KET pubcaster knows Oprah Winfrey as a doggone good host

All of America (well, nearly) is bracing for Oprah Winfrey’s final talk show today (May 25). But Bill Goodman, host of Kentucky Tonight on Kentucky Educational Television, can say he personally knew her way back when. He was news producer and assignment editor at CBS affiliate WTVF-TV in Nashville when Winfrey, then a 19-year-old college sophomore, anchored its weekend newscast. He tells A.M. New York that even back then, Winfrey was “a perfectionist and she worked very hard. As one of the first African-American women on the air, she knew that a lot of people were watching her. She did not want to fail.” Winfrey even once volunteered to housesit for a week for Goodman and his wife, watching over their Cocker Spaniel.