Who's Who? | Says You!

Richard Sher
Barry Nolan
Francine Achbar
Tony Kahn
Carolyn Faye Fox
Arnie Reisman
Paula Lyons
Phil Salkind

With the personal motto “Genius don’t cost extra,” Richard Sher produces and hosts Says You! What he does charge for is his work as president and founder of Pipit & Finch, a marketing and media development company with clients such as CBS/Westinghouse, Hearst Broadcasting and National Public Radio. In his spare time, he trains Ollie and desperately pumps friends and strangers alike for words and definitions. With more than 30 years experience in broadcast production, programming, media development and marketing, Richard almost didn’t work in radio. He started out as an optician. Really. We couldn’t see it either.

Barry Nolan

Our diabolically clever television personality extraordinaire has traveled the world covering all manner of stories for TV shows such as “Hard Copy,” “Extra,” and ABC’s “Over the Edge.” He co-hosted Boston’s “Evening Magazine” on WBZ-TV for nearly a decade and was the host of “Backstage with Barry Nolan” for The Comcast Network. He’s also worked as a Thespian. He has appeared in numerous films, including “The Birdcage,” and he spent two years as part of a classically oriented theater company under the direction of Sir Anthony Quayle. But for Barry, all that pales to being stereo right and excelling at the “Says You!” bluffing round. Barry is a former psychiatric social worker and a member of Mensa. Ah, it all makes sense now.

Francine Achbar

Francine Achbar has been an award winning television writer, producer, and executive but don’t let that fool you. Behind the well-groomed appearance—she loves to dress for radio—resides a demon bluffer. For most of her career she breathed media, having worked in newspapers, at WBZ-TV Boston and American Public Television, but today she inhales the arts working as Deputy Director for Boston’s New Center for Arts and Culture. Francine’s impeccable resume may cause one to wonder what she’s doing on “Says You!” the show that applauds foolishness and celebrates deceit. We have yet to find out, but we think it’s because she simply has, like we all do, a gas of a time!

Tony Kahn

Tony’s a guy who has never known precisely what he wanted to do. Writer, producer, narrator, commentator, host—he’s done it all. Along with an uncanny knack for causing host Richard Sher to fall off his stool with laughter, Tony was the original host of PRI’s “The World” and is still heard occasionally by more than two million listeners a week as the program’s alternate host. He’s worked with PBS, NPR, A&E, WGBH, WCVB and all the other letters in the alphabet as well as Nickelodeon and Monitor Radio. Tony was most recently honored for his public radio series “Blacklisted,” which chronicled the Hollywood blacklisting of his screenwriter father Gordon Kahn during the McCarthy era. We can’t afford the Web space to list the numerous honors bestowed upon him. Tony has also been playing around with new media. His weekly podcast, WGBH’s “Morning Stories,” is heard around the world and became Public Radio’s very first podcast, in October of 2004. Our overworked and underappreciated staff still cracks up at his definition of “hoove” as “an unsuccessful Heimlich maneuver.”

Carolyn Faye Fox

Carolyn Faye Fox, the most eager punster of all the panelists and creator of the “Says You!” slogan “High Definition Radio,” has finally found a vehicle through which she can best express herself. As Richard says, “Carolyn is always a second away from telling us what she really thinks!” A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, she’s a Contributing Editor at The Improper Bostonian, as well as an accomplished food critic, travel writer, and ad hoc marketing consultant. Nevertheless, Carolyn finds the most joy in stumping her teammates with devious definitions of Scottish derivation.

Arnie Reisman

Our “rank raconteur” spends his days as an award-winning writer/producer/performer working in commercial and public TV, corporate video, journalism and film. (Have you noticed that none of our panelists do just one thing - we should buy stock in Overachievers Anonymous!) He’s currently co-producing a PBS film on Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden, titled “The Powder & the Glory.” His national telecasts include “The Other Side of the Moon” (PBS’ 20th anniversary of the lunar landing) and “PBS’ AIDS Quarterly with Peter Jennings.” He has a healthy roster of corporate clients, has taught at Boston College and Brandeis University, served as executive editor of the city’s leading weekly newspaper and is currently writing a novel and a book of poems. He has also had a few plays produced, just to keep his mind active. You can see Arnie as himself in the movie “Next Stop Wonderland.” Rent it. Arnie’s secret to a happy life? Being married to fellow panelist Paula Lyons.

Paula Lyons

That scintillating laugh belongs to Paula Lyons, anchor of our stereo left team. Paula is an executive coach who helps business people give great speeches, presentations and media interviews. In New England, Paula is well known for the years she spent as the Consumer Reporter for WBZ-TV and WCVB-TV in Boston. But she’s also known around the country for her work with “Good Morning America” from 1989-1994 and her articles in “Ladies Home Journal.” She has worked as press secretary to Boston Mayor Kevin H. White and taught in the American School of Buenos Aires in Argentina. Handling kids, politicians and business practitioners-- she’s definitely qualified to sit on our panel!

Phil Salkind

Philip Salkind has finally parlayed his unbelievable mastery of the arcane into a paying gig. He first met Richard across the bar at a health club restaurant where Phil, an underemployed musician, was slinging chardonnay and the occasional carrot juice while dazzling patrons with his television game show prowess. Quick to notice talent in the raw and on the the cheap, Richard hired Phil and thus began a collaboration that defines creative tension to this day. At present, during the rare periods of hiatus from the Says You! juggernaught, he labors in the grove of telecommunications technology, building devices that are designed to locate his stock options.