Did I? Did He? Did We?

It’s another crummy December morning in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania. Snow, sleet and freezing rain have delayed or canceled classes in dozens of school districts. All over the area people are tuning to WNEP-TV to see if the “Winterwatch” computer has their kids’ school on the list; although these days you can also check the “Winterwatch” on your PC or even have closings and delays sent straight to your cell phone. We’ve come a long way, baby!

I don’t have children, but I always check for the status of “S. Wilson Tech.”

When I took over as News Director at WNEP, back in 1983, morning anchor Frank Andrews would sit at the anchor desk with slips of paper—a pile of slips of paper—and read off the closings and delays. During commercials and the weather forecast he did his best to alphabetize the mess. God, it was boring, reading them over…and over…and over. It was rotten TV, but what could be more important than keeping little Johnny from freezing to death at the bus stop, or little Suzy from getting killed when her school bus slides on a patch of “black ice” and winds up on its side in a ditch?

One year later the slips of paper were gone and Frank was back to anchoring. The school closings were displayed on the screen—in alphabetical order—on something we named the “Winterwatch Computer.” We were "Newswatch 16," and we had the "Spotrtswatch" and the "Weatherwatch." Creative, huh?

A case can be made that WNEP was the first station in America to computerize school closings, and that I was the one behind it.

I’m not sure about either claim, but here’s what I know.

Then-WNEP VP and GM Elden Hale was/is a genius. When he was EP at KXAS in Dallas, he hooked up with a computer programmer by the name of Frank Ivan. Ivan wrote one of the first TV station master control automation programs in the industry.

At WNEP, Elden had Frank Ivan design a vote tabulation program that hooked up to a CG (“character generator”) to compute and display vote totals on election night. Similar programs were cropping up around the country, but Frank's was a winner!

But election night came only twice a year. Was there any way we could jigger the program to put it to other uses?

Elden says that I came up with the idea of computerizing the school closings. I say it was Elden. Either way, it was child’s play (seemingly) for Frank Ivan, and by October, 1983 we were up and running. We were the first in the market.

But were we the first in the country? I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that word of Frank’s programming prowess spread. In November, 1986, the folks behind one of the first newsroom computer systems, “NewStar” came from Madison, Wisconsin to WNEP to watch Frank’s election program in use. The idea was that if it worked and worked well during a real, live election, they’d put Frank on retainer and take his vote tabulation program nationwide.

Of course it worked, and they came up with a deal for Frank. They got Frank Ivan, his expertise, his vote tabulation program , and—as an extra added attraction—his school closing program. Next thing you know, anyone who had “NewStar” computers had access to a school closing program. In cold-weather markets, lots of stations started using it.

Now, remember: Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. But so did Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis and Elisha Gray, among others. Lots of people were working on the same idea at the same time. Bell gets the credit.

I can’t say who might have been working on a school closing program at the same time Frank Ivan was working on his for WNEP. I can’t say if WNEP was first. Maybe someone else had a similar program in 1983: I hadn’t heard of any commercially available.

I can tell you who wasn’t first. It sure as hell wasn’t WDAU-TV (now called WYOU-TV), our Scranton competitor. But within a year of WNEP’s “Winterwatch,” WDAU had school closings and delays displayed on its screen.

Funny thing, though: in the beginning, they weren’t in alphabetical order (something Frank Ivan’s program did automatically). And WDAU’s closing information seemed to be running 15-20 minutes (or more) behind ours. Then I noticed WDAU had every closing we had—well after we had it—but none we didn’t have.

It dawned on me. THOSE WERE OUR CLOSINGS, COPIED DOWN AND ENTERED BY HAND INTO THEIR CG! Those bastards! Those thieves!

WNEP has a wonderful engineer, Stu Wilson. Wonderful tech, wonderful guy! I went up to him and said, “Stu, you’re a ‘tech,’ right?” Yes. “Bad weather this morning, right?” Horrible. “Bad driving conditions?” The worst. “Have trouble making it in to work.” Yes. “Were you late?” About a half-hour.

So I went to the Winterwatch computer and entered, “S. Wilson Tech, Half-Hour Delay.” Hey, it harmed no one, and it was accurate—sort of.

And sure enough, about a half-hour later “S. Wilson Tech” showed up on WDAU’s screen.

Now, I’m not the one who tipped off the newspaper. Swear to God. I know who did (and I’ll take his name and his secret to the grave). I swear it wasn't me (I?). But I certainly wasn’t unhappy to get a call from the paper asking for a comment, and I certainly wasn’t unhappy to see a front-page article the next day in which WDAU admitted its thievery. The station’s excuse: once WNEP had broadcast it, it was in the public domain, and it was in the public interest.

Darn right it benefitted the public. And if WNEP wasn’t first in the country, we were first in the region and put our viewers first. And that’s one reason WNEP is still #1 today, and WDAU (now as WYOU) is still #3.

And this morning, judging from the “Winterwatch” display, apparently “S. Wilson Tech” was on time. At least, I didn't see"it" listed as closed or delayed.

Yipee Ki-Yay

A remarkable documentary is running on Showtime this month; Cocaine Cowboys. It’s the story of the Miami drug wars.

The producers did an excellent job mining old TV news footage and newspaper clips and marrying them with present-day interviews. Among those asked to reminisce were drug runners, drug sellers, drug-gang assassins, law officers, lawyers and two journalists.

One was Edna Buchanan, Pulitzer Prize-winning crime reporter for the Miami Herald who later morphed into a best-selling novelist. The other was my old friend Al Sunshine, for a long time a reporter with WTVJ, later a CNN Correspondent covering (among other things) the Space Shuttle, and for years now WFOR’s “Shame on You” consumer reporter. From my perspective, Edna was lucky to be in such good company.

The film details the second of the two things that made Miami what it is today. The first was—trust me on this—air conditioning, which turned South Florida from a sleepy, bug-infested backwater into a popular tourist destination and retirement community. The documentary focuses on the second—cocaine; smuggling drugs in from Columbia, which brought money and notoriety to the area starting in the 70s and the 80s.

I have a friend who says, “There are only three big cities in America: Boston, New York and San Francisco. Everything else is Pittsburgh.”

Think about it. Philadelphia is Pittsburgh…with history. Cleveland is Pittsburgh…with a lake. Detroit is Pittsburgh…without the hills. Chicago is Pittsburgh…writ large. Denver is Pittsburgh…a mile high. Seattle is Pittsburgh…under water. Los Angeles is…well, just what the hell is Los Angeles, anyway? Omaha, Minneapolis, even Las Vegas: give me a break. New Orleans—the old Nawlins—had charm and style, but it was never really a big city. So maybe everywhere else is Pittsburgh.

With one exception: friends, Miami ain’t Pittsburgh. Someone in the documentary says Miami is Casablanca. I’ve always thought of it as Singapore, or Bangkok, or Istanbul, or…you know, some “stateless” state, some crossroads for nomads and fugitives. It wouldn’t have surprised me a bit to be stopped by a cop and asked for my “letters of transit.” It’s also, to my way of thinking, a rootless society: no one there is from there. Oh, you can find native South Floridians; but most people are transplants. They could care less about voting for Mayor—they’re not from here, they have no stake in the society. On the positive side—forget all that talk about a “melting pot.” Miami is a bouillabaisse; the ingredients mix but still retain their own unique flavors: Anglo, Cuban, Black, Puerto Rican, Nicaraguan, Columbian, etc. I say again: it ain’t Pittsburgh.

I arrived in Miami in 1989, after the “Cocaine Wars” had died down a bit.

A bit. Miami is still the craziest news town I’ve ever seen; and remember, I’d been around! In every newsroom in America there’s a morning meeting to go over story ideas for the day: the news “budget.” You come out of the meeting with a pretty good idea of the shape of the day, certainly with an idea of the “big story,” your lead for the day. In my four years in Miami, NOT ONCE did the projected lead make it as the first item in the evening news. And sometimes, many times, the projected lead didn’t even make the broadcast! It had been eclipsed by other breaking news during the day, shoved deeper and deeper into the lineup until it just disappeared.

A sidebar: the Miami-Dade police department used to present an “Officer of the Month” award. We covered the ceremony every month, knowing it probably would be squeezed out of that night’s newscasts. “But,” someone at the morning meeting would say, “At least we’ll have his picture when he’s indicted.” It happened far too often. That was Miami. There was too much money to be made. Cocaine Cowboys makes the point that everyone has his price. I’d like to think that’s not true, but some otherwise respectable Miamians were making a lot of money simply by looking the other way while the drug lords fought it out on our streets. The film makes the point that after awhile drug-related killings became so commonplace that it took something special to make a murder newsworthy: a high body count, for example. God forgive us.

Another sidebar: newspaper columnist Dave Barry—sort of the Will Rogers of modern-day South Florida—used to pass out bumper stickers that read, “Miami: Thanks for Not Shooting!”

Cocaine Cowboys is a solid piece of journalism—and I don’t mean to take away from the producers’ achievement. But it’s easy to see “the big picture” from a vantage point 25 years down the road. Al and other journalists of the time were writing instant history, and trying to make sense of the senseless killings that had invaded a quiet backwater nestled between the ocean and the Everglades.

I don’t know if Al Sunshine invented the term “Cocaine Cowboys,” but he was among the first to use it and popularize it. It’s only fair that he’s a key narrator in this fascinating documentary.

Here’s the promo: Cocaine Cowboys is on Showtime this month; and you can catch it anytime on Showtime on Demand. It’s more than worth a look.

Attaboy, Al!

There Are Places I Remember...

Places and times and people.

This is it. This is the anniversary of one of the defining “Tying My Shoes” moments. December 8th.

You think you’ve got a career. You think you’re making a difference. You start thinking of yourself as—just maybe—important. Then in a heartbeat you realize you’re just occupying space on the planet—barely.

I’ve heard it said, “Want to know how important you are? Stick your foot in a bucket of water. Then pull it out quickly. The hole you leave in the water is how much you’ll be missed when you’re gone.” I learned that once and for all 27 years ago today.

December 8th, 1980 was the day John Lennon was murdered, gunned down in front of “The Dakota,” his New York apartment, by a crazy kid, Mark David Chapman. Many will pause today to remember his music, his life and his death. I’ll also remember it as a moment when I felt useless and helpless.

In those days I slept more soundly than I do today. I was such a heavy sleeper that I always set my clock radio for an hour before I actually wanted to get up. The radio would rouse me, I’d listen to a top-of-the-hour newscast, get up and splash a little water on my face, and return to bed for some lighter sleep until I had to get up.

On that December 8th I had been working as Director of News Operations (a loftier title than Assignment Manager) for WABC in New York for all of three weeks. I was the manager in charge of all news gathering for the #1 station in the #1 market. The long years of apprenticeship were over. Sinatra sang, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.” That’s how I felt about WABC.

That morning at 5:00 the radio went off, and the announcer on all-news WCBS said, “The world is mourning the death of Beatle John Lennon, gunned down last night at his apartment on New York’s Upper West Side.”

I was instantly awake, and pulling on jeans and a shirt. I was also cursing out our overnight desk kid.

That’s what he was—a kid—just barely out of college. You see, in the days before full-fledged morning newscasts, newsrooms—even the one at the mighty WABC Eyewitness News—were all but deserted overnight. The way the union contracts read the New York stations could employ “stringers” to shoot what was called “non-scheduled news events” overnight. That meant a handful of independent photographers hit the streets every night running from fire to shooting to stabbing to train derailment. WABC’s overnight desk assistant was there as protection only, to call for help if World War III broke out.

But why hadn’t he called me? He must have heard the Lennon shooting calls on the two-way. Or a stringer must have gotten the film and tipped him off. As I jumped into a cab all I could do was pray that we weren’t playing catch-up.

Why did I jump into a cab rather than call the station? Because I lived only twelve blocks away, at 56th and Broadway. It took me less than ten minutes to get out of bed and to the WABC studios at 67th & Columbus.

I rushed up to the newsroom and found…

...and found…about half the news staff already there and working on the story. Roughly 100 people—with more on the way, including pretty much the entire assignment desk staff. I rushed up to the night assignment editor (whose shift normally would have ended five hours earlier) and asked—demanded—to know why I hadn’t been called.

The editor—I think it was Neil Goldstein, but it could have been Fred Chieco, I forget which—looked sheepish. “I guess we just forgot about you.”

My face flushed. Or maybe I was on the verge of tears. The story of the year and I was superfluous, an afterthought. Ouch!

Looking back, I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’m not sure everyone on the staff even knew my name yet. I was just too new to have had an impact—too new to be thought of as a go-to newsroom decision maker—too new to have earned trust and respect. And let’s face it, WABC had been working without me just fine for decades, thank you. Matter of fact, I think I was the station’s first assignment manager. Channel 7 had EPs for early news and late news and special projects: but of the seven or eight line managers running the place, no one had sole responsibility for the desk until News Director Jim Topping hired me away from Detroit. The Eyewitness News machine (the best in town, which meant the best in the world) was well-oiled and primed to rise to meet any emergency.

In fact, when I got to the station I learned that WABC was first with the news of Lennon’s death. We (OK, they—I wasn’t a part of the we yet) broke the news to the world.

And here’s the story behind the story.

December 8th, 1980 was an amazingly warm December night in the Big Apple. WABC’s 6:00 p.m. news producer, Alan Weiss, was taking his motorcycle for a spin through Central Park when he collided with a taxi. He was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital with what they feared might be a broken hip.

It was a quiet night in the ER, Alan said later. Quiet until the ambulance bay doors slammed open and a slew of cops rushed in with a gunshot victim on a stretcher. Alan said the attention shifted from him to the wounded man. And even though he was in terrible pain he couldn’t miss Yoko Ono being escorted in by an officer. The man on the stretcher was John Lennon.

Using his gurney like a walker, after a lot of finagling Alan was able to get to a pay phone and alert the assignment desk. The desk was able to confirm a shooting at the Dakota Apartments. It was a Monday night—ABC was carrying Monday Night Football. Word was relayed to Howard Cosell, and he told the world.

Riding his motorcycle on a balmy night gave Alan Weiss the scoop of his lifetime—one which he, of course, would rather not have had. After calling in the tip Alan watched through the trauma room door as doctors and nurses tried—in vain—to save John Lennon. He watched a sobbing Yoko Ono being escorted out of Roosevelt Hospital. It was small consolation that his hip wasn’t broken after all. As a Beatles fan, his heart was broken. As a news professional, though, he was at the top of his game.

The next few days are, from this distance, a blur. Crowds of weeping fans surrounded The Dakota for an impromptu candlelight vigil that lasted for days. It seemed we were live non-stop.

I was finally able to really get into the game when WABC decided to carry the Central Park memorial service the following Sunday. Alan Weiss was, of course, picked to produce the live tribute. The logistics fell to me. With the engineering Department we surveyed the area around the Central Park bandshell, and determined that there was roughly a forty-foot stretch of curbside where a microwave truck could “see” the Empire State Building. Without a straight shot to Empire—what was and is called “line of sight”--there would be no live coverage (no one in New York had a satellite truck in those days). That meant our live broadcast hinged on a parking spot!

I arranged with ABC security to put the truck in place on Friday and have it guarded 24/7 until the telecast.

New York is a tough town. How tough? The security guards would only agree to go in teams of three. So we had uniformed men shuttled in and out of Central Park for 48 hours.

On the day of the memorial, Eyewitness News was live in Central Park, live at The Dakota, and live overhead froim a helicopter. The broadcast was meaningful and moving; and Alan Weiss won several awards for it.

YouTube has excerpts from that coverage: that's Roger Grimsby at the anchor desk and Ernie Anastos is in Central Park, standing atop the WABC live truck.



Alan Weiss now runs his own production company in New York. He works with Al Primo, the man who gave birth to Eyewitness News way back when, on Teen Kids News.

Neil Goldstein has gone on to a successful career as a news director: as a matter of fact he was my successor, twice removed, at the CBS O-and-O in Miami. Most recently he was news director at WDIV in Detroit.

Fred Chieco still works for WABC. He started there as a kid, and has worked there for something like 35 years. He was part of the phenomenal growth of television news, and he’s lived through the downsizing of the last few years. He‘s still one of the best I’ve ever worked with. He recently wrote me that he hasn’t lost an ounce of enthusiasm for his work.

Mark David Chapman, the gunman, has been denied parole four times, most recently at a 16-minute hearing in October, 2006. His next chance for freedom will be in October, 2008. He’ll be 53 then. There are reports he has become an evangelical Christian while serving his time in Attica State Prison.

Yoko Ono remains a controversial figure in the worlds of art, music and film. She still lives in the Dakota which, now more than ever, is the most famous apartment building in the world.

From The Dakota, at 72nd and Central Park West, you can see “Strawberry Fields,” the 2 ½ acre section of Central Park Yoko Ono sponsored as a tribute to her late husband. It was dedicated on October 9, 1985—what would have been Lennon’s 45th Birthday. Every October 9th—and every December 8th—people come together at its centerpiece, the “Imagine” mosaic, to sing songs and remember.

I remember, too.

Uno Sábado en Grand Rapids

That means ”One Saturday in Grand Rapids," and it’s another more-or-less pointless story—with a weird (make that fascinating—no, make that unbelievable) payoff.

It was the Summer of ’70. I was 23, producing the 11:00 p.m. news for WOOD AM-FM-TV and dreaming of a career as a hotshot reporter. Trouble was, the demand for reporters with absolutely zero reporting experience was, uh, zero! I was earning praise as a producer and a rep as a solid writer, but WOOD was famous for the strength of its award-winning reporting staff. Can you say "DuPont-Columbia" boys and girls? At WOOD they could and did.

How was “The Kid” going to crack the starting lineup?

My solution: volunteer, put my name out there, and then NEVER SAY NO! Need someone to come in at 3:15 in the morning? I’m your man! Get a sound bite from the local Congressman (that Jerry Ford guy)? Just tell me where. Climb to the top of a water tower under construction? That’s another one I actually did. I would do anything to get a story on the air and get noticed by the boss, the legendary Dick Cheverton (read about him in the Man and Mentor post).

Rather than just wait for assignments to come to me, I started dragging in my own story ideas, pitching them and volunteering to come in on my day off—for free—no pay—to cover them.

Maybe this one time I overdid it a bit. Grand Rapids’ Mexican-American community was growing and becoming more vocal. Producing the 11:00 meant I didn’t have to show up at work until 2:30. On Tuesdays I took to attending the 10:00 a.m. City Council meetings, just for the experience and to pick up some story ideas.

I’m damned embarrassed I can’t remember the man’s name, but La Raza, “the movement,” the recently-formed Hispanic civil rights and advocacy group, had a dynamic, charismatic leader in Grand Rapids. The man spoke forcefully at council meetings and made himself a presence in local politics. He was demanding without being strident, and he knew how to bargain. He played up his ethnicity without playing a stereotype. He got things done for his community. I figured a profile of the man and his neighbors would make a fascinating (and educational) story for the good burghers of Grand Rapids.

Events played into my hand, and I found the “hook” for my story. The local Mexican-American community was planning a huge celebration on the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe one summer Saturday. I donated my time, and got the best photographer in the shop (Tom Lehnen) to come in and shoot the story by promising him an absolutely free hand to shoot it the way he wanted—to run wild creatively. It being a Saturday, the weekend producer was desperate to fill the newscast, and I was told I could have all the time I wanted.

And it clicked. The Mexican-American community was used to being overlooked. Now here was a TV crew talking to them about their lives and their concerns—and finishing at their colorful celebration in the civic plaza downtown. I even got help translating my stand-up close so that I could deliver the same few lines in Spanish as well as English.

It was a tremendous hit. The next thing anyone knew, Mexican-American groups from around the country were asking for copies of the story—asking for and getting them, which was unusual. You see, in those days everything was on film—except the narration, which was on an audio cart. Marrying the two and making 16mm film dupes wasn’t done in an afternoon, and it wasn’t easily done at the station. But copies were made, and the story generated a lot of positive talk.

And it led to me being a full-time reporter. For a year. Until I realized I was more cut out for producing and managing than I was for reporting. Oh, well.

WAIT—THERE’S MORE

Here’s the payoff. Problem is, I can’t verify its accuracy. It came to me as an anecdote told by a former Time-Life manager.

WOOD was owned by Time-Life, the magazine people. Back then the company owned several stations—and put them all up for sale so that, we were told later, there’d be cash on hand to pay off angry subscribers when Life was shut down. But there was no subscriber backlash. Life subscribers gladly took subscriptions to other T-L publications.

Strangely, WOOD was the only station not involved in the original sale. While the rest of the stations went to McGraw-Hill (which owns most of them to this day), WOOD stood alone as the last Time-Life station for another two or three years until it was quietly sold.

And later—much later—I was told that I was the reason why!

The story that made its way back to me years later was that when the FCC was considering the group sale, several Hispanic organizations protested. They said they were worried that the stations had made no real effort to cover issues of interest and importance to the Spanish-speaking community. And they had this film, from WOOD, that showed how coverage SHOULD be done. How, they asked, could the FCC approve the sale of the one station that was making an effort to serve the minority community?

How, indeed? As the story goes (remember, this is all hearsay from years later), McGraw-Hill made coverage commitments and Time-Life execs agreed to hang on to WOOD (which was, for a time, renamed WOTV when the radio stations were spun off). A few years later, quietly, WOTV was sold. It’s had several owners since then, and remains successful.

Can’t say if they cover issues of interest to the Hispanic community, though.

And now, as Paul Harvey would say, you know "El Resto de la Estoria."

Even if it’s just a story—even if it’s apocryphal—it’s interesting, isn’t it? And think about this--“The Kid” was politically correct before PC ever entered the vocabulary, right?

Some of the People...Some of the Time

It was the early nineties, and I had just arrived (from Miami) to take over as News Director for WEWS-TV in Cleveland—my hometown.

I’m not sure you can imagine the thrill of landing a top job at the station you grew up watching. WEWS (the call letters stand for “E.W. Scripps”) was the dominant station when I was growing up in the early fifties. Its slogan was “First in Cleveland,” but it was really the first TV station in the state, and if I’m not mistaken the first TV station between New York and Chicago when it signed on sixty years ago this month, on December 17, 1947. I was eleven months old at the time!

Dorothy Fuldheim did news commentary. A local utility sponsored a 15-minute nightly local newscast, and put its name on it (so I grew up watching Tom Field and the East Ohio Gas Report!). Gene Carroll had a Sunday afternoon talent show that was a fixture in Cleveland for decades. Another Sunday favorite was Polka Varieties. Paige Palmer aired a weekday exercise program. Later Don Webster hosted an American Bandstand-type show that was syndicated nationwide, Upbeat (how big a treat do you think it was for me to later work with Don Webster, who became Channel 5’s lead weathercaster?). Later The Morning Exchange became the blueprint when ABC remade its morning news into the easygoing Good Morning America.

And, of course, for years there was Captain Penny. He was a “railroad engineer” who showed "Three Stooges" and "Little Rascals" shorts on his noontime show (because that’s when the kids walked home for lunch every day). Life was simpler then.

How simple? Captain Penny signed off the same way every day:

“Remember…you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time…but you can’t fool Mom! She’s pretty nice and she’s pretty smart. You do what Mom says and you won’t go far wrong.”

Listening to Captain Penny didn’t quite prepare me for my first big problem at “NewsChannel 5.”

I had been on the job only a couple of weeks when one of the news staff came to me to complain that someone had been messing with objects on her desk. I sat her down to find out what was going on. Nothing was missing, she said, but she had a stack of head-shots on her desk ready to send out to autograph seekers, and a couple had been torn in half. Serious business. I knew she wasn’t particularly well-liked by some of the staff—she was said to be a bit of a diva—but one’s personal property is still sacrosanct. I was asking her if she had an idea who might be behind it when she dropped her bombshell. She said she thought it had something to do with her religion!

I’ll admit to total naiveté. I asked—because I honestly didn’t know—what her religion was. She told me she was Jewish. And I told her that I’d be talking to station General Manager Gary Robinson as soon as possible and that we’d get back to her.

If I ever worked for a more genial, non-confrontational, easy-going man than Gary Robinson, I don’t recall. He was taken aback—and instantly made several sound decisions. After contacting Scripps Howard corporate officials he sought out the station’s local law firm and asked for help in finding the best private investigation firm in the city. We then met with the employee and promised swift action.

Within 48 hours Gary and I were having the first of several meetings with two former FBI agents: two trim, crew-cut, no-nonsense men in white shirts and dark suits who laid out a number of scenarios. First, as a team, we talked to the employee, who suddenly seemed a little less sure of herself, and seemed anxious to drop the matter. In light of the seriousness of the original charges, Gary and I were reluctant to let the issue go. The investigators were talking about how to get access to the newsroom in off hours (Off hours in a newsroom?????) to install hidden cameras—asking for lists of anyone who passed by her cubicle on any given day (Anyone? Try everyone!)—and preparing for more thorough background checks of employees than they were given at hiring.

It was, in a way, heartbreaking to think that our co-workers—some of whom had been part of the Channel Five “family” for years—were suspects. But the slightest hint of anti-Semitism is not something to be handled in a casual way. And when pressed by the investigators for the name of possible suspects, the employee had one at hand: a respected long-time news photographer. She said she had rejected his romantic advances, and he continued to press the issue.

What that had to do with religion I didn't know, but I quietly had schedules rearranged to try to keep the two from working together, and the investigation moved forward.

It didn’t last long. The woman came to me just days later and said she had been offered a job anchoring in a much larger market, and if we would let her out of her contract it might be the best thing for all concerned.

I personally think that contracts are binding and shouldn’t be broken: don't sign it if you can't honor it. But at the same time I’ve always been reluctant to stand in the way of a someone accepting a wonderful opportunity, and this was just that. More than that—with the cloud of possible anti-Semitic harassment still hanging over the newsroom (although less than a half-dozen people knew about it, counting the photographer who had been brought in for questioning) this might work out to everyone’s advantage. Gary and the corporate honchos agreed and the contract was torn up.

So it was that on a Friday night a few weeks later most of the news staff gathered in a popular Cleveland pizza joint to bid bon voyage to our soon-to-be alumna, on her way to the big-time as an anchor. When I got there, late, I was surprised to see our suspect news photographer’s personal van—a fancy conversion job—in the parking lot. “What’s he doing here?” I wondered.

Inside the party was well underway. I’m not much for parties, but I was determined to pay my respects and wish the woman well. Strangely, she was nowhere to be found. Everyone said she was there, but I never saw her. After about ninety minutes I was pretty much partied out, decided it was time to go and made my farewells.

In the parking lot I was getting into my car when I saw, across the way, the side doors of the photographer’s van open. He got out—and helped the now-former employee out. She had that look—what do they say at the racetrack? She’d pretty obviously been ridden hard and put away wet.

So that question was answered. But even this many years later I still have a dozen more questions. They all lead to one major puzzle: WAS THERE AN INCIDENT IN THE FIRST PLACE, OR WAS THIS ENTIRELY A PLOY TO GET OUT OF A CONTRACT?

So, boys and girls, it turns out that you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time…and you can certainly fool me!

And no, I won’t tell you her name.

A Good Idea...at the Time

It was 130 years ago this month that Thomas Alva Edison first demonstrated his phonograph. His system of using a stylus to recreate sound by reading grooves cut into a tinfoil cylinder—and later into a revolving disk—wasn’t just the first, it was also the preferred method of recording and listening to music until late in the 20th century when CDs became ubiquitous.

Edison also perfected the incandescent light bulb, which lit the world until LEDs (light emitting diodes) came onto the scene just a few years ago.

Edison had hundreds of other patents. His inventions continue to shape our lives today. Great ideas stand the test of time.

I invented something. I came up with a concept for television news that swept the country. I saw my brainchild used in nearly every TV market over a period of ten-or-so years. Now it’s gone. Over. Done with. Obsolete. Defunct. My great idea stood the test of time for about as long as an egg salad sandwich left out on a picnic table on an 85-degree day. Oh, well.

Here’s the background.

When I graduated college and got into television news in 1969, local news meant local news. News gathering was done on film. Videotape? Huge machines the size of a dining room credenza that recorded and played back 20-pound reels of 2” videotape. Satellites? No, not yet.

At every TV station in the country you got your network programming—morning shows, soap operas, the evening news, prime-time and late-night—down a dedicated line from New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. In a real pinch you could reverse the line and send something back up the line to the network; but it took a lot of engineering expertise. In my five years at WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids we did it twice.

There was time each day when the networks—all three networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) were “down” after the soap operas. During that time, usually 4:00-5:00 p.m., your network would feed down for your local use a handful of national and international stories. You’d record them on 2” tape and make whatever use of them you could.

Mostly it was crap—stories that weren’t worth time on the network news, or outtakes from Washington news conferences (whatever film was left on the cutting-room floor after it was chopped up for Cronkite, Huntley/Brinkley, or whoever was anchoring on ABC in those days). There were also four or five sports highlights from games played the night before, and maybe a weather shot that, with luck, was less than 24 hours old.

You were, of course, permitted to tape the network evening news. That was how you got decent national/international coverage (meaning pictures) on at 11:00.

And that was that. Until…

Until…videotape and satellites. When videotape came into widespread use in the early seventies suddenly there was a wider variety of stories on the feed, and stories could be turned around more quickly.

The folks at “Group W,” the old Westinghouse stations group, had an idea for something they called PM Magazine. They’d swap feature stories with other stations around the country and produce a daily half-hour feature magazine. If memory serves, you’d do one highly-produced local feature a day—plug in two or three or four features from around the country—front them with local hosts—and Instant TV! And—again, if memory serves—it was Group W that started using satellites to deliver material around the country. You’d ship your stories by your local hosts off toe Group W, and they’d beam them around the country.

Then Group W’s owned stations—Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, Pittsburgh, Baltimore—started using satellites to swap news stories every day.

Soon a lot of stations had those huge C-band satellite dishes in their backyards. And pretty soon the “Group W Newsfeed Network” was born. The idea was that instead of one feed a day, there’d be three: just before your noon newscast, before your dinner-hour broadcast, and again just before 11:00.

Can you guess what happened next? Those three feeds became four—and five—and six—and then almost non-stop. The three networks saw themselves being outrun and outgunned and answered with satellite delivery systems of their own. And before too long we went from five or six usable non-local stories a day to dozens! More than we could handle. More than we could shoehorn into a newscast.

I thought about it for awhile, and remembered John Cameron Swayze anchoring the Camel News Caravan—NBC’s 15-minute national newscast from the early fifties, sponsored by Camel cigarettes. And I remembered him talking about “hop-scotching the world for headlines.” And it dawned on me that now we had something Swayze hadn’t had: pictures!

A little more thinking, and collaboration with WNEP Production Manager Bill Christian, and in the mid-80s we had “The World in a Minute.” In the upper-left corner, a spinning globe (actually tied to a string, spun by hand and taped). In the upper-right corner, same size, a 60-Minutes-style stopwatch. And—in sixty seconds—four, five or six “neat things to know” pieces of video. The Pope visiting somewhere. Soccer riots somewhere else. And—say it with me, now—the water-skiing squirrel!

Anchor Nolan Johannes had fun with it every night. On slow days, he’d drag it out and get to the end saying, “That’s…the…world…in…a…minute.” On jam-packed nights it was “thassaworlinaminut.”

Our consultant from Frank Magid Associates, Stuart Kellogg, came in—loved it—and asked if he could put it on a Magid idea reel. Next thing you know, “The World in a Minute”--or a variation—was in every market in the country, and in some cases (under different titles) on more than one station in each market.

And it was my idea! Don’t believe me, ask Stuart. He’s GM at WAPT in Jackson, Mississippi these days.

Great idea. And after about ten years it became old hat and was left in the dust.

Hey, even Edison must have had an idea with a short shelf life.

My other big idea isn’t worth wasting your time on. It was bigger than big for two years. Sort of like inventing the best buggy whip ever and setting up shop next to Henry Ford.

Aw, hell. Back to the drawing board.

The "Scoop Newsworthy" Story

That wasn't his name, of course: it was his nickname. I guess I could use his real name here. He's been dead for many years, died young in fact. But what the heck, why ID him now? And behind his back he was called "Scoop Newsworthy" as a sort of running gag, a commentary on the fact that he was an "absent-minded professor" type.

How absent minded?

One day he was out on a story when we got word back at the station (WOOD AM-FM-TV in Grand Rapids) that he had been rushed to the hospital. No information available.

Not much later photographer Larry Robison came into the newsroom, walked up to my desk, and with an honest-to-God tear in his eye and a catch in his voice said, "I lost my reporter."

"Scoop" and Larry had been sent to cover a desperate search for a handful of missing kids. The youngsters had apparently been seen entering an open sewer grating downtown. There were miles of sewer tunnels under Grand Rapids, and hundreds of ways to get yourself killed if you didn't know what you were doing.

Police and firefighters picked strategic locations around town, pried off manhole covers, donned gas masks (sewer gas can be deadly) and started a methodical search.

Our two-man crew caught up with the Fire Chief at the command center set up at one of the key search locations. Our reporter stepped over, past, around and through a series of yellow cones to talk to the headman: "Chief, I'm..."

And Scoop Newsworthy fell 35 feet down an open manhole. Now the search turned into a rescue operation as firefighters worked out a rope-and-pully system to drag Scoop up and out strapped to a stretcher. If memory serves he wound up with something like 60 stitches on the fleshy inner part of one thigh, caught on a hunk of protruding metal on the way down. Way, way down, I guess.

Robison was mortified. He felt that knowing Scoop's dazed and confused nature he should have been watching out for him more. Something along the lines of not letting your five-year-old play in traffic.

I don't really mean to make fun of Scoop. There are plenty of people who live successfully in their own little Walter Mitty worlds. Not many work in television news (OK, maybe an anchor or two, but not many in the field). Scoop wasn't a bad guy, and not stupid, just sometimes oblivious to the real world.

I guess this is a "ya hadda be there" story. Ya hadda be there to see the shame on Larry Robison's face as he told the story--and to hear the little in spite-of-himself giggle that followed.

And the missing kids were found unharmed.

Please Mr. Postman

Some years ago two interesting pieces of mail crossed my desk in a one-week period.

It took me awhile to figure out who "Simon Edita" was; but after a little cogitating it dawned on me that the letter-writer must have called the station to find out where to send a news release and was told, "Assignment Editor."

The second was easier to figure out. It was addressed to "Paul Stud." Obviously, word had gotten out.

Single-Handed

It's been a long time since I posted here. Too long.

And I certainly don't want to be posting only with bad news; but Jim Cummins died the other night, and that's worthy of note.

That makes three people I worked with, liked and respected gone this year: Joel Siegel, Tom Snyder, and now Jim. Must be something about passing age 60--for me, and for them.

Jim was the long-time NBC News Dallas bureau chief and correspondent . He retired earlier this year. He and wife Connie were going to slow down at last and enjoy their children (six) and grandkids, but cancer cut his plans short.

I met Jim in 1970 at WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids. I was a year out of college and in my first job, he was two years older and came to work at Channel 8 after starting his career in Mason City, Iowa.

When Jim first got to town I was on the assignment desk. First week-or-so, he'd take whatever story I gave him. Then he started meeting my suggestions with, “Y’know, I’ve got something I’d rather do, whaddaya think?” Hell, yes! And about two weeks in he started coming up with stories that led the news two or three nights a week—then three or four—then pretty miuch every night.

I didn’t realize then what I came to realize later: WOOD may have had the highest ratings in America, but it was also the most complacent newroom in America (yeah, a 50+ share will do that to you). But pretty soon all the reporters in the shop were standing around in the hallways saying, “Who does he think HE is????” Next thing you know, they were hustling after their own stories and fighting it out to get the lead.

It only took Jim Cummins about two months to raise the standars for broadcast journalism in that station—and that town—to a whole new level! He did it single-handed!

Not much later I was producing the 11:00 p.m. news--the highest-rated 11PM in America, thank you; and it wasn't easy. News Director Dick Cheverton (you've read about him here, before) had made the 6:00 p.m. one of the first sixty minute newscasts in the country. Stories ran--whatever the reporters wanted them to run --four minutes, five, longer!

It fell to me, months out of college, to bust them down into VOs or VOSOT’s …OR…jigger with the script, edit the film and get an engineer to re-cut the audio cart (a line here butted to a line there, and that "bridge" might make a decent close). That way I could get reporter packages on at 11:00. My goal was to capture the essence of the story--and make it fit into a 14-minute news hole.

One morning Jim came in, walked up to my desk and said, “I told Connie last night—my package runs 4:35 and I don’t think anyone could get it under 3:00 without gutting it. You got it to 1:45, and Connie said, ‘That was cleaner than your 6PM piece.’ And it was. Thanks.” A reporter thanking a producer? Yikes!

It meant so much to me that I’ve carried that kind word around in a secret place in my heart ever since. I was 22…and trying SO…DAMN…HARD! Kind words and confidence were tough to come by back then. Jim--the best reporter in town--let me know that he respected my work, that he trusted me with his work. I was dying for a kind word, and he provided it.

Jim and I went out for a drink one night (a rare occasion--Jim and Connie already had at least two kids, and he was a real homebody). On a cocktail napkin we started listing the stations we hoped to go to in our next move. Back then the big three networks each were limited--by law--to owning seven stations. So a network O-and-O (owned-and-operated) station--any O-and-O--made the list. Also any "Capitol Cities" station, any "Westinghouse" station--a handful of independents.

Jim--a Midwestern boy who played basketball for Northwestern--had his dream game plan: he wanted to work for WMAQ in Chicago, then for the NBC network. But he knew he needed one more stop between Grand Rapids and the Windy City, and he picked WTMJ in Mikwaukee, a solid station. And--it happened, JUST THE WAY HE WANTED: to WTMJ, WMAQ and the network. I wish I still had that napkin to prove my story.

When Jim retired Brian Williams, in a Nightly News farewell, called Jim Cummins the definition of a field correspondent who seemingly covered every story more than once. From U.S. political coverage, to plane crashes; from the civil war in El Salvador to countless hurricanes, floods and tornadoes. He even reported from Iran on the hostage crisis of the early 80s. But his bread and butter was covering major news out of the heartland, from datelines such as Waco,Oklahoma City and Galveston. He earned an Emmy in 1993 for his reporting on the Midwest floods.

NBC News President Steve Capus wrote the staff this weekend, "The NBC News family has lost a gentle giant of a man...It’s fitting that Jim had a big family. After all, he spent decades making Americans feel right at home, with his down to earth, warm reporting style, delivery and presence."

His long-time preoducer and Dallas colleague at NBC, Al Henkel, wrote a wonderful tribute to Jim for the NBC web site. He included what he called "One of the finest pieces of writing I have ever seen, and will probably ever see...a long piece we did for the Today Show on the fourth anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing."

Hard to disagree with his assessment. Hard not to mourn the passing of a reporter who could work with such skill and compassion. Please ignore the commercial.

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&brand=msnbc&vid=c4359843-9b23-4e7d-82d1-91552bb234cc

A Touching Story

Not too many years ago my general manager called me into her office and with a sly smile pushed a memo across her desk.

It was written by one of the station's lead anchors, accusing me of something called "inappropriate touching." The GM (still smiling for some unknown reason) asked me to explain.

OK. The night before, a few minutes before the 6:00 o'clock news, I was standing next to the anchor's newsroom cubicle going over show details when she rose to put on her red blazer. When the jacket was on she had a half-inch of white cuff showing from under one red sleeve, and no cuff showing under the other. I casually remarked that she needed to "shoot" her cuffs. She said she didn't know what that meant. I explained that she needed to have the same amount of white shirt cuff showing from under each coat sleeve. She still didn't seem to get it, so I reached out with a thumb and forefinger, pinched her shirt cuff and pulled it forward so a half-inch was showing under her sleeve. "See," I said, "shoot your cuffs! That's all there is to it" And that's all there was to it.

The memo's version was that other members of the news staff who witnessed the "incident" (that's what it was now, an "incident") were shocked ("SHOCKED!") by my inappropriate behavior!

By now my blood was starting to boil, when I looked up to see the GM laughing! I told her it was no laughing matter—and she said I shouldn't worry, it had been handled. She said she had called the anchor in to go over the complaint and that the anchor had back-tracked completely. According to the GM the anchor said she was just in a bad mood; she took an innocent moment out of context; she didn't want to pursue the matter any further; and she'd appreciate it if the GM tore up the memo as if it had never been written.

"That's the end of that," the GM said, smiling.

That's when I brought her up short. "No, it's not" I said, "you cannot destroy that memo. You must forward it to corporate, and a copy must go in my file. Now, I have to be given a chance to respond--in writing--but you need to draft a detailed note for my personnel file, for corporate and for your own files explaining your conversations with the anchor and with me. Then the whole thing needs to be run by corporate attorneys for their advice on how to proceed. They might want you to interview everyone who was in the newsroom at the time for their recollections."

The GM, nonplussed, asked me to explain my reasoning.

I told her to draw her own conclusions, but that in my personal opinion this was part of a scheme to file a lawsuit and seek damages. My thinking then—and now—was that at some future date some other "incident" would be trumped up and I would be accused by this employee of sexual harassment. At that point the anchor would say, basically—Oh, yes, this has been going on for a long time. I wrote a detailed complaint to the GM (Why, I just happen to have a copy--actually several copies--notarized--right here!), but nothing was ever done about it. I even have reason to believe my original memo was DESTROYED as part of a station-wide coverup.

And that, I explained, is how employees with good lawyers get to retire to Aruba and spend all day in cabanas sipping frozen drinks from frosted glasses with little paper umbrellas in them.

The GM immediately saw my reasoning and agreed.

But that's when I modified my methods.

I touch no one—except for an occasional atta-boy handshake. No pats on the back, no arm around the shoulder, NO HUGS! No contact! A few years later a producer (female) started to give me a friendly shoulder rub as I sat in the newsroom and I jumped as if I'd been jabbed with a cattle prod! My reaction actually startled and offended her, and damaged our relationship. She didn't think what she was doing was over the line, but I knew someone else could: and if they could they would! She thought I was making too much out of nothing. I did too, but these days you can't take chances. I've received Red Cross CPR training, but if someone suffers a heart attack and stops breathing in front of me he or she better be conscious enough to sign a permission/release form (in triplicate) and have it notarized before I'll start the chest pounding!

(Just kidding about the CPR. But by the way—honestly now—what was YOUR reaction to the back rub anecdote? What would it have been ten years ago? Twenty years ago? How have your attitudes towards touching in the workplace changed? When I worked for the old Storer Broadcasting Company many years ago managers were given a class that included tips on how to touch people! To show sincerity, grasp someone's upper arm with your left hand as you shake hands, that sort of thing. But that was then.)

I'm never alone in private with a female staffer—I always have someone with me—preferably another manager--and I leave the office door open whenever possible or have the conversation in a public place.

I never close the blinds to my office—no sense inviting trouble.

I make written notes of all meetings where job performance is discussed—and ask the other manager(s) present to independently do the same, then file them.

I copy corporate Human Resources--on almost EVERYTHING!

I tell ya, friends, it's not the way I grew up! When I started in this business there was a certain camaraderie among news staffers. In newsrooms in the old days the air was blue with cigarette smoke and bluer still from some of the language we used. We were a rough-and-tumble bunch: women, too. Ever see Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant in His Girl Friday? That's what I'm talkin' about. We were friends, and we always knew where to draw the line for each co-worker. There were things you did and didn't do, did and didn't say. But we made allowances for each other because we all counted on the good-heartedness of our brothers and sisters.

I got out of college in the late sixties. I've done my best to keep up with the changing consciousness of the times. Ive learned to be politically correct. In terms of race, over the years the word "colored" gave way to "Negro"—then to "black"—then to "African-American" and now (when appropriate) "People of Color." I've done my best to follow along, to follow The Golden Rule: you know, "Do Unto Others."

I've never called a woman a "broad" in my life. Never whistled at a "dame." Never commented on a woman's figure. Only twice in my life have I asked a co-worker for a date (mistakes both times, and lessons learned).

Hey, I understand the need to protect employees from despotic management. Who's going to protect management from despotic employees?

If I knew then what I know now, I'd have gotten into Human Resources. I don't know if there's much of a future in broadcasting anymore, but there will always be big-bucks jobs for people who get their wisdom out of handbooks and rule books and manuals, who teach Newspeak, Doublethink, and serve much like the Thought Police in Orwell's 1984.

I'd have either gotten into HR, or I'd have filed a lawsuit against someone, sometime for something. I like those drinks with the little umbrellas in them.

Something About Mary

It's 2007. Can you tell a job applicant she's "perky" in 2007? Don't know, sounds like a lawsuit to me. How about cute? A little more acceptable, maybe, but you'd probably best run the word by Platoon A, Company B of your TV station's legal staff before you say it, and make sure your insurance is up to date and that you know a good bail bondsman. Telling a job seeker she's "perky" or "cute" can get you in more trouble than tapping your foot in a Minneapolis airport men's room.

And omigod, what if you used the word "spunky"?

That's pretty much what hard-boiled news director "Lou Grant" (Ed Asner) called "Mary Richards" (Mary Tyler Moore) when she applied for an associate producer's job at WJM-TV in Minneapolis: "You know what? YOU'VE…GOT…SPUNK! I HATE spunk!"

I was already working in TV news when The Mary Tyler Moore Show was first broadcast on CBS in 1970. Everyone in the business—at least everyone I knew—loved the show. It didn't have much in common with the workings of a real newsroom (but hey, was the old west populated by gun-slinging gamblers like Maverick, was your doctor like Marcus Welby, M.D., did Starsky and Hutch solve crimes in your town? It was entertainment, dammit!).

The larger-than-life characters, while broadly played, did ring true. In those days most TV stations in America had courtly, white-haired, avuncular, slightly pompous stuffed-shirt anchors like MTM's fictional "Ted Baxter." I'll bet staffers in a quarter of the newsrooms in America said, conspiratorially, "You know, Ted Baxter is actually based on the guy in our shop."

Some people thought Lou Grant was based on their news directors. I don't make that claim for my first news director, the late Dick Cheverton (see Man and Mentor, 04/12/07), even though Chev was Lou Grant BEFORE Lou Grant.

My favorite Lou Grant hard-bitten, hard-drinking, seen-it-all, world-weary line? "Bartender, a drink for everyone in the house. And bring them all to me."

When I tried to grow my first beard and got a scraggly patch of peach fuzz for my efforts, Chev didn't want to order me to shave it. Strike that. He desperately wanted me to shave it, but it was the late 60s; protesters were fighting their own Vietnam War in the streets, authority was being questioned at every turn, and Chev knew I'd resist. I'd comply if he ordered me, he knew, but I'd resent the hell out of it.

So. One day he passed me in the hallway and said, gruffly, "You're looking uncommonly seedy today." End of beard.

As for the character of Mary Richards: did she merely reflect the times, or did American women respond to her example--was she a pioneer? Before Mary, women on TV were housewives like Donna Reed or The Beaver's mother, June Cleaver, or Ozzie's wife Harriet (with maybe an occasional "Aunt Bea" thrown in). Now, for the first time, we saw a career woman featured. She didn't need a man to support her or to complete her. She may have had regrets about the twists and turns her life had taken, maybe even doubts about the future, but her chin was up and she was moving forward.

And watching her led a lot of smart young college-aged women to decide on careers in television news. I wanted to be Dick Cheverton (and by extension Lou Grant). The Jane Pauleys of the world wanted to be Mary Richards. They were singing along with the show's opening…

Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day,
and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it's you, girl, and you
should know it
With each glance and every little movement you show it
Love is all around, no need to waste it
You can have the town, why don't
you take it?
You're gonna make it after all
You're gonna make it after all

So we watched, and we laughed, and we cared about those people. And the show was just real enough that maybe we learned some life lessons along the way. Mary and the gang had it right—right up until the end. In the final episode the entire WJM news staff is fired—all but, of course, the semi-competent Ted Baxter. And in the end, in the newsroom, Mary gets to tell her co-workers how much they have meant to her:

"I just wanted you to know that sometimes I get concerned about being a career woman. I get to thinking my job is too important to me, and I tell myself that the people I work with are just the people I work with, and not my family. And last night, I thought, 'What is a family, anyway? They're just people who make you feel less alone...and really loved.’ And that's what you've done for me. Thank you for being my family."

Nope. Sorry. Not even close. You had it right the first time: the people you work with ARE…just…the…people…you…work…with. Get over yourself, woman! If you hit 65 and have three people from the business you can honestly call friends, you’re doing very, very well. It’s 2007: ask Katie Couric about the people she works with.

Of course, most of my last 30+ years have been spent as a news director. Hard to build close relationships, hard to be “one of the guys” when you’re the boss. Hard when you’re moving around the country. Hard when you have to fire people. Even the best news directors don’t have fan clubs.

(Did you see that Bill O’Reilly took a shot at his old Dallas news director the other day? He called the late Marty Haag—one of the giants of broadcast journalism—an “idiot.” If Bill O’Reilly can pee on Marty Haag’s grave, no one is immune.)

Don’t get me wrong. I ain’t no Marty Haag. Truth is, I’m a bit of a plodder. That’s why I always worked 60-plus-hour workweeks: I spend a lot of time mulling things over, trying to do what’s right, agonizing over decisions, second-guessing myself.

I’m also not political. I’m not a good judge of people’s motives. I tend to take people at face value. I tend to believe them and to believe in them. So I have, at times, been tricked, been fooled, been bamboozled. I naively have always assumed that my coworkers share my conviction that it’s good for all of us if the newsroom keeps doing its best—that striving for excellence every day and working as a team benefits all of us. Go hard or go home!

Guess I’ve seen too many episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

A news director is plagued by the “If Onlys.” IF ONLY the ND would give me a raise. I work nights, IF ONLY the ND would put me on dayside. I’m a reporter, IF ONLY the ND would make me an anchor. I’m an anchor, IF ONLY the ND would take me off the 11:00. I’m a photographer, IF ONLY the ND would get me a better camera—buy Lexus SUVs as news cars—switch to a 20-hour workweek. And on, and on, and on. The news director stands between the entire staff and happiness.

Maybe I’m a little bitter right now. I won’t name names, but there’s a man I worked with and for thirty years ago (I was a producer, he was assistant news director). He and I got along well. We never hung out together (he was married, I was not), but I don’t recall ever having a cross word with him. I supported him. We haven’t had any contact in 25 years, but I’ve always thought of him warmly and with respect. He went on to considerable achievement (if I were to mention his name you’d probably recognize it). I’ve been happy for him, felt he had earned his success, and never begrudged him his position.

But the other day, in an e-mail to a mutual friend, he demeaned and insulted me. That friend forwarded it to me. Now I’m hurt—hurt and puzzled. Did I do something to this man 30 years ago that he carries around to this day? What could it be?

As Mary Richards would day, “Thank you for being my family.”

I wrote a letter of reference for a man who says he considers himself my protégé, and he jumped several dozen markets for his latest news director’s job. He wrote me, “I wouldn’t be here today if not for [you].” He wrote, “You have always been [my] mentor!” He wrote, “I hope you know I would do anything in the world for you…” And he concluded by writing, “Simply put, you are one of the most talented News Directors in this crazy business!”

Scanning the trades I saw that he had three openings on his news management team. Now, this retirement/consulting thing is going OK, but I still think about getting back into the business, and I thought maybe I could help. He turned me down saying, “I would be embarrassed to offer someone with your experience anything here.” Now, I don’t mind that I wasn’t hired: he knows his new station and his needs better than I. But why blow all that smoke my way? Why the inflated, unnecessary flattery?

As Mary Richards would say, “Thank you for being my family.”

Maybe I lack gratitude. So I'd like to publicly thank the four people who visited me in the hospital or at the rehab center after my bypass surgery. The other two--you were on assignment in the hospital and merely stopped by, but I'm grateful anyway.

Thank you for being my family.

The co-worker whose son had major drug problems and got arrested? I broke the law, but he and I worked out a deal where he could take time off anytime to handle his boy's problems and it wouldn't be charged against his vacation time. Last time I saw him was in a supermarket. OK, I saw him but he didn't see me. When he caught a glimpse of me out of the corner of his eye he ducked his head and scurried the other way.

Thank you for being my family.

Maybe my old GM at KWTV in Oklahoma City, Duane Harm, had it right: maybe people will always try to screw you (In Harm’s Way, 05/10/07). His rule of thumb was, Always expect the worst. That way the only surprises you get will be pleasant ones when people surpass your (low) expectations.

Maybe Duane was right and Mary was wrong.

But hey—she was on a TV show! WJM was no more real than Mayberry or Metropolis. The last episode aired thirty years ago. Time to get my head out of the clouds. Time to stop believing in Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and that coworkers will support and nurture you and are rooting for you.

To everyone reading this, “Thank you for being my family.” Yeah, sure.

By the way, it’s a long clip—but here’s a link to a YouTube replay of the closing minutes of the final episode.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=SDOp-VZJgAc

The King is DEAD?????

It was August 16, 1977. I was news director for WEEK-TV in Peoria. Late that morning one of the station clerical workers—an older woman—came into the newsroom and nervously asked me if it was true Elvis had died. The woman was really shaken. She said she had heard it from a friend. I told her I hadn't heard of any such thing, and offered to check the wires.

I should stop here and tell you that this woman was an Elvis Presley fanatic! She had a Betamax tape of Elvis' comeback TV special from 1968—called the "Singer" special because it was sponsored by the Singer Sewing Machine people. A little history. Home video recording—first Betamax, than VHS—was only two years old. A home Beta recorder cost $1,600-$2,000 (a good month's pay for a lot of people in those days when a brand-new Volkswagen Beetle could still be had for under $2,500). There were no pre-recorded tapes for sale yet, no “Blockbuster,” no cable in most places. You could record off a local channel—you could play back—and that was it: all for only a month's pay!

Somehow, someplace, sometime, someone had recorded a replay of the Elvis comeback special and given it to her (commercials and all). No one in her group of friends could afford a Betamax machine, so their idea of a great time was to pop up some popcorn and—two or three Saturdays a month—adjourn as a group to a local appliance store that was very accommodating and let them watch Elvis Presley for an hour!

Now, don't get me wrong, I liked Elvis just fine: but three Saturday nights a month in an appliance store? I thought she was nuts!

But I also saw she was troubled, so together we went to the wire machines. Nope: nothing there. Three TVs on in the newsroom, tuned to the three networks: nothing there. To be on the safe side I told her I'd make a point to listen to radio news for the next few hours. Nope, nothing.

Nothing until mid afternoon when the wire bells chimed and the printer spit out the news a line-at-a-time: Elvis Presley Dead!

I had to break the news to that poor woman. She took it well. She already knew, she told me: her friends had told her.

I've thought about that a lot in the thirty years since.

No cell phones—only land lines. No cable news (CNN was still roughly two years away, MSNBC and Fox not even dreamed of). No Internet, or instant messaging, or e-mail. Yet somehow word of Elvis Presley's death had made it the 450 miles up I-55 from Memphis to Peoria faster than it had made it to New York and the rest of the world—four or five hours faster!

Telegraph, telephone, television—and yet “tell an Elvis fan” turned out to be the fastest form of communicating that day thirty years ago.

My Dinner with “Deep Throat”

The 33rd anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation as President brings to mind my dinner with "Deep Throat."

It's a seminal "Tying My Shoes" moment—one of those times when I brushed up against the famous (infamous?) yet, in my own way, remained clueless.

"Deep Throat" is the nickname Washington Post insiders gave to reporter Bob Woodward's well-placed administration source—the man who kept steering Woodward and Carl Bernstein back on track when their investigation into political subterfuge and illegal acts in the White House and in the 1972 presidential campaign threatened to derail. The pseudonym (lifted from a famous porn film of that era) was bestowed because Deep Throat always operated on "deep background." That is, he couldn't be quoted, even anonymously. His information was to be used only for guidance and for confirmation of what had been learned elsewhere. Woodward and Bernstein, kept on track by Deep Throat, uncovered wrongdoing that would eventually lead to the resignation of President Nixon as well as prison terms for former Attorney General John Mitchell, White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, presidential adviser John Ehrlichman, lawyer G. Gordon Liddy and Chief White House Counsel Charles "Chuck" Colson.

After the Watergate expose All the President's Men came out, guessing Deep Throat's identity became a popular parlor game among journalists. For his part, Woodward was sworn to secrecy. Even his higher-ups at the Post professed ignorance of the source's identity.

One candidate frequently named was W. Mark Felt, the Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Which brings me to my dinner with Deep Throat. I caution you: don't expect much. This is, after all, a "Tying My Shoes" moment.

In August 1975, a year after the Nixon resignation and more than a year after the "Woodstein" (Woodward and Bernstein) book appeared, my younger brother got married. His fiancé was the daughter of a retired naval officer—known to everyone, family and friends, as "The Captain"—who lived in one of the tonier neighborhoods in Fairfax, Virginia. His neighbor (and good friend) was W. Mark Felt.

At the rehearsal dinner I sat next to Mark Felt.

I made the most of the opportunity—by asking for seconds on the prime rib!

What, you thought I'd start pumping the former deputy director of the FBI at a social occasion on the eve of my brother's wedding? What was I supposed to say: "Hey, I hear Hal Holbrook is going to play you in the movie?"

So my opportunity, such as it was, passed.

Felt himself was swept up in the Watergate-era whirlwind: he was indicted for authorizing a series of FBI break-ins aimed at pursuing violent radicals in the U.S. In 1978, with the Carter administration newly in power, a federal grand jury charged Felt and two others with conspiracy to violate the constitutional rights of American citizens by searching their homes without warrants. Former President Nixon appeared as a defense witness, but in the end W. Mark Felt was found guilty and fined $5,000.

In 1981 President Ronald Reagan pardoned Felt.

And that would have been the last we heard of Mark Felt if he hadn't admitted—in a Vanity Fair article in 2005—that he was/is Deep Throat. Once he had "outed" himself Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein stepped forward to confirm the claim. In failing health, W. Mark Felt now lives with his daughter in California.

Shuttle Coverage

The U.S. has another space shuttle mission underway. The Endeavour took off last night from the Cape. I don't know about you, but since the Challenger blew up 73 seconds after launch in January 1986, and the Columbia disintegrated during re-entry in February 2003, I've been something of a white-knuckle observer of the space program. I keep my white-knuckled fingers crossed until the astronauts are safely back on Earth.

The Columbia disaster lingers in my memory for more personal reasons. The Columbia was passing over the western United States at about 9:00 a.m. that Saturday morning when it started breaking apart. I was home at the time, watching CNN, so I quickly learned of the tragedy: seven crew members presumed killed.

I was still EP at my station at the time—hadn't yet been made News Director—so I rushed to the station to see what we could do to advance the story locally. I remembered seeing a newspaper piece about a local college student who actually had a science experiment on the Columbia. Thanks to the hard work of the weekend assignment editor we were able to roust someone on the college PR staff, track down the student and get him to agree to an interview.

Turned out the story was even better than I had remembered. The young student had actually been on hand to witness the Columbia launch.

The reporter wrote that the student, a "sophmore," "stood in ahh" watching the liftoff from "Cape Cavernal."

What made the experiment even more remarkable was that the local student was a "Palistilian" while his "collegue" was an "Israli."

For those of you scoring at home that's [sic], [sic], [sic], [sic], [sic] and [sic].

I stand in "ahh" of writing like that.

There are some people who think you don't have to know how to spell to be in TV news. I'm not one of them. But if you don't know how to spell, please at least tell me you know how to use the spell-check function on your computer! Please show me that you're interested in communicating well, not just in looking good. (And along the way, show me you know how to properly use "good" and "well.")

We may be in a visual medium, but the words count. Need proof? Watch the first five minutes of your favorite newscast tonight with the sound off. Then watch the next five minutes with the sound on but with your back to the screen. No peeking! Be honest. Which way delivered more information?

I don't blame the reporter: she doesn't know any better, doesn't care to, and these days probably doesn't have to. She's good looking. Too bad she's not flat-out drop-dead gorgeous; then she could work for a network and a field producer would do all her spelling and most of her writing for her. Sexist? Darn right. But not me. I think the system is sexist for encouraging her to think she can get by on her looks. I blame the people who taught her in high school and college and the people who gave her jobs and told her she could report. Who am I to point out that if you spotted her three letters she probably still couldn't spell her own name?

You know the old joke: I demanded to know if she was ignorant or just apathetic and she answered, "I don't know and I don't care." Just kidding. I think. Aren't I?

Over the years I've often administered a writing test and current events quiz to job seekers. Here's a question no one answers correctly: What does "OPEC" stand for? (Hint: everyone figures the "O" stands for "Oil," and it doesn't!)

You know what I say? Ahh…aw…awe, TA-HELL-WIDDIT!

In Search of Leslie King

Cute kid, right? That's Leslie Lynch King, Jr. Despite the ambiguous first name and the dress, that's a boy! Back when this picture was taken in 1916, that was the way 3-year-old boys were dressed for formal photographs.

Leslie was born on July 14, 1913 in Omaha, but he was raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. By all accounts he led one of those perfect Midwestern boyhoods. He was an Eagle Scout and a star athlete, captain of his high school football team. He went to the University of Michigan and was an All-American football player. He played center on the U of M's national championship teams in 1932 and 1933. He was offered a contract to play pro football, but turned it down to go to law school. And he was so good looking that for a time he was a male model. The All-American boy!

He had more serious ambitions. After serving on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific during World War II, he set his sights on a political career. He ran for Congress in 1948, defeated an incumbent and began a stellar career that led him to more than eight years as House Minority Leader. He was a prominent Congressional Republican until he became Vice President in 1973 and President of the United States on August 9, 1974—33 years ago tomorrow.

WHAT?

PRESIDENT LESLIE LYNCH KING, JR.?

Yeah...but...you probably know him better as Jerry Ford—Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr.

Little Leslie's parents split two weeks after he was born: there are reports that King Senior was abusive, that he was violent, that he had threatened his wife (the former Dorothy Ayer Gardner) and their baby boy. She left, moved in with a sister in Illinois for a time, got a divorce and moved with her little son to live with her parents in Grand Rapids.

There she met Gerald Rudolff Ford and married him—about the time this picture was taken.

The Ford family ran a successful paint and varnish business in Grand Rapids, and by all accounts Gerald Rudolff Ford was a perfect father and had a perfect family. Before too long young Leslie King was no more: replaced by Gerald Rudolff Ford, Jr.—although he was never formally adopted; he didn't make the name change official until 1935; and he always spelled his new middle name the more traditional way, "Rudolph." Young Jerry had three half brothers: Thomas Gardner Ford (1918–1995), Richard Addison Ford (born 1924), and James Francis Ford (1927–2001). Jerry, Jr. didn't know he had been born Leslie, Jr. until his mother told him when he was 17. He had a brief meeting with his biological father that same year, but nothing came of it. He never established much of a relationship with his birth father, or with his three other half-siblings, children of King's later marriage.

Which brings us to August 8, 1974. I had been head producer for WWJ-TV (Channel 4) in Detroit for just a few weeks, responsible for the 6:00 and 11:00 p.m. newscasts. I was home that Thursday morning when I got a call from my boss, Lou Prato, ordering me to the station ASAP. When I got there he told me that it was official: disgraced President Richard Nixon would resign that night—and Jerry Ford was going to become the 38^th President of the United States the next morning. Since I had just come to Detroit after five years working for WOOD AM-FM-TV in Grand Rapids, Lou said he was sending me, reporter Bob Vito (you may know him from CNN) and a two-man film crew to Grand Rapids to cover the Michigan angle. A chartered plane was waiting for us at Detroit City Airport.

Grumbling that Lou didn't even give us a chance to pack a bag, the four of us hopped on a single-engine Piper and headed west, arriving in Grand Rapids about 5:00 p.m.

It's important to remember that those were the days when local TV stations still shot news on film—that live coverage was almost unheard of for a local station—and that satellite coverage was rarer still. There was no chance to get anything on the air for 11:00 that night, so we concentrated on covering the story for the Noon and 6:00 the next day—the day Jerry Ford would be sworn in as President. Remember, too, that those were the days before morning newscasts. WWJ had only what other NBC affiliates had in the morning: the Today Show cut-ins.

So the four of us went crazy, tear-assing all around Grand Rapids looking for Ford family, friends and side-bars. I think we watched the Nixon resignation speech in a bar in Jerry's old neighborhood. We got high school classmates and teachers. I remember our coup was catching all three Ford brothers together at about 2:00 a.m. Great guys: down to earth, smart. The paint and varnish business had been very good to Tom, Dick and Jim Ford, and they were obviously proud of their brother, but he was still "just Jerry" to them.

OK. Next—get the film back on the plane at 6:00 a.m.to make the Noon news. So we zonked out in a motel. Don't know where or how, but I managed to come up with a toothbrush and some deodorant. The crew slept longer, but I got about 90 minutes of sleep, then it was off to the airport to put the film in the hands of the charter pilot. The plan was for him to fly it to Detroit and drop it off for the Noon show, then turn around while we stayed in GR to film reaction to Jerry Ford's swear-in as President. Then we were to hop on the plane, get back to Detroit about 3:00 p.m. and put together our final package for the dinner-hour news.

The plan went perfectly.

Tired, sweaty, bedraggled, we staggered into the WWJ newsroom and got what we expected, high praise from all around.

I also got a surprise: Lou Prato told me that there was no one else to producer the 6:00, that I'd have to do it. He promised to pitch in, and he did. Together we produced a terrific local newscast that drew heavily on Jerry's hometown background, his days as a star football player at Michigan, and his legacy as a Congressman.

Hearty handshakes all around.

When it was all over, Lou came up to me and said, "You did a great job. The 11:00 should be easy. I'm going home."

And he did. So I produced the 11:00.

When I finally got home it was around 1:00 a.m. Saturday morning—I was still hot and sweaty and tired—I had put probably 250 miles on a rental car—eaten nothing but cheap hamburgers and fries—swilled about three dozen Cokes—and squeezed in ninety minutes of sleep in the previous 36 hours.

Not a record, not by a long shot. Certainly not hazardous duty like war coverage. Actually, it was fun. I thought would make a good story for my grandchildren: What Grandpa did the night Jerry Ford became President.

I've never been married, never had kids, and I don't think there's much chance of me bouncing grandkids on my knee—so I'm telling you the story of the night I went tear-assing around Jerry Ford's hometown.

Got a second for just one more Jerry Ford anecdote? I wrote (in Man and Mentor on April 12^th) about my first boss, Dick Cheverton, and his battle with cancer. "Chev" had, of course, covered and known Jerry Ford for years. The two men liked and respected each other. So it was no surprise that Congressman Ford would hand Chev his last (and biggest) assignment.

Remember Richard Nixon's visit to China? To the "People's Republic of China?" To "RED CHINA????????" After years of distrust and a decades-long break in all relations, diplomatic and trade, Nixon used China's deteriorating relationship with the U.S.S.R. to try what was dubbed "Ping Pong Diplomacy" (the U.S. table tennis team was invited to visit China in 1971). In '72 Nixon himself went for meetings with Chairman Mao Zedong. It was the high point of the Nixon presidency. And for the first time in decades Western journalists—newspapers and the networks—were allowed into China.

Not long after, the House Minority and Majority leaders (Jerry Ford of Michigan and Hale Boggs of Louisiana) made a trip of their own to China. Each was told he could bring a TV crew from his home district. Congressman Ford invited Chev to send a crew—and Chev grabbed the assignment for himself. Chev and a reporter from New Orleans and their photographers became the first non-network TV journalists in China since the 1940s!

For Chev, it was tough going. He was on crutches, still healing after breaking his hip (could that have been a foreshadowing of the cancer to come?). But Chev wasn't about to let a little broken hip stand in the way of the big story. So he and Chief Photographer Tom O'Rourke dogged the Congressional delegation every step of the way—producing memorable coverage.

O'Rourke even got the attention of communist leader Zhou Enlai. Chev and Tom were covering a banquet on their final night in Peking. Tom had his old Auricon Pro 16mm movie camera on a should brace—his sound amplifier strapped around his neck, along with a 35mm camera—a light clipped to the camera and a battery belt on his waist (along with a spare)—and a backpack with batteries, extra film magazines and the like. The whole getup must have weighed eighty pounds.

During a ceremonial dinner Zhou Enlai noticed O'Rourke filming the event and offered a toast to the burly photographer from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Tom said it translated to something like this: "Modern technology is wonderful. It is sad, though, that so much of it still comes down to manual labor."

I wonder if WOOD still has any of that old China footage. It was remarkable, historic and eye-opening.

The next things we knew, in late 1973, good 'ol Jerry Ford became Vice President Gerald Ford. Spiro Agnew was forced to resign as part of a deal that allowed him to plead nolo contendere (no contest) to criminal charges of tax evasion and money laundering. Seems he had accepted bribes during his tenure as governor of Maryland.

I was still at WOOD at that time. Chev was in the hospital. I remember well the new VP's first visit back to his hometown. We were determined to make Chev proud. We were the dominant news station in the market, the only one with an hour-long dinner-hour newscast, and the largest staff in town: seven full-time reporters and seven full-time photographers. Huge for the middle markets in those days.

And go figure: Vice President Ford had seven events on his schedule, from breakfast with his brothers to a tour of the old family home, lunch with invited big-wigs. You know the drill. Seven stops, then back to Washington.

But there was a 90-minute gap in his schedule. An hour-and-a-half unaccounted for. Oh, yeah? We'll just see about that! Our entire staff spent days trying to find out what Jerry Ford was up to.

We never did find out where he was going—but after he left we found out where he'd been. He went to the hospital and spent the time with Dick Cheverton. A nurse later told me that the Secret Service was stationed outside the open door, so no one knew exactly what was said inside.

"But," she told me, "They laughed a lot."