"Strawberry Fields Forever"

Do you know what sea glass is? It's ordinary glass, discarded glass—usually from broken bottles—that's made extraordinarily beautiful by being pounded by surf and sand for many years. You turn it in over your hand and it looks somehow different from each new angle. It's captivating.

On December 8, 1980, John Lennon was gunned down by deranged "fan" Mark David Chapman in front of his apartment building, the Dakota, at 72^nd and Central Park West. I've been turning that event over in my mind, trying to see if I can find beauty or meaning there. I can't. But after more than a quarter-century I have a new perspective.

A year ago today I wrote about my role (almost non-existent) in covering the story—and more particularly about WABC-TV’s role in breaking the story for the world. I wrote how Eyewitness News found out about the killing and passed it along to the network: ABC, which was carrying Monday Night Football had Howard Cosell make the announcement.

I repeated the story of Eyewitness News 6PM producer Alan Weiss, who was hurt in a motorcycle-versus-taxi accident in Central Park, was in the Roosevelt Hospital emergency room when Lennon was brought in. Alan, badly injured, was still able to get to a phone and call the news desk. If you’ve got a second you might want to scroll down to December 8, 2007, and read that post.

A few weeks ago, at the Eyewitness News 40^th reunion, I ran into long-time WABC photographer Peter Berman. He and I have been sharing memories since. When we communicated about the night of the Lennon killing he told me a side of the story I hadn’t heard before. I asked him to write it down for inclusion here.

He agreed, with some reluctance. I have to repeat here what Peter said to me: his version doesn't contradict Alan's, it adds to it. He wants it made clear that he doesn’t dispute Alan’s story in any way. He’s not trying to claim any “credit” for breaking the Lennon story (and credit isn’t a word he or Alan or any of us at EWN would think about using). He just had a unique perspective. Like looking at sea glass, he saw the event from a different angle. It makes for fascinating reading, and I thank him for allowing me to share "the rest of the story" (forgive me) with you.

John Lennon & Mark David Chapman

at the Dakota

It was the end of the night shift at WABC TV and my partner, who will remain nameless, and I were packing up our video gear for the night. I had just been made a staff video journalist at Ch7 in October of that year after doing the requisite vacation relief stint. 1980 was the start of the change over from film to video in TV news and the video crews were almost all assigned to the night shift because we had live trucks. In those days video was one step away from being prehistoric. All of the broadcast cameras were in two pieces. There was the video camera and the video recorder which recorded both picture and sound. We used 3/4 inch Sony U-matic tape decks that were very cumbersome and heavy. The cameras weren't much better, they were plumbicon tube cameras that weighed almost as much as the recorder. The big difference was that it was better balanced on your shoulder. The other difference was that the camera people almost all had a swagger and an inflated ego. You needed both to survive the urban combat situations in the news business on the streets of New York.

Mixed in with some very talented video journalists were some not so talented people who were a fact of life. If you had one of these people as a partner you very likely did what seemed like two jobs. On December 8th I was partnered with one of the slackers. Our equipment was kept in cages in the basement of the Ch7 building on the corner of 67th and Columbus Ave. The newsroom where the production staff worked was on the 4th floor and there was a telephone that connected the assignment desk to the crews in the basement. My partner and I were waiting for a call from Neil Goldstein, our night time assignment editor, for a "good night".

Neil was one of the most creative people in the entire TV news business at the time. No one knew the tri-state area like Neil. He knew every police precinct, every hospital, every government building and every public relations person in the city. Throw in knowing the streets better than a Hagstrom map. Neil could smell a huge story a mile away. One of Neil’s jobs was to listen to the police scanners in addition to managing all of the night crews and reporters. The phone in the basement rang and my partner and I looked at each other and had that knowing look....time to go home! It was Neil, but it was not a "good night". Instead when I picked up the phone I heard Neil franticly barking orders to hurry up and get over to the "Dakota.”

The "Dakota" was one of the best known celebrity apartments in the city. Everyone in our building knew exactly where it was....the corner of 72nd St. and Central Park West. Only 5 blocks north of our building. In the short time that I had known Neil I had never heard him so frantic. "Get over to the Dakota now!" I heard again, “somebody has been shot and we need to check it out.” My partner and I ran upstairs to the parking lot where the live trucks were kept. We threw our equipment in the truck and drove like crazy up to 72nd St.

Just as we arrived on the scene we saw a very small crowd of people, a police car with its lights flashing and police officers carrying John Lennon into the back seat of the car. My partner and I leaped out of the truck. I ran to pick up the camera and start shooting the action but my partner started to argue with me that it was his turn to shoot and he wasn't going to give up the camera. The people at the scene were yelling at us that "it was John Lennon in the police car and he had been shot". Seeing the action unfold in front of us I instantly decided not to argue and let my partner shoot. There was one problem though, my partner for some unknown reason refused to let me turn on the portable light so that he could have a useable picture. I watched in vain as the police car with John Lennon's body pulled away in a hurry to get him to the closest hospital.

As soon as the car was out of sight I ran back to the truck and called Neil on the two way radio to tell him that the victim of the shooting was John Lennon. There was a pregnant pause as the news sunk in and moments later Neil started to bark out orders. From that moment and for the next couple of days night blended into day and day into night. My partner and I worked non-stop around the clock for two to three days. We went to every location that was part of the story, the Dakota, the hospital, the 20th precinct, back to the Dakota. We did live shot after live shot for both WABC and ABC Network. I worked with so many reporters that I stopped counting after the first couple. There was a coffee shop across the street from the Dakotas and the owner and his staff were godsends. Food, restrooms, short breaks. Sooner or later everyone working on the story ended up at this coffee shop.

As the word spread about the shooting of one of music's legends, the crowds began to grow. Soon the numbers of people were growing to enormous proportions. People were in tears, I remember people bringing flowers to the crime scene to pay homage to Lennon. Eventually there were piles of flowers overflowing onto the sidewalk. There were people who were in a state of shock and just stood and waited outside the now infamous Dakota, not knowing what they were waiting for, just waiting and hoping that the news wasn't true. Their hero, their icon, the man who wrote "give peace a chance" was now dead. Not since the assassinations of President Kennedy, his brother Robert, and Martin Luther King, Jr. did I witness such an outpouring of public grief.

I will never forget that night and the days that followed. I was actually living a part of history, this was the brutal reality of what the dark side of the news business was all about. I still get teary eyed when I hear Lennon's music, when December 8th comes around, when I see footage of him and the other "mop heads". So much talent, senselessly lost to the world for ever. I will always have a connection to John Lennon, I just wish it could have been in a more positive way.

Some postscripts. Peter says that Neil later told him as soon as Peter had given him the word it was John Lennon who was shot, his next call was from Alan Weiss at the hospital. Neil, of course, was the one who passed along the word to the network. All these years later I find that Neil had two sources, not just one—and that both were impeccable. Again, I don’t see any dispute here: neither Peter nor Alan could have known what the other had witnessed. I don't think they ever got around to comparing notes on what happened that night. I haven't talked to Neil.

Neil Goldstein has had a very successful career in news. He wound up as news director for the CBS O-and-O in Miami—my successor, twice-removed I think. Along the way he was ND for WJBK in Detroit, WNEW in New York, and most recently for WDIV, the Post-Newsweek station in Detroit. Lately he’s been behind Post-Newsweek’s new venture, http://justweather.com/. Its Beta is up and running and worth a look.

Neil was, during his Eyewitness News days and for awhile after, married to WABC Reporter Tracy Egan—who had a long career that eventually took her back to her hometown, Albany. Neil and Tracy have a daughter, Bridget Blythe, who reports and anchors at WKBW in Buffalo and is the spitting image of her Mom.

Peter Berman recently retired after a long careeer at EWN. He's got his own photo/video service. If you go tohttp://www.insightphotovideo.com/ and click on "Events," you'll find some pictures he took at the reunion. Peter continues to help his wife, Julie Eckhert, run her business: she's one of the best-known and most respected talent coaches and career consultants in TV news: http://www.eckherttalent.com/

Mark David Chapman was up for parole earlier this year—and was rejected. This picture, the most recent I could find, was taken in 2003. He’s up for a parole hearing again in 2010. He's a born-again Christian.

Me? For me it’s been a “A Long and Winding Road."

Breaking, or Broken?

He was a good looking young guy . . . check. He had a great background (big-time J-school) . . . check. He was well-groomed, with a healthy tan . . . check. He was a good dresser (his ties probably cost more than my suits) . . . check. He sounded good . . . check. He had self-confidence galore . . . check. He said he was a reporter . . .

. . . he wasn’t. He was a “coverer.” I just made that word up, because I don’t know what else to call him. He was a microphone holder.

One of my rules had long been that every reporter was expected to come to the “morning meeting” with at least one story idea. Hopefully it would be something we could cover locally—something of vital interest to our viewers—a “sit up and take notice” story that would cement our reputation as trusted news gatherers who put our viewers’ needs first. Our slogan was “On Your Side.” Even though I had nothing to do with picking the branding, I didn’t want to just pay lip service to it, I wanted us to live it and breathe it.

But, I told the reporters, if you can’t work your sources and come up with one solid idea a day (!!!) at least come in with a story that might kick-start discussion: something you’d heard on the radio, seen on TV, read in a newspaper or a magazine or on the Internet.

Most mornings this guy said, “I don’t have anything today.”

What the . . .

You’re a reporter????? You didn't read a paper today? You didn't listen to the radio? You drove to work with your eyes closed? Nothing sparked your curiosity?

So we'd give him a story off the Daybook. Every day. And that’s OK, in a way. The day’s “news agenda” leaves room for enterprise reporting, for investigative reporting, for looking at old stories in new ways. But the “news agenda” also includes several stories each day that your viewers expect you to cover: they read them in the local paper, heard them on the radio, saw them on your early newscast. They want—they expect—they demand--a payoff during your dinner-hour broadcasts, and they’re going to figure you’re not doing your job if you miss the “must-covers.”

The consultants even invented a word to describe the attitude of frustrated viewers: “anticappointment.” You’ve been anticipating a certain story, counting on learning more, looking forward to it all day, and you’re disappointed when you don’t get it—GET IT?

So every day our young reporter was assigned a story off the Daybook—and most days he never got around to covering it. I don’t think he had any intention of covering it. I think he and his photographer drove around town aimlessly most days—stalling, stalling—with the police scanner turned up full-blast, waiting for breaking news.

They’d hear the report of the shooting—or the two-alarm fire—or the fisherman who’s boat capsized in the river—and they’d be on the two-way in seconds to announce, “We’re close, we’ll take it.” I’m not sure they were in the same county but they were always “close.”

So that became the drill. The guy wouldn’t—or couldn’t—come up with a decent story. Golly gee whiz, that would be like . . . like . . . work! Phone calls would have to be made. Sources would have to be checked. Notes would have to be taken. Interviews would have to be arranged. File tape might have to be pulled. Archived scripts might have to be located. Probing questions might have to be asked.

Hard work! Eeeeewww!

It’s a helluva lot easier to shoot the flames breaking through the roof and to ask the lady who owns the home, “How do you feel?” Following the lights and sirens has the added benefit of getting your juices flowing in a way no mayoral news conference ever could.

All the pluses of a lead story without any of that pesky work.

This, of course, from a guy who was once trapped in a traffic jam by a blizzard for four hours—and didn’t get around to shooting any footage of the snow or the stranded, frustrated motorists. I guess he was busy.

Before long he moved on to a much bigger market—one of the biggest. Shootings and fires and drugs, Oh MY!!!!!! I have no idea if he’s done anything to develop the reporting skills he refused to hone while he was here in the medium-time, but he’s big-time now.

Who's On (In) First?

Joe Riggins said it best. You remember Joe “Skip” Riggins—the manager of the baseball team in Bull Durham? The late Trey Wilson played him on the big screen.

“Baseball,” he said, “"is a simple game. You throw the ball. You hit the ball. You catch the ball." He accused his team of being “lollygaggers.”

I think television news is a simple business. You pick some stories, you cover some stories, you tell some stories.

The thing that makes baseball so endlessly fascinating is that down on that field there are a million options, a million choices to be made, many of them instantly. It sometimes seems that getting it right is a million-to-one shot. Yet some teams do get it right, consistently. They’re winners.

Same thing for television news. What stories do you pick to tell tonight? Why did you pick them? What’s your goal in reporting them? How do you decide what resources to assign to each story? A live truck? A helicopter? Team reporting? How much time can you spend on the story in the field? How much time can you devote to it on the air? How do you tell those stories? Graphics? Clever writing? Standups? Live guests? There are so many decisions to be made. But it seems to me that the news operations that do it well and do it consistently all focus on their viewers.

Obviously, I’ve been thinking a lot about WABC-TV lately, and about Al Primo, and about Eyewitness News. I remain struck by the fact that just about everything at WABC, all the story-telling tricks and tips he put in place—worked, has worked, and will work in the future, because it was all viewer-based. His emphasis on using a cast of real people (New Yorkers) as reporters, telling stories about real people (New Yorkers) to real people (New Yorkers) in a way real people (New Yorkers!!!) could understand? It really hasn’t been improved upon. And yet it leaves a lot of room for creative thinking and individual initiative. It’s a simple game—tell me a story!

WABC has been #1 in New York for most of the last forty years by following the plan, by believing in story-telling as a goal, by letting reporters and anchors develop their style to go with the station’s style, and by remembering that it’s all about communicating one-on-one with viewers. Lower the barriers to communication—look ‘em in the eye and tell ’em a story.

When I see TV news that doesn’t work, it’s always because reporters haven’t mastered the craft of storytelling—or have forgotten how—or don’t have the time—or don’t have the resources—or don’t know to put their viewers first.

I know, I know—I’m being an old fart again. But it took me a long time to earn whatever stripes I may have on my sleeves, to develop whatever skills I may have. Along the way I was taught why things are done the way they are. I tune in today—to any TV station you can name—and see people who know what to do (they’ve read the playbook), but they don’t know why. For that reason every newscast looks exactly the same.

I spent Thanksgiving with family back home in Cleveland.

Know the difference between TV news in Cleveland and Cincinnati and Columbus?

Me neither.

All the Cleveland stations looked the same to me—and none of them looked like Cleveland. Cleveland has cookie-cutter newscasts. Great looking anchors. Great looking reporters. Great video. Great looking sets. Great looking graphics. Great sounding music.

It was great. But they looked like lollygaggers, and it was all interchangeable. Your market too, I’ll bet.

Quick note. I had a nightmare the other night. Did you ever have one where you woke up in the middle of the night, got up, went to the bathroom, splashed some water on your face, returned to bed—and picked up the dream at the same spot!?!?!?!?

I dreamed—all night it seemed—that I was once again a news director and I was being ordered to make huge budget cuts. I had some sort of a spreadsheet in front of me. By each name there was a box showing how much money each person made this year—how much each was supposed to make next year—and the savings if I each one go immediately. My job (in the dream) was to add up the numbers from the “savings” boxes—to the penny-- and fire exactly the right people to reach a mandated bottom-line figure. Hit it exactly. Not a penny over, not a penny under. So a reporter whose salary ended in a "6" might stay, but one who's salary ended in a "7" would have to go. In the dream I kept adding and subtracting, trying to hit that exact number while still trying to retain good people and still do news. As I say, a nightmare.

In my last ND job I was ordered to do some serious budget trimming—but I did almost all of it by leaving positions unfilled, or by cutting overtime. I hated it. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be a news director today, trimming fat, gristle, bone, meat—a living nightmare, I presume.

One of the local radio talkshow hosts recently was joking about the downturn in local TV revenue. Pennsylvania was a “swing state” this election year, and with two key Congressional races locally, the stations made millions more than in political ads than in any election year ever. Now that’s gone—and so is spot spending in general. After Christmas, what will be left? The host was laughing—laughing—that maybe TV needs a government bailout.

I think maybe I got out of TV news at the right moment. I got in just after the beginning—now I’m out just before the end. I wonder what's next.