It’s beginning to sink in with Mark Slaughter that he “won’t be running up and down football sidelines with a 30 pound camera on his shoulder” any more.
Slaughter, considered by his peers and bosses the best sports videographer in town, is leaving television after 21 years to work for the Louisville Metro Police Department communications team with former WKRC-TV reporter Angela Ingram and former WCPO-TV photographer Rich Lane.
The 1988 Lebanon High School graduate provided the pictures for sports reports by WLWT-TV’s George Vogel, Charlie Clifford and Olivia Ray, and before that, WCPO-TV’s John Popovich and Dennis Janson. He had a particular passion for covering high school sports — football, basketball, softball, baseball — and a special talent for capturing shots that conveyed the excitement of the Bengals, high school or college games he filmed.
“I’ve had a front-row seat. I wouldn’t have done it this long if I didn’t love it,” says Slaughter, 54.
“I love high school sports. It’s my favorite thing to cover. I have made so many connections with high school coaches and players, and players who went on to play in college or the pros. That’s what I’ll miss the most.”
Slaughter started as an unpaid intern, at age 32 in 2002, at WCPO-TV after eight years in the Army National Guard. An internship was required to earn an associate degree in electronic media technology from UC’s Blue Ash campus, so he worked at Channel 9 around delivering pizzas for LaRosa’s.
“Being unpaid at WCPO turned into the greatest thing for me ever,” he says. “I owe my entire career to John Popovich. I love that man like my dad. He got me into this business.”
Popovich, the city’s premiere TV storyteller for 40 years at WCPO-TV, credits Slaughter’s visual images and sound from sporting events, and his editing skills, for enhancing Channel 9 sports reports.
"He was a very good videographer and a creative editor," says Popovich, who retired in 2019. "I could hand him a promising script and he could turn it into a masterpiece. He'd add music or natural sound to greatly enhance the story. He wasn't afraid to make suggestions, and usually his suggestions led to a better presentation."
Slaughter knew so much about the preps scene that he picked which games WCPO-TV and WLWT-TV would cover on Friday nights. And when things were slow during the week, Slaughter would go to a football or basketball, or girls’ softball game, and come back with a story.
“Mark was a reporter who just happened to be carrying a camera,” Popovich says. “Coaches and players bonded with him pretty regularly because they saw him on the sidelines or at practice and trusted him. So they said things into his camera that they might not say to me. He often came back to the station with another story or another twist on the story we were doing.”
When Channel 9’s Sports Of All Sorts was a one-hour live show at 11:30 p.m. Sundays, Slaughter was one of two photographers who would shoot Bengals highlights for Popovich.
“I'd write a story of five to 10 minutes for use on the air. Mark loved that kind of work," Popovich says. "He would look for raucous fans, sideline comments, interesting signs, etc. to give the story some life. Those were exhausting pieces but they were fun and very satisfying — none of the 45 seconds of network garbage most of the sportscasters put on the air these days.”
Slaughter started at WCPO-TV as a news photographer, “and I hated it.” He wanted to quit when his WCPO news van was set on fire while covering a story. Popovich snagged him for sports shortly after that. For Channel 9 he covered three Ohio State Buckeyes’ national championship college football games, plenty of UC and Xavier sports, and Reds spring training.
He jumped to WLWT-TV in 2015 after Channel 9 had sent him to Reds spring training solo as a “multimedia journalist” to report, edit and then broadcast his stories himself. At 40 he had no desire to become an on-air TV reporter.
“I didn’t want any part of it. I’m a sports videographer,” says Slaughter, who lives in Clermont County’s Union Township with his wife, Azhand, a fashion designer. They met at UC in 1990.
WCPO's Janson called Slaughter “the ultimate go getter . . . With his unique enthusiasm, looming height and booming voice, he was a fixture at every sports event throughout the Tri-State and will be sorely missed.”
Vogel, who retired last year, praised Slaughter’s “devotion to making sure everything was covered. He would work a long night and then be right back up early the next morning if there was some event happening that we needed to get. There was no set schedule with him.”
Slaughter’s commitment to high school sports “made for a great fit with WLWT‘s commitment to the high school scene,” Vogel says.
Slaughter’s most memorable assignment for Channel 5 was covering the Bengals-Rams 2022 Super Bowl for eight days in Los Angeles. Slaughter also was so respected that he was chosen in 2020 to be the pool photographer covering the Bengals for all Cincinnati TV stations during COVID-19.
Slaughter began contemplating life after TV last fall while recovering from surgery to repair a torn meniscus. You could call it a football injury: He hurt his leg after filming a Wyoming High School touchdown on Sept. 15.
“I had everything I needed, but I took off running from the end zone to the (team) bench because I like to get the reaction of the players coming off the field. And I fell. My hand was bleeding, but that was about it. The next day I shot the Miami-UC (football) game. Sunday I woke up and my left knee was killing me. It’s been a long season and a rough time. I finally had surgery Nov. 3.
“Laying here for three weeks — I’m 54 — put the thought in my head: How much longer can I do this?”
Slaughter heard about the Louisville Metro Police opening from Lane, who started as a WCPO-TV news videographer with Slaughter. Lane works as a videographer and video editor for Louisville Metro Police Director of Communication Angela Ingram, the former WKRC-TV reporter who earned her law degree while working as a Channel 12 reporter (2006-2020).
Police videographers in Louisville edit crime scene video before releasing it to the public. They also shoot and post videos to promote police programs, activities, training and community events to Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and other social media platforms, Slaughter says.
The Louisville job offered “a lot more money,” new professional challenges and the chance to work a 9-to-5 job Monday through Friday. He hasn’t been off weekends since graduating from Lebanon High School in 1988. Slaughter is one of many TV news staffers in recent years who have left the business for a 9-to-5 job with weekends off.
“I’m re-inventing myself, and doing other things than following a football in the air for 35 yards, or sitting in a cornfield with a laptop hoping you have enough Wi-Fi to send video and audio back to the station,” he says.
His last day at WLWT-TV is Friday, March 1. He starts in Louisville Monday March 4.
But he’s hoping to be back on the sidelines this fall with a video camera as a freelancer.
“I can’t give it up cold turkey,” he says, “because I love it.”
