRW Web site.