The WCBS radio man who lost his radio voice to spasmodic dysphonia (2024)

6-minute read

Peter Haskell was well into a celebrated career as a radio news reporter when the one thing he most relied upon — his voice — began to fail him.

The first sign of trouble began 12 years ago when his vocal range couldn’t go too high or low for short periods of time. Soon, he had a hard time getting words out. Haskell's voice began sounding raspy and weak.

The New Jersey native would eventually be diagnosed with a rare disorder called spasmodic dysphonia — a spasm of the vocal muscles around which most people are able to adapt their lives.

But when your voice is broadcast all day and night on WCBS Newsradio 880 to millions across the tri-state region, the stakes and consequences are significantly higher.

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“I was on the radio all the time so it’s not like I could've hid it,” Haskell said. “You were looking for perfection every time you delivered the news and it was clear my voice wasn't the same."

Haskell is one of an estimated 50,000 people in North America with SD, as it is often referred to, a neurological condition that creates a vocal tremble in mostly middle-aged people that usually lasts for the rest of their lives.

There is no cure, but treatments pioneered by a Hackensack doctor help to temporarily reduce symptoms.

More attention given RFK Jr.'s presidential bid

The condition has been given a recent spotlight due to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign. While the independent candidate has had the disorder for almost 30 years, his raspy, trembling voice has gotten more attention with a host of stump speeches, media appearances and advertisem*nts over the past year.

In an interview this spring with the Los Angeles Times, Kennedy said his voice doesn’t tire or get worse as he speaks. It just sounds like he’s always on the verge of breaking down.

The condition can be life-changing, but not necessarily debilitating. Risa Clay served for years as principal of Red Bank Regional High School with SD — a role in which public speaking is a large part of the job. A self-described "extrovert and verbal person," she is now president of the Tinton Falls borough council, where she leads every public meeting.

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"When I was diagnosed, I told myself that I was just going to continue to live my life the way I've been living it," said Clay, who also leads a support group for vocal cord disorders. "I loved my job, and I wasn’t going to let my voice stop me."

It wasn't always easy. Knocking on strangers' doors while campaigning is awkward enough. Doing it with a vocal condition is much harder. "I came out about my voice to 18,000 people in Tinton Falls," Clay said with a laugh. "And now I do 90% of the talking at council meetings."

For Haskell, it was a different story — with a different outcome.

A reporter for WCBS Newsradio 880

Growing up in East Brunswick, Haskell developed an early love for broadcasting. He would often do his own play-by-play of Mets and Knicks games on TV. After graduating from Syracuse University, he landed a job at WSUS in Sussex County before moving onto WCTC in New Brunswick where he reported from the field, anchored the news desk and even did play-by-play for Rutgers sports.

In 1994 he got his big break when he was hired as a reporter for WCBS Newsradio 880 in New York, one of the most listened to all-news stations in the U.S. He covered New Jersey news for his first three years and then moved to New York, where each day brought a new assignment.

He also tried to get used to the crazy hours of an all-news station. Somedays he would start at 5 a.m., others late into the night.

Haskell became one of the station’s top reporters and ended up having a front row seat to almost every major event in the region, from the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Superstorm Sandy to the Yankees World Series run and the COVID-19 pandemic.

He covered eight national political conventions and interviewed some of the top public officials in the region. But the most satisfying part of his job was meeting ordinary New Yorkers and New Jerseyans.

“You’d have a major event like Sandy and there were just so many everyday people trying to help complete strangers rebuild their lives,” Haskell said. “Those are the stories that I loved to tell.”

Changes in his voice signaled spasmodic dysphonia

Around 2012, Haskell noticed some changes in his voice. He had short episodes where his voice couldn’t go as high or low as he was used to. Sometimes, he tried to speak and nothing would come out. “It would come and go,” he said. “It was very quick. It didn’t last long. In the beginning, I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

But as the episodes increased in frequency and duration, Haskell sought medical treatment. After going through a slew of doctors, he was eventually diagnosed with spasmodic dysphonia, also known as laryngeal dystonia.

Like Risa Clay, Haskell was treated by Dr. Andrew Blitzer, a Hackensack ENT specialist who developed a now-common treatment for SD that involves injecting Botox into the throat muscles to control the vocal cords.

It began working and Haskell’s voice would be fine for three or four months, until he needed another shot. “I was able to do my job. Not as easily as before, but I was able to do it,” he said.

As the years went on, it became more difficult.

Doing a recorded dispatch from a news event used to be an easy one-take effort. Now Haskell needed several takes until the clip was ready to be broadcast to millions of listeners throughout the day.

Haskell said he was up front with his WCBS bosses from the beginning. He said they were supportive and encouraging and told him to keep working until he no longer felt like he could.

In his last two years at WCBS, Haskell said he was struggling. The improvement from the Botox shots wasn't lasting as long.

“For a number of years I thought getting a needle stuck into my throat every few months was sustainable,” he said. “But it reached a point where it wasn’t. The upside wasn’t as high and it became much harder to do the job I loved.”

Tunnels to Tower Foundation, teaching at Fordham

On Oct. 13, 2022, Haskell went public. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, he told everyone that he was leaving the station because of SD and received an outpouring of support from public officials, journalists and everyday people whom he had always championed.

“I had kept this struggle in for so long, and then people were so kind,” he said. “It was heartwarming when cruelty is on display all the time.”

A few weeks later, on Halloween, Haskell turned in his microphone for good.

The next stop for Haskell was the Tunnels to Tower Foundation where he joined as a “storyteller” chronicling work of the charity that provides homes to the families of fallen soldiers and first responders.

Something remarkable also happened. Haskell’s voice slowly became better. The stress of trying so hard to overcome SD while he was on the radio helped hasten the end of his career, he said.

Haskell was confident enough to take a side job this spring teaching multi-media journalism to undergrads at Fordham University.

“In a classroom setting or really any social setting, if something I say doesn’t come out perfect, the students can still understand it or I can just easily correct myself and move on,” he said. “That wasn’t the case with radio."

As with many rare diseases, funding for research is minimal at best. Haskell and Clay are trying to change that while volunteering with Dysphonia International, the only major charity devoted to the condition. Haskell has penned opinion pieces for news websites and has tried to use his former career in the spotlight to draw attention to SD. It's a position he'd never thought he'd be in.

"I tell people all the time, 'It's not life-threatening, but it is life-changing,'" Haskell said. "And right now all I'm trying to do is spread the word."