Words of Wisdom

I thanked Lee Giles for not firing me. He could have. Perhaps he should have. He did me a favor by only bringing me down a peg or two.

R. Lee Giles was the long-time news director for WISH-TV in Indianapolis (emphasis on looooonnnggg). If you’ve heard the name it’s probably in connection with Jane Pauley. Lee “discovered” her, mentored her and promoted her. Her career—which took her to TV news stardom and made her one of the earliest and most respected women in network news—began at WISH, and she has always been generous in her praise of Lee Giles.

Lee hired me as his Executive Producer in 1976. I was coming straight from my WSPD-TV debacle in Toledo: fired, canned, sacked, cashiered, sent packing—embarrassed, humiliated, discouraged, but (if you know me) nowhere near humbled. After all, I had already been the producer of America’s highest-rated newscasts (in Grand Rapids) and head producer for a station in Detroit. It wasn’t a question of getting back on the horse that threw me—it was more get back into the prize ring at the rodeo by riding the fiercest bucking bronc out there until the horse gave up and admitted defeat..

The only problem (my ego told me) was that I was better than Indianapolis. I didn’t need them, they needed me (I humbly thought). Remember, Toledo taught me humiliation, but it didn’t teach me humility!

Remember, too, the mid-seventies were still the days before cable—before CNN and MSNBC and Fox News—before the wide use of satellites. News? In each market you had your choice of three local stations and their three network newscasts, and that was that. Indianapolis, stuck in the middle of the state, was—to my mind—“The Market That Time Forgot.” They couldn’t even see Chicago. What were they going to watch to get an idea how it was done in the big-time? Terre Haute? Fort Wayne? Me--I not only knew big-time, I was the very definition of big-time (and no ego, either!!!!).

As EP I was also hands-on producer of the 6:00 and 11:00 p.m. newscasts (another sign, to my way of thinking, that Indy was “small-time”).

I spent a couple of months meeting the people and figuring out the systems—biding my time. Soon, I figured, I’m going to show these yokels a thing or two. I’m going to take WISH-TV out of the sixties and into the seventies. Hell, I might not stop there: I might invent the newscast of the year 2000! Take that, Hoosier hicks!

Finally I picked a Friday night as the night I would break the mold—stretch the envelope—reinvent the wheel. I produced a lineup that required three ¾” tape rolls—three 2” machines—two film chains—multiple graphics—fancy camera angles.

It blew up on the air. No survivors. No prisoners. Blood on the walls.

At 11:30, while the smoke was still in the air, I limped out of the control room and back to my typewriter and wrote a note to Lee Giles. I listed the equipment that needed to be acquired and the people that needed to be fired. And I ended with what I thought was the coup de grace: “I guess under the circumstances I can’t do my best work.”

I put my missive in an envelope and—after thinking it over for about three-tenths of a second (patience, after all, is a virtue)—shoved it under Lee’s office door. “That’ll show him,” I thought.

When I came to work Monday I stopped first at my mailbox. There was a note from Lee. I read it—marched to his office—and said, “Thank you for not firing me. You’re absolutely right. I’m absolutely wrong. It will never happen again. You’ve taught me a valuable lesson.”

What had Lee written? Words to this effect: “You’re going to need to get more realistic expectations. If you want to produce a Detroit newscast with Detroit equipment and Detroit personnel, there’s a place you can do it—and you know where it is. I suggest you use Indianapolis people and Indianapolis equipment to produce the best newscasts you can that appeal to an Indianapolis audience.

“You wrote, ‘I guess under the circumstances I can’t do my best work.’ Please understand that the circumstances count. Your best work is the best work you can do UNDER…THE…CIRCUMSTANCES. Master them. Do what you can do—and don’t worry about what you can’t do. Don't live by the limitations, overcome them.”

My ego being what it is I forget that lesson from time to time. Lee’s ego being what it is (nonexistent) he was WISH-TV News Director for more than 35 successful years until his retirement. He was one of the best bosses I ever had; a gentleman and a gentle man. I’ve thanked him before for not firing me. This is my chance to do it publicly.

Dietary Preferences

This is the funniest thing anyone ever said to me about television news.

This is the filthiest thing anyone ever said to me about television news.

WARNING! THIS POST CONTAINS LANGUAGE (AND MENTAL IMAGES) THAT MIGHT MAKE YOU GAG. COME TO THINK OF IT, IF YOU’RE NORMAL THEY SHOULD MAKE YOU GAG. BEFORE READING ON PLEASE CONSULT YOUR FAMILY PHYSICIAN AND/OR A MEMBER OF CLERGY. THEN SIGN THREE COPIES OF A"HOLD HARMLESS" WAIVER INDEMNIFYING ME AGAINST ANY POSSIBLE LEGAL ACTION, HAVE IT NOTARIZED, AND POST IT HERE IN THE "COMMENTS" SECTION IN .PDF FORMAT. YOU MIGHT ALSO WANT TO HAVE MEDICAL PERSONNEL (AND MAYBE A HAZMAT TEAM) ON
STANDBY.

THANKS FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

You still here? OK, you asked for it.

There was a time in the early 90s when I worked for WCIX-TV (since rechristened WFOR-TV), the CBS O-and-O in Miami. For you uninitiated, “O-and-O” means “Owned and Operated.” The rules have been relaxed over the years, but there was a time when large corporations like CBS could actually own only a small handful of TV stations. Believe it or not, that’s where the money is in broadcasting. Operating a network is a costly business, and even in boom times profits are tough to come by. Owning a station is a different matter: owning a local TV station has always been (even in these changing economic times) a license to print money. So the “Big Three,” ABC, NBC, CBS (now the big four, with Fox a player), have always had dozens of affiliates each, but only a handful of “O-and-O” stations. The trick, of course, is to maximize your profits by owning stations in the biggest markets and doing your best to make them wildly popular. News is where that battle has traditionally been waged. The CBS O-and-Os have included stations that have, at one time or another, dominated their markets: WCBS in New York, KCBS in Los Angeles, WBBM in Chicago.

And for better or worse the CBS O-and-Os have a long (if not necessarily proud) history of treating news anchors like gods and catering to their every whim. Ah, the stories I’ve heard. Some I can’t repeat: there’s one CBS station—if all the talk is to be believed—that for years employed an anchor on the verge of a psychotic breakdown. Instead of getting him help, managers propped him up every day and sent him out to the anchor desk, hoping no one would notice that without a script in front of him he was a babbling, raving maniac! But that was the CBS tradition, if not a formal policy: treat anchors like addled children and spoil them rotten. Male and female, young and old, if you were a CBS O-and-O anchor there was a 90% chance you were a diva.

Actually, I started at WCIX as newsroom second-in-command: Executive Producer. That’s when I first met Eric Ober, whose title was (if I remember) Vice President/CBS Owned Stations Division. The O-and-O GMs reported to him. I liked him instantly: a wildly smart, wickedly funny, self-effacing guy, he was a pleasure to be around. He had started as a producer for the CBS station in Philadelphia and worked at a variety of jobs in the CBS O-and-O chain and at CBS News. At one time he was the news executive in charge of "60 Minutes."

A great, entertaining, perceptive guy. From my position a bit down the food chain he looked like a wonderful boss. Unfortunately, as #2 in the newsroom, I was not in the “Let’s go to lunch with Eric” bunch. Our dealings were strictly business. But in March of 1990, I was appointed News Director and that changed.

The day of Eric’s next visit to Miami I went to the General Manager’s office for a meeting with Eric and the other department heads. Eric, seeing me, jumped up from the conference table, rushed around, grabbed me in a big bear hug (quite a sight, I imagine: I’m at least six inches taller and 80 pounds heavier!) and said, “Ah…you’re a CBS news director at last! You know what that means, don’t you?”

“Uh, no, Eric…I honestly don’t.”
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LAST WARNING...THIS POST NOW BECOMES XXX-RATED...YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

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“Every day: DRINK A GALLON OF ANCHOR CUM!”

If I remember correctly I laughed until the snot ran out my nose!

Not too much later Eric Ober became President of CBS News. Dan Rather’s boss. And although I saw him several times in the years ahead, I successfully resisted any questions or comments about Rather’s bodily fluids.

Sorry if you’ve been offended. It remains, though, the funniest, filthiest thing anyone has ever said to me.

By the way, I can’t end this story without a word about John Roberts, or “J.D.” as he was known in his WCIX anchor days. He later moved to the network, was CBS White House Correspondent, and was even mentioned as Dan Rather’s possible successor until Katie Couric was hired. Now he’s with CNN. John Roberts was not a diva when we worked together in Miami. Truth is, he is perhaps the most multi-talented broadcast journalist I’ve ever worked with: brilliant, hard-working, perceptive and (an oddity for CBS) sane! Any ego I ever saw in John Roberts was understandable: he was always the smartest person in any room. I don’t want to leave the impression that every single anchor I worked with in Miami was a basket case.

Just most of them.

Man and Mentor

Sometimes it’s just luck.

I had the amazing good fortune to work for one of the greatest news directors in American broadcasting history, Richard Earl Cheverton: recipient of a Peabody Award for Public Service in Journalism—a Radio Television News Directors Association Award for editorials—the Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award for TV Editorializing—a DuPont/Columbia Award for a ground-breaking series of documentaries, "Our Poisoned World"—and the Associated Press First Amendment Award (later renamed the Richard E. Cheverton Award). “Chev” was also a much-honored President of the RTNDA in the late 50s.

Chev hired me during my senior year at Michigan State to work part-time at WOOD AM-FM-TV in Grand Rapids as a weekend news writer/producer. As I got closer to graduation day, I was beating the bushes looking for a job when Chev called one day: “I’d like to buy you lunch: what would be convenient for you?”

I did the math. The station was 75 miles from my East Lansing apartment. “I can be there in 75 minutes.”

He laughed and said “Tomorrow will be soon enough.” The next day, wearing my blue blazer, my gray slacks and a polished pair of Bass Weejuns, I presented myself at his office. I got the free lunch—and more.

“The anchors tell me you write clean copy.”

“Y-Y-Y-Yessir, I-I-I-I-I t-t-t-t-t-try.”

And he offered me a job: $135 a week to go from part-time weekends to full-time, weekends and some weekdays. I graduated on a Saturday and worked that night, moving all my not-so-worldly possession to Grand Rapids—one trip in my Volkswagen—into a furnished apartment on Fountain Street.

Six weeks later I was producing the 11:00 p.m. news on WOOD-TV. By accident.

Chev didn’t have a choice. His 11PM producer just couldn’t cut it—he didn’t know how to operate under TV deadlines. The poor guy was fired, and Chev asked me to fill in until he could find a replacement.

"Y-Y-Y-Y-You w-w-w-w-won’t n-n-n-n-need a-a-a-a r-r-r-r-replacement, M-M-M-Mr. Chev-Chev-Chev-erton, I’m you’re m-m-m-m-m-man!”

He gave me an “Oh, brother” look, and then he gave me my chance.

Executive Producer John Strickler baby-sat me for a few nights, then I was ready to solo. That first night, after the 6:00, Chev headed for the door and stopped by my desk to offer some advice: “Remember, I’m not paying you to make exactly the right decision at 10:55. I’m paying you to make some really good guesses at 8:00.”

Lesson learned.

A few months later a friend sent me a press clipping. TV & Radio Age was still publishing in those days, and printed a periodic list of the highest-rated newscasts in the country. At the top of the list: WOOD’s 11:00 p.m., with a share somewhere north of 50%. I had never heard that before. It was general knowledge that we were #1 in the market—but #1 in the country?

I took the clip in to Chev’s office. He read it, looked at me over the top of his glasses and confirmed that it was accurate.

“But Chev, why don’t we make a big deal out of it?” I said, hot-shot 22-year-old producer that I was.

“Because we don’t measure success by ratings, we measure success by service. If we’re serving our viewers the ratings will follow.”

That was in the winter of 1969. No one has said those words to me since. I’ve never heard of anyone saying those words since then—except me. I tried them on for size a couple of times after I became a news director. It felt good, and honorable, and truthful to say them.

No one paid any attention.

I’ve done my best since then—but I worry that my best wasn’t good enough. I fear I've fallen short of his standards. I cringe at the compromises I made along the way. I’m sorry for the ways my colleagues and I have measured success. I'm glad I don't have to explain Paris Hilton to Dick Cheverton.

Chev died in 1974 after an ugly but courageous fight with cancer. Near the end I visited him in the hospital to tell him I had an offer to become head producer for the NBC affiliate in Detroit, to ask for his advice (and to hope for his blessing). Truth is, I was nervous about going, and hesitant about staying: I didn't know what a newsroom without Dick Cheverton would be like. We both knew he wasn’t coming out of the hospital, but we both played the game. I said I felt guilty leaving before he was back in the office, and could wait. He told me I’d been at WOOD for five years—that he never expected me to be there that long—that he knew I needed that next challenge, that next job--and that I shouldn't worry, he'd be back on the job soon. We smiled and shook hands. I cried in the hallway.

I returned from Detroit six weeks later for his funeral. He was 59 when he died. I’m 60 now. That amazes me.

I still hear his voice, and I still ask, “What would Chev do?” And I’m still trying to be the man and the mentor he was, convinced I'm falling short.

Hail to the Chief!

The old WWJ radio and TV in downtown Detroit was in an old-time radio building: THE old-time-iest radio building in the Midwest, WWJ-AM. And the newsroom was on the third floor in a mammoth converted radio studio: at one time apparently the largest radio studio between New York and Chicago, the origination point for symphony concerts, big band programs and who knows what else.

That big old windowless barn was close to three stories tall, maybe 60 by 80 feet, and was suspended for acoustics. That is, it was hanging—almost free-floating—to eliminate vibration. An engineering marvel. You had to step over a sill to get from the “solid” building that surrounded it to the suspended inner sanctum of that huge airplane-hanger of a studio. The walls and ceiling were covered with acoustical tile—long-since yellowed by decades of cigarette smoke. A few light fixtures high overhead provided some light, but changing the bulbs was almost impossible. Most of the real illumination was provided by goose-neck desk lamps clamped to each of the heavy old linoleum-topped desks that ran in facing rows down the center of the room and around the walls. Cubicles? We don’ need no stinkin’ cubicles! The floor was littered with cigarette butts—wastebaskets overflowed with the output from eight wire-service machines—it was all incredibly low-rent and yet incredibly big-time. You felt like you were in some secret journalism command center, some bunker, doing high-tech, top-secret, earth-saving work (“Get me on the air NOW, I’ve got a bulletin!”). No creature comforts for the men (and one or two women) who worked in the newsroom at WWJ in the early 70s!

Near the main entrance was an audio cartridge player—a “cart machine”—so reporters could play back and time their recorded audio tracks (these were the waning days of film, remember).

Dunno who had this idea, but one day we turned out the lights—all the lights—and sat in pitch-black darkness waiting for News Director Lou Prato to enter. We saw his silhouette outlined in the door—standing there wondering why the room was dark and silent and waiting for his eyes to adjust.

Someone punched “play” on the cart machine—which was cued up to “Hail to the Chief.”

Tum-tum-da-dum
Tum-da-da-de-dum-de-dum-dum.

And every single goose-neck lamp in the place was switched on, used as a spotlight and shined directly at Lou.

He never missed a beat. He jumped up on the row of desks, waved a two-handed Dick Nixon “V-for-Victory” salute, and started marching the fifty-or-so feet down the middle of the desks, kicking papers onto the floor while his loyal subjects trained their spotlights on him, cheering and cat-calling.

He got to the end, jumped down, the overhead lights were switched back on, and everyone went back to work.

I’ve always said my love affair with TV news is based on the fact that the happiest I’ve ever been—the angriest I’ve ever been—the proudest I’ve ever been—the hardest I’ve ever cried—and the hardest I’ve ever laughed have all been in newsrooms.

Maybe “You had to be there,” but that was the hardest I ever laughed: 1974, Lou Prato channeling Dick Nixon in the dark in Detroit.

Not-So-Happy Talk

I had the great good fortune to work at WABC in New York in the early 80s—the tail end of the ”Eyewitness News” glory years. And I was honored to have had the chance to work with and know what was then (and may still hold the title, posthumously) America’s greatest anchor team, Roger Grimsby and Bill Beutel.

“Hoping your news is good news, I’m Roger Grimsby.”

“And I’m Bill Beutel, good luck and be well.”

Bill was the courtly gentleman journalist, a truly classy guy. Grimsby was the crochety curmudgeon: he entered his “cranky old coot” stage early, and played the role well. When Howard Cosell was anchoring local sports and had a night off, it was Grimsby who quipped, "Howard Cosell isn't here tonight: he's out walking his pet rat."

And there’s a good chance you’ve already seen his famous sign-off the night reporter Mara Wolinsky flipped the bird on camera: it’s been a gag-reel staple for a quarter-century now. Poor Mara, sitting on-set for a story at 5:00 p.m., was getting conflicting hand signals from the floor director. Not knowing the camera was “hot” (and boys and girls, take note, treat ALL cameras as if they’re hot all the time) she gave him a little hand signal of her own, and brought the show to a screeching halt.

That left it to Grimsby to put a capper on the evening. He signed off the 6:00 p.m. news with, “As Mara Wolinsky would say, ‘We’re Number One.’”

The perfect Grimsby put-down? Not so fast. I'm not even sure it was his best Mara Wolinsky zinger. Try this one on for size.

I don’t know why he had it in for Mara, but he never took to her, even though she did good work. One day she went to Brooklyn to catch up with Lou Ferrigno, TV’s “Incredible Hulk,” body-builder turned actor (like his nemesis, Arnold Schwarzenegger). He was returning to his old high school to give a weightlifting demonstration and motivational talk.

We get to the end of the story—to the “standup”—and the camera is tight on Mara’s face. She speaks—the camera pulls out—and we see that she’s sitting in the upturned palm of Lou Ferrigno’s hand. He’s balancing her over his head like a waiter lifting a tray of dishes. Is it politically correct to say Mara was a little slip of a thing? Maybe not, but it’s true. She was, maybe 4’11” and 95 pounds, tops. Ferrigno can hold her up there all day. She gives the standard sign-off, “Mara Wolinsky, Eyewitness News in Brooklyn.”

Cut to Grimsby on the set for THE LAST WORD (his prerogative).

Long pause…deep stare…hint of a grin at the corner of his mouth…Grimsby speaks: “Talk about lifting dumbbells! Hoping your news is good news…”

Not exactly “Happy Talk.” More like a corkscrew stiletto with a left-handed thread, inserted six inches deep, right between the shoulder blades. The master at work. No reason for it, really. Just Roger being Roger. God Bless You, Roger Grimsby, goddammit!

I Could Have Been Gelman

True!

In the early 80s I was Director of News Operations (read "assignment manager") for WABC-TV in New York. One day the late Bill Fyffe, Vice President and General Manager, called me into his office and said, "I want to offer you a new job, 'Executive Producer of Non-News Programming.'"

I looked at him and said, "We don't DO any non-news programming except that Regis and Cindy Garvey thing." His answer? "That's it."

Those were the days before Kathie Lee Gifford, and before syndication. Regis Philbin was teamed with Cindy Garvey (the wife of the baseball star) for a program that aired only in NYC. I asked Bill for 24 hours to think about it, and talked to my boss, News Director Cliff Abromats; the next step would have been a sit-down with Regis, but my mind was already made up. What did I know about booking guests and handling stars, about entertainment and showbiz? I turned the job down.

Just as well. Some time later Michael Gelman took over the show. I'm not saying I'd have failed miserably, but I wouldn't have had the comfort level he brought to the show and the hosts. I think I would have lasted six months, tops.

No regrets: but hey, I coulda been Gelman!

Bob Dole was Raping Me, but Jerry Ford Stopped Him

It was 1972, and I was a producer-still-hoping-to-be-a-reporter in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Long-time Congressman Jerry Ford was campaigning for what would be another shoo-in re-election in November, and he brought in a national heavy-hitter to carry the water for him. Welcome to Grand Rapids, Republican National Chairman Bob Dole, Senator from Kansas.

So at the obligatory (even in those days) news (not "press") conference The Kid asks a question about this "Watergate" break-in thing. Something along the line of "Golly, gee whiz, your holy high honorableness, whaddaya make of these guys sneaking around in that there office building, huh, whaddaya, whaddaya?"

That's when it happened.

Remember, Senator Dole was a World War II hero. He lost the use of his right hand in the war. That's why he always clutched a pen, to downplay the awkwardness as people tried to shake his hand.

As I remember it, Dole (spry for an older guy) vaulted over the podium in a single bound and tried to stab me in the jugular with the pen! Spittle was spraying from the corners of his down-turned mouth, and he was growling something about "third-rate break-in" and "running-dog media lackeys" and "This one's for Spiro." I felt the hot breath of hell and knew I was about to die.

And that's when Jerry Ford stepped forward and stepped in, feeding raw meat to the snarling beast while at the same time performing CPR on my near-lifeless form. .

At least that's the way I remember it. Others might think that Dole simply turned his famous temper loose and teed off on a dumb rookie reporter, and that Ford recognized it as overkill and stepped to Dole's side at the podium to prevent The Kid (with whom he had had dealings before) from being made to look like the uninformed fool he was.

Truth is, The Kid was the "unarmed man" in this battle, and Jerry Ford was just having mercy.

And that's why I always thought of Jerry Ford as the most honorable politico I've ever met: a decent man.

I'm no historian, but my guess is that decades from now the history books will record that there were two (and only two) GOOD MEN who held the presidency in the last half of the 20th century: Harry Truman and Jerry Ford. I was saddened the day President Ford died, but I also couldn't help smiling. He kept Bob Dole from killing me.