SoCal Radio: Newsman Jim Ness Signs-Off Friday

Jim Ness

Radio News broadcaster Jim Ness is ending a 50-year career at InlandNews Today Friday.

Ness is news director and general manager of Inland News Today, a service that has provides news for local stations in Riverside and San Bernardino counties in Southern California.

The Riverside-based company will still report Inland news on its website, and Ness said he will remain involved in video production.

Radio has been a lifelong passion for Ness, but he said that news and local programming have been squeezed out of it by consolidation and profit motives.

According to PE.com, Ness said Friday will be the 50th anniversary of the date he signed with his first Inland radio station.

Ness arrived at KASK in Ontario from the Midwest in 1965. He was aware that he was coming to a growing area for news, but at the time it was vineyards and Hells Angels, who were headquartered in Alta Loma.

He recalls a member called Blind Bob Glaze once came to the studio and insisted Ness take a ride around the block in the sidecar of his bike.

In 1992, he founded Inland Empire News Radio, a service that supplied reporting to member stations. It became part of Inland News Today when that service was founded in 2003.