As a college student Jerry Cadigan interned at WFAA, graduated from SMU and began his career at the station in 1973. “I got hooked on television and broadcast journalism while watching live coverage of the Kennedy assassination,” he says. “I can vividly remember seeing network remote trucks parked outside Dallas City Hall during that time.”
All these years later, he still insists it is, “the only job I ever wanted.”
His integrity, loyalty, commitment, standards and forward-thinking contributions to not only the station, but the Dallas-Fort Worth television market in general, are unmatched.
Cadigan has held virtually every production position available at WFAA and was the first director on the scene during the station’s historic coverage of the Branch Davidian standoff near Waco, one of many spot news stories over the years for him.
During his tenure, Cadigan has been honored for his contributions in news, programming and individual craft with an Edward R. Murrow Award, numerous Dallas Press Club Katies, Heartland and Lone Star Chapter Emmys, and PROMAX and BDA recognitions.
His significant contributions to colleagues’ successes include his role in Byron Harris’ (another WFAA Silver Circle inductee) duPont-Columbia University Award winning series of reports, Other People’s Money, exposing America’s Savings & Loan scandal.
Cadigan also contributed to the station’s Peabody award winning news coverage of the Gulf War, WFAA in the Middle East during the invasion of Iraq, the Oklahoma City Bombing and others.
A station “Employee of the Year,” Cadigan’s fingerprints are all over noteworthy events in the market. They include years of directing the Adolphus Children’s Christmas Parade; Dale Hansen and Verne Lundquist sports programs; Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl and Dallas Stars Stanley Cup coverage; weather specials, and political conventions. Local programming such as “Good Morning Texas”, “News 8 Index”, Peppermint Place”, “Prime Time Texas” (a two-season replacement for ABC’s controversial “NYPD Blue”) and others grew under his guidance.
He has also been a “pied piper” of technology: from the film-to-tape conversion of the 1970s, to sophisticated paint systems, editors and newsroom computers in the 1980s, the migration to digital equipment in the 1990s and high definition television in 2000s. Due to Cadigan’s relentless efforts, WFAA became America’s first station to broadcast HD on a VHF signal.
Hallmarks of Cadigan’s years at WFAA include always testing, creating, and innovating, an example he has set for others to follow.
Throughout Cadigan’s career he has worked closely with high school and college students, bringing them to WFAA for a bird’s eye view of production, news and more. His nose for talent is legendary, taking great satisfaction in mentoring producers, directors, and designers, studio technicians and more.
He crosses departmental lines seamlessly working with news reporters and producers, creating local commercials, going on location shoots, or directing remote productions.
Cadigan’s passion for television transcends WFAA as his beloved son, Trevor, followed in his dad’s footsteps to pursue a career in broadcast journalism.
Like his father, Trevor also landed his first internship at WFAA and went on to graduate with honors from SMU with a broadcast journalism degree.
With his induction, Cadigan becomes the fifteenth broadcaster with WFAA roots in the Lone Star Chapter’s Silver Circle.
His most lasting accomplishment goes well beyond years of service to the impact he has had on the lives of his colleagues, the community he has served and the station he has loved for nearly 50 years.