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Members GEORGE BACK QUARTERLY ROYAL E. BLAKEMAN BERT BRILLER VOLUME XXXI NUMBER 1 SPRING 200° JOHN CANNON THE NATIONAL ACAULh:I) of ILEL).1 1LE'v AH1, A.0 a 1. ILNCES SCHUYLER G. CHAPIN THE JOURNAL OF MICHAEL M. EPSTEIN Ellerbee: The Newswoman Who Fired the Networks, NELSA GIDNEY 4 Linda Unger MELVIN A. GOLDBERG by Arthur MARY KNOWLES 19 Teletubby Trouble: How Justified Were Rev. Falwell's Attacks? HERMAN W. LAND by Heather Hendershot LAWRENCE LAURENT HOWARD A. MYRICK 2 7 Public Television and the Camel's Nose, by Bernard S. Redmont JOHN PAVLIK Medved RAQUEL ORTIZ 3 3 Point: NAACP Attacks the Wrong TV Target, hyMichael MARLENE SANDERS Counterpoint: Culturally Diverse TV Would be Better TV, QUENTIN SHAFFER 3 7 by Christopher P. Campbell RON SIMON MARY ANN WATSON 41 "Go Westinghouse, Young Man!" Michael M. Epstein interviews Joel (2taseman Special Correspondent ARTHUR UNGER Si Is Holdup One or Two Words? Hair -raising 1960's experiences Graphics Designer by Phil Baker ROBERT MANSFIELD Now There Are Seven. by Douglas Gomery Business Manager 63 Once There Were Three, TRUDY WILSON 69 TV's Distorted and Missing Images of Women and the Elderly, by Bert R. Briller

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3 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com Linda Ellerbee The Newswoman Who Fired the Networks TVQ'sSpecial Correspondent chats with this irreverent woman who defeated cancer, alcoholism and the suffocating influences of network newsrooms to head up her own production company and anchor the acclaimed NickNews on Nickelodeon.

By Arthur Unger

inda Ellerbee has become the Interviewed in her office on Morton poster -girl for TV's independent Street in Greenwich Village, she sports a newswomen. As a matter of fact, black T -shirt and makes no attempt to for all newspersons who are will- create a false impression. "You remember , i ing to fight for their integrity. Arthur," she says, gesturing toward her flat She has managed to overcome alco- chest, "I used to have large breasts!" holism a and double mastectomy as well I remember. But I also remember this as a fierce independence which seldom fit effervescent personality who pioneered in the network mold.. Now, still brilliant at off beat network news ventures on all the age 55, she is handsomer than ever, slim, major networks: NBC News Overnight, Our happily mated /partnered with Rolfe World, Summer Sunday... a newswoman Tessem, and ready to take on all comers- who has won CableAce awards as well as network, cable, internet...or destiny. Emmys and Peabodys. Now, with co -exec-

4 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com i

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www.americanradiohistory.com utive producer Tessem, she heads up recently watched the hour that Lifetime did Lucky Duck Productions, which does Nick on my life and somebody said: "Well, what News as well as Intimate Portraits for Life- did you think of it ?" And I said: "Well, first time channel,specials for HBO, PBS and of all, it sort of feels like watching your almost everybody else, including Ms. obituary while you're still alive. And Smith Goes to Washington and The MTV secondly, it's like seeing every bad hair day Interview. In the works now is a 12 -part of your life on national TV. And third, I'm series on the women's movement with not really that nice as they make me out." Whoopie Goldberg and Diane Keaton. Ellerbee doesn't hesitate to talk about UNGER: Rubenstein said: "What more her bouts with alcoholism and breast could you ask for in a pal ?" I want to ask:

cancer (in fact, she lectures about them all "What more could you ask for in a news - over the country in order to alert people to woman?" the problems) but she refuses to flaunt ELLERBEE: I don't know what I would them as her ultimate badge of acceptance. ask for. But I certainly know the one thing She is proud of the success of her company. that the networks I worked for all those Almost as proud as she is of her two chil- years would say: "Obedience." I was never dren who have "turned out so well." very good at that. It always struck me as Her office is decorated with many odd that, particularly in the case of women photos...but the one she focuses on point- (and I guess I was part of that first wave of edly is of her patron saint, Edward R. women in network news), that they hired Murrow. "He did a coffee commercial," she us to do a job that involved going out and says with a smile (she has been vilified for not taking no for answer. And then they doing a Maxwell House commercial in the wanted us to come back in the building and past.) Also on a shelf are the Emmys and be obedient little sweetie pies. Peabodys, sharing a place of honor with I looked very hard at that situation and photos of her (now adult) kids, whom she thought: "This can go one of two ways. considers her major accomplishment. Either it'll make me crazy or I'll make them crazy, and I know which way I'm going to *V* choose here." But I really never understood What follows is my conversation with the notion of why they would think that all Linda Ellerbee. While the chronology has of the qualities that went into making a been altered here and there for reasons of good journalist wouldn't also go into continuity and there has been minor edit- making, if not an anti -social human being, ing to fit space requirements, all answers at least a sort of independent one. I never are verbatim. fit their mold, you know. I just never did. And that was made plain to me over and UNGER: Writer Hal Rubenstein once said over and over again. I was fine for fringe this about you: "Site has common -sense times, like 1:30 in the morning. intelligence, an ear that listens, a voice that exudes reason, body language that shoots UNGER: Have you now grown more into the into fourth gear when it senses the presence mold? of bullshit, and a smile that goes 'Yup, that's ELLERBEE: I don't think I have. No! But I it' whenever you're on the money... What will say this much. For all the years that I more could you askfor in a pal?" worked at the networks and took potshots ELLERBEE: That is lovely. But I'm not at management, after 10 or 12 years of sure it's true. I've always been uncomfort- being a manager now, I do have some able with too many compliments. I sympathy for some of the people that I

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www.americanradiohistory.com I would say at the gates of St. Peter: "I am a writer." worked for that I think perhaps didn't ELLERBEE: That's a fascinating question. deserve the potshots I took. Others, they I'd say: "I'm a writer," and then I would deserved it. explain what I mean by that. I got this definition from Reuven UNGER: But you didn't take the potshots on Frank and I know it to be true: "Writing the air, did you? is the arrangement of ideas." Therefore, ELLERBEE: No. No, no, no, no. What I if I'm producing a television show, I'm said on the air rarely got me in trouble. It writing it -even if there is no narration. ideas in an was always what I said off the air to my Because I am arranging the bosses that kept me in hot water with order; choosing which ones, eliminating them. Except for [NBC News chief] Reuven the ones I don't think belong, finding Frank. the right order for them. That's writing. When I was working at NBC News, the UNGER: He has a wry sense of humor. first time that I cut a news piece that ELLERBEE: A weird sense of humor. And had no narration in it because it didn't is just the single best producer I ever need it, John Chancellor, who was worked for. He understood that quirkiness anchoring at the time, refused to say my was not bad; that gray jello was not neces- name in the introduction to the piece. sarily something to aim for in television. He refused to say: "And here with that story is Linda Ellerbee," because he UNGER: You know, so many of those TV said: "She couldn't have written it, there executives no one remembers are no words." anymore. They'regone andforgotten. And eventually, because I kept on doing ELLERBEE: Well, happily in my case, I've those kinds of pieces, eventually we got either outlived most of them or I'm still John to say: "This story was arranged by around and they're gone. I've either Linda Ellerbee," which made me sound like outlived them or I've got their kids watch- a composer or a marriage broker. "I ing Nick News. There's a nice revenge.You So I would say at the gates of St. Peter: know what the Catholic Church always am a writer." said: "Give me your kids 'till they're seven." might Well, I say: "Give them to me between UNGER:1 had a list of what you eight and 12." say- newscaster, producer, journalist, broadcaster, editor, TV personality. anchor, UNGER: I'i ngoingtoskipall the basic agitator. interview stuff because it's all in the bio and ELLERBEE: Agitator -I don't minci that clips. one either. "Rowdy citizen "occurs to me as ELLERBEE: Thank you. You're not asking well. Rowdy citizen, agitator, and writer. one of those me how I was fired by the AP again? The rest of them all fall under three. UNGER: No, we're not going to go through UNGER: Let's consider the relationship that. However, I am going to ask you: Ifyou between blond hair and news women. There's were at the gates of heaven and St. Peter asked Jane Pauley, Diane Sawyer, Lesley Stahl, you to identify yourself by profession, what Lynn Sher, and now even Andrea Mitchell. would you say? ELLERBEE: And me.

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www.americanradiohistory.com UNGER: Yes, all blonde. And now you, why UNGER: It seems to me there's no better are you a blonde? way to interview than to quote what I have ELLERBEE: Well, for me, it was a lark. I pulled through various search mechanisms lost a lot of weight. about a person. And I'vefound that in the course of commenting on these, we're going to UNGER: You're looking great. answer all the other questions . So let me give ELLERBEE: I've never been more fit. I'm you some of the positive things said about in great health. I was in Los Angeles in May. you.. Then I'll give you the negatives. And I woke up one morning -for no good First- "attained success on her own reason at all, I wasn't even getting gray - terms." and I thought: "I think I'd like to be a ELLERBEE: I hear that "on her own blonde. I've never been a blonde." My next terms" often. And I always think: "That's thought was: "What will your mother only partly true. Nobody ever gets it their say ?" And my next thought was: "Linda, way all the time." I think that sentence your mother died 15 years ago. You're 55, should be amended to say: "What success you don't have to ask anyone's permis- she got on her own terms, she also paid a sion." And so I went and I got my hair dyed. price for." I've often thought that had I been For me, it was a lark and I don't think I'm different than I am, I might well be sitting going to keep it this way. I think I'm at and anchoring for $3 million a year at a heart a natural brunette. But I've enjoyed network. And would I make that trade? No, this and it's been fun. I wouldn't. First of all, my terms never seemed unreasonable to me. I've always UNGER: Do blondes have morefun? felt that I was in an island of sanity in a ELLERBEE: Well, I don't know, Arthur, kind of a crazy business. So I've never felt because I was having an awfully good time that my terms were unreasonable. before I was a blonde too. So I can't really say that blondes have more fun. UNGER: Okay. How about "acerbic"? ELLERBEE: Acerbic, that's probably true. UNGER: Has it affected your persona on And even skeptical. But not cynical. TV?

ELLERBEE: I don't think so. First of all, I UNGER: "Free - wheeling "? don't work for the networks any more. So ELLERBEE: I'm not sure how they mean whatever they might think of how I look on that. Free -wheeling... TV truly doesn't matter. When I'm on tele- vision, they're from my own Lucky Duck UNGER: It means one never can be sure Productions or I'm being interviewed on what you're going to say. TV someplace. And for the things that we ELLERBEE: Well, there is something to produce, the only ones I'm on are Nick that. More often than not, when I got News and the children's specials.. myself in trouble in the newspapers, it was not because I was misquoted: it was UNGER: Nick News is syndicated? because I was quoted accurately. ELLERBEE: It airs on Nickelodeon in New York in prime time at 8:30 pm East- UNGER: How about "born with a silver ern time on Sunday nights. And then it's tongue "? syndicated across the country, shown at ELLERBEE: Oh, gosh, that's nice. I'm not various times, usually Saturday morning, sure it's mc. I would say "born with her in the kid ghetto tongue in her check" might be more likely.

8 TELEVISION QUARTERLY

www.americanradiohistory.com I have a very good life right now. I have work I love.

And I own the company.

integrity when I did that Maxwell House UNGER: "Irreverent"? commercial. ELLERBEE: That's true. I don't have a lot of use for reverence. UNGER: We're going to come to that in the negatives. UNGER: "Lots offini "? ELLERBEE: I do believe I have some ELLERBEE: I've had a lot of fun. integrity in this business. I think that I have made several significant choices along UNGER: "Unsparingly honest"? the way, that I made based on integrity ELLERBEE: Nobody's unsparingly rather than things that would further my honest. own career.

UNGER: "An original"? UNGER: "Non judgmental'? ELLERBEE: No one is an original. I came ELLERBEE: On the air, I've tried to be. from two parents and an upbringing. If I Yet off the air I have as many opinions as were any kind of original on television it anybody else. was simply that the field was small and I was different. Different is not always the UNGER: "Sassy"? same as original. ELLERBEE: That's true.

UNGER: "Breezy"? UNGER: "Classy"? ELLERBEE: Breezy, I guess. Some days ELLERBEE: Well, class is probably in the you are, some days you aren't. eye of the beholder, just like beauty.

UNGER: "Raffish"? UNGER: "Literate "? ELLERBEE: Yeah, raffish ... raffish always ELLERBEE: That's true. I am literate. seems to me something out of the '40s, as if she had her cap tipped at a raffish angle, UNGER: "A southern gentlewoman"? you know. ELLERBEE: My mother would get a great laugh out of that one, for a couple of UNGER: "Plucky"? reasons. One, my mother would say: ELLERBEE: Plucky, I am. Yeah. "We're not southern, we're Texans. That's not southern." And she would say: "If you UNGER: "Inquisitive intelligence "? really meant it, you should have called her ELLERBEE: Well, I'm inquisitive. I'll a lady, not a gentlewoman." And the third leave the intelligence factor ... okay. No, I'm thing she'd say is: "There's very little gentle 55 years old and I don't have to be coy. I'm about Linda." intelligent, yeah. UNGER: "Texas sophisticate "? UNGER: "Mutate ofbroadcast integrity "? ELLERBEE: Well, a Texas sophisticate ELLERBEE: Like a baby icon. ..1 guess means you can read. So, I guess I'm a Texas some men would think of women as being sophisticate, whatever that is. iconettes and men as icons. There are just as many who will tell you that 1 lost my UNGER: "She has a beautfd soul"?

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www.americanradiohistory.com ELLERBEE: Oh, that is very nice. I like would like to add one thing to the ability to that. I hope it's true. talk to kids without talking down,.. that's not so common in television news either: a UNGER: "The embodiment of New Age sense of humor. Texan"? ELLERBEE: Hmmm ... UNGER: Is Lucky Duck going more into adult programming? UNGER: Are you a New Age Texan? ELLERBEE: Well, Nick News and Nick ELLERBEE: I don't know what a New Age specials are the only things we do just for Texan is. I always assumed a New Age children. Every other project is aimed at Texan was someone who's moved to Texas adults too... we are the largest supplier of from someplace else. portraits for Lifetime. People associate Nick News with me UNGER: Maybefrom Sedona. because I'm on it. They see a lot of our ELLERBEE: That's right. other productions, but they don't associate them with me unless they sit and read the UNGER: Now something like this comes up credits at the end. And unless you're in the very often: 'A victor rather than a survivor"? business, who does that? ELLERBEE: Yeah. It feels that way. When I look around now, I mean, look at Lucky UNGER: Let's go to some negatives. We'll Duck. The SS people that work here and start easy. "Blowzy "? the fun I'm having -I mean, we're a multi- ELLERBEE: Yeah. I remember the one million dollar company now. I'm always that called me that. And I had to go look it surprised when people run into me and up at the time. I think that was probably they say: "Oh, I remember you used to be true then. I don't think it's true now ... on television. What do you do now?" And I say: "Well, I own and run a production UNGER: You were plumper then. company." And they go: "Oh, yeah," and ELLERBEE: I was a lot fatter. I had large they look kind of vague. I say: "I have SS breasts you may remember...before this employees and we have a whole bunch of happened. And all that big messy hair. And freelancers in addition ...I have a very good I think that was probably accurate then. I life right now. I have work I love. And I don't think it's accurate now. own the company." I'm not going to get up and fire myself just because I had a bad day. UNGER: No, I don't think so. Now here I sell back to networks, all kinds of we're coming to: "Needs to wake up and networks. I live two blocks from my office smell the coffee"? in a townhouse on St. Lukes Place, just ELLERBEE: Well, you know, I've said around the corner here. And my partner, what I had to say on that. I did the Maxwell Rolfe Tessem and I, we just celebrated 13 House commercial to keep this company years together. His office is right at the alive.My choices were: go back to work for other side of the conference room here, and the networks or do a talk show, which I did we own Lucky Duck together and have not want to do, some sort of trashy talk lived together for 13 years. show, or do that commercial and keep the company going. UNGER: "Ability to talk to kids without And I made the right choice. It kept the talking down"? company going, and it wasn't six months ELLERBEE: I'm very proud of that, later that Nickelodeon walked in the door because I work very hard at that But I and we started.

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www.americanradiohistory.com UNGER: Oh, I skipped this too: `Barbara UNGER: Has it affected your overall reputa- Waltersfor the MTV generation"? tion? ELLERBEE: I like that. I'll certainly take ELLERBEE: Not at all. Since then I've that. Yeah. only won two DuPonts, a Peabody for the entire body of my work this last year, and UNGER: We're back to the natives I can't three Emmys. So I would say it has not remember if this was supposed to be positive affected the work situation at all. It hurt my or negative. `Always ready to go in your feelings a great deal. And it's not my proud- face "? est moment. It's not something that I'm ELLERBEE: I'm not certain that that's proud of. It's something I did to meet a negative. It depends on whose face and payroll. what the issue is. I'm still ready to climb in somebody's face if it needs it. I was raised UNGER: And it worked? not to shrink from a scene if a scene is what ELLERBEE: And it worked. And I get it's called for. But I pick my times a great regularly offers to do commercials and I deal more carefully now. turn them down. UNGER: "Supremely egotistical"? UNGER: So if we see you on a commercial ELLERBEE: I might drop the we'll know that you're broke. "supremely." I don't think I know anyone ELLERBEE: You'll know I'm broke. in our business who's not egotistical.

UNGER: How about "combative "? UNGER: "A smart- ass "? ELLERBEE: I think I was combative for a ELLERBEE: Smart assed is true. My own long time, I truly do. More combative than son called me a bad ass on national televi- I needed to be. I think that being a manager sion in that program about me. And then now myself, I've learned a lot. And one of he stopped and he said: "I liked that." the things that I've learned is that there are times to pick and choose your battles. And UNGER: "Too eager to be with it"? I think very often I fought every battle as ELLERBEE: I'm not sure what that though it were of equal intensity and equal means, because I don't think anyone to my importance. knowledge has ever accused me of being with it. UNGER: Oh, lucre's one of the positives I'd forgotten: "One of the glorious Texas three- UNGER: " Knows what she wants and will some-Molly ¡yens, Ann Richards and Linda kill to accomplish it"? Ellerbee"? ELLERBEE: Well, that's obviously an ELLERBEE: Well, I am proud to be in that overstatement. I have never killed company. And honest to God, you know, anything. But I will say this ... I've always sometimes the two or the three of us are thought of myself, and I think it's pretty speaking at some women's event and we true, I'm one of the least ambitious people have this thing that none of us ever wants in network news. I went into television to follow the other. because I was a single mother of two chil- dren. And I would try to explain to people

I consider it my mission to beat the pants off the competition and do a better job.

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www.americanradiohistory.com that ambition comes in two sizes. You can cleverest, most able people ever to occupy the have ambition where you're running Today Show seat and one of the most under- towards something, and you can also have rated. Jane has never lost her temper or her the ambition where something's chasing manners or her good nature. When I grow up you and you're running away from it. And I want to be Jane Pantry." my great fear was that I wouldn't be able to ELLERBEE: That's true. I still do. Jane is a support my children. And that kept me wonderful woman. I am so glad to see her going to work many days when I person- finally getting the accolades that she has ally would have blown the job off. deserved for years. She was so underrated However, where that quote is accurate is and so dismissed really by so much of when you send me out on a story, I am management as just a pretty face, a pretty fierce, I truly am. I consider it my mission sidekick. And there's so much more to her to beat the pants off the competition and than that. And she has such courage and do a better job. In that case, when that's such a spine on her. You cross Jane at your what I want, I won't kill for it but ... peril.And it wasn't until her lowest moment that she came into her own. Until UNGER: That brings up the neat: "Nasty the whole Deborah Norville mess -up. when she has to be"? ELLERBEE: I'd like to think I'm not nasty, UNGER: Then they realized that she was but I'm sure I have been nasty. And that very important. goes back to, I was raised not to shrink ELLERBEE: Yeah. They realized what the from a scene when a scene is what is called audience had realized for many many for. I think as I've gotten older I've discov- years: that this woman was a treasure. ered fewer times you have to be. UNGER: Somebody once asked you: "Why UNGER: And this one you will remember: didn't you last at the networks? "And your "A walking disaster"? answer was: "Not enough Aquanet. And I ELLERBEE: Yes, yes. What can I say wouldn't wear Dana Buchman." about that? That's [NBC Overnight co -hostl ELLERBEE: Well, first of all, to set the Lloyd Dobbyns' opinion of me, but you record straight: I did last at the networks. I have to understand, Lloyd and I have rarely was not kicked out of the networks. I quit said anything kind about one another in with three years to run on a contract at our lives. The thing about us is that we ABC, and an offer from 20/20. There is don't mean it. We are close friends. We somehow this impression that I was fired have always been close friends. He still off the networks. The last time I was fired comes up and visits twice a year and stays was the Associated Press early in my with me. He is now a professor of journal- career. I have never been out of a job since ism in Alabama, warping young minds then. I've had shows cancelled. Well, you right and left. He has a big beard now. And I and I know that's not the same thing. You think "walking disaster" is probably one of have a contract with the network, not the the nicer things Lloyd ever called me. show. And when I left ABC, it was to start UNGER: Now I'd like to give you a lot of Lucky Duck Productions with Rolfe. I had names of women in TV news and have you looked around and I had said: "Okay, I have just off the top ofyour head tell me what you pretty much done everything at the think of them. networks that there is to do except anchor First I have a lovely quote about Jane the evening news. And I don't think Pauleyfrom your book And So It Goes... You anybody's ever going to want me to do said: `Jane Parley proves to be one of the that."

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www.americanradiohistory.com Humor has been my teddy bear for cancer and alcoholism and through all kinds of bad things in my own life.

I was ready to try something different. started a company, and succeeded. And Rolfe and I were talking about this cable world exploding out there and that UNGER: How do you think that Nick News there was going to be room for a production d ffers from the evening news? company, a high -end production company, ELLERBEE: In one simple way, and really sort of a boutique job; and that our criteria one way only. And that is, the national would be we wouldn't produce anything news or the local news presumes prior we weren't proud to put our names to. That knowledge of a story. So when you turn on, we weren't in it just for the money. And if they presume you already know something we didn't get rich overnight or if we never about this, in most cases. When I'm writ- got rich, that was okay. If we could just ing Nick News I can't presume prior knowl- make a living and support ourselves and do edge on a 10- year -old's part. So we always work we were proud of, that would be fine. have to put stories more in a context, go So I went in and I asked to be let out of my longer rather than shorter. And in fact I contract. I've never told this next story to know from our mail and from what people anybody. tell me, that is one reason why we so many I went in and I asked to be let out of my grown -ups watch Nick News- they're contract. And my agent came back and he either busy or they don't read the newspa- said: "Roone says no, he won't let you out." pers or they don't see the news or they Well, Roone Arledge and I weren't getting turn it on and they don't know the rest of along. When Our World was cancelled at the story. Peggy Charren, the children's ABC, I found it out from Peter Boyer, of the programming maven, said she never under- New York Times, who called to interview stood what was happening in Bosnia until me. And I said, I did not think that it was she saw the 1 5-minute piece Nick News did very classy. Well, Roone called me the on it. We take a once- upon -a -time attitude. following week and screamed at me and We have to put it in a bigger context and said I wasn't a team player -as if this were tell more background in a story if we're news. And so he was very angry at me at going to do it for kids. That is the only the time, but he didn't want me to leave. So difference. And there's one other. It's a I told my agent: "Okay, you tell Roone the small one, but it's important. If I'm going following words, quote me exactly: Linda to use a word, and I tell the producers when said if you don't let me leave, I'll stay." they're out interviewing grown ups, if they Roone thought it over and he said: "Okay, use a word you think a 10-year -old won't you can go." understand, don't not use the word; simply But Roone and I have seen each other say such -and -such, comma, which means several times since, and that's all water such-and -such, comma, and go on. Or use it under the bridge. But as I say, I was never in such a way that the meaning is fired from a network. absolutely clear. 1 don't want to dumb down the vocabulary; I want to help UNGER: You've fired the networks, basi- expand it. But I don't want to confuse kids. cally. I want it to be plain, I want it to be clear. ELLERBEE: I've fired the networks and But you know, my writing for Nick News

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 13 www.americanradiohistory.com is really not much different than any of my known Lesley for years and years and writing ... because I never looked down on years, back when we both were covering the viewer. I always thought the viewer had the Congress, she for CBS and me for NBC. as much common sense as I did. And my I enjoy watching Diane on the air. And the writing has always been fairly plain and thing I like about Diane personally is her simple and occasionally acerbic. And on sense of humor. She has a wonderfully Nick News it's fairly plain and simple and wicked since of humor. occasionally acerbic. UNGER: Lynn Sher, who we don't see very UNGER: How about humor? You seen to much? feel that humor is an essential part. ELLERBEE: Lynn Sher is a first -rate ELLERBEE: Yes, I do. You could look, reporter. She and I worked together at especially if you are a journalist, you could Channel 2, at WCBS here in New York. look at the world around you, or just a citi- And I have never understood really why zen, you look at the world around you and ABC has not done more to make her-I you have a number of choices; one of hate to use the word "star" -more promi- which you could break down in tears. And nent in their newscasts. Because she is a the other is you can try and laugh. Humor thorough journalist. She and Andrea is the teddy bear that gets us through the Mitchell and Lesley are the first names that night. It's certainly my teddy bear and it's come to mind, who are not anchors ,that I been my teddy bear for cancer and alco- consider the first -rate women journalists holism and through all kinds of bad things out there.That, for reasons I can't explain, in my own life. have never become as famous as say Diane or Jane. UNGER: But isn't Lucky Duck your teddy bear now? UNGER: Christiane Amanpour? ELLERBEE: Well, yes. And that's the ELLERBEE: She's wonderful. Lucky Duck, right up there, the one that I just met her for the first time at the was on the desk of Overnight all those years Peabody Awards last May. And we both and the one for whom this company is kind of went rushing up to one another. named. We'd never met. And it was sort of like, we've never met and we both knew who we UNGER: Let's go back to the names... Lesley were and we both wanted to meet. I admire Stahl? her courage, her gutsiness. I admire her ELLERBEE: Lesley Stahl is probably the calmness and her solid reporting. And also, hardest -working journalist in television. I got to tell you, she reminds me of all the She truly is. I have a great deal of admira- wonderful female war correspondents from tion for Lesley. She works as though every World War Il. In the new book that Annie story were the first story she's ever Liebowitz has out, "Photographs Of covered. She gives it that same attention to Women," there's a picture of Christiane detail, that same intensity, that same focus. and a female camera crew, and she's identi- And if young women in this business fied as Christiane Amanpour, war corre- coming up were looking for a role model, I spondent. would say that Lesley would be a very good direction for them to look. UNGER: Barbara Walters? UNGER: Diane Sawyer? ELLERBEE: Well, you know, Barbara was ELLERBEE: Diane is a class act. I don't there before all of us. And she is another know her as well as I know Lesley-I've one who continues ... I think she treats

14 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com every story as though it were her first. they were saying: "You're meshugenah." She's not a lazy woman. She's fought many battles for the rest of us. Do you remember UNGER: That reminds me, a long time ago I when they paired Barbara with Harry interviewed the Jackson Five when they were Reasoner, and it didn't work out? And it still the Jackson Five. And little Michael was wasn't Barbara's fault that it didn't work there: he was eight years old. And I asked him out. But she, in doing that, made it easier about going to school. He said: "Igo to a for the next woman that came along. And Jewish school. "And I looked at his brothers she's done that for all of us. She's made it and I said: "What does he mean? "And they easier in one way or another for the next said: "Well, he goes to a school where all the one of us that came along. And that's producers' sons go and they're all Jewish. So saying a lot. We all owe Barbara. he thinks it's a Jewish school." ELLERBEE: My friend, Cheryl Gould, UNGER: Connie Chung? who's vice president at NBC News now, ELLERBEE: Connie is delightful. Talk once told me the funniest story. She's about a wicked sense of humor. She is Jewish and she heard a lot of Yiddish when another one ... she belongs up there in that she was growing up in her house from her A list. She is also at heart one of the best grandmother and her mother. She told me humans I've ever met. She just has a heart that she was fully grown and had her own of gold. I tell you what, if you need a friend kitchen before she learned that the word and you've got Connie for a friend, you "spatula" was not Yiddish. really don't need a lot of other friends. UNGER: Enough Yiddish. Andrea UNGER: I remember thefirst time I inter- Mitchell? viewed her was when she was still in L.A. ELLERBEE: Well, Andrea is another one and she was preparing to move to New York. of the hardest -working women. And she is And I said: "Why are you moving to New a good friend. Andrea and I went through York? "And she used a veryfunny word, a one of the worst summers of our lives Yiddish word. She said: "I was getting together, when we did that dreadful show, shpilkis," meaning itchy. Who knew that she Summer Sunday in 1984. And we stuck it was with Maury Povich then and she was out. We got along: the show was in trouble learning Yiddish? but Andrea and I weren't. I'd do just about ELLERBEE: When I first worked at anything Andrea Mitchell asked me to do. Channel 2 here, years and years ago in the early '70s, I was talking to my mother UNGER: How about Katie Couric? back in Texas and I said: "I'm learning so ELLERBEE: I remember the first time I much including a new language." And noticed Katie on the air -it wasn't the first mother said: "Really? What ?" I said: time she was on the air, but it was the first "Yiddish." I said: "There are these time I noticed her, during the Gulf War. She wonderful words in Yiddish that don't had so much on the ball. I knew she is exist in English. And we have no equiva- going far. And it turned out to be one of lent for these words and they're so those times, I was right. She is another one marvelous." And she said: "Well, how are that I think has a real sense of perspective you learning this ?" I said: "Well, a lot of about work and life.She knows the differ- the people I work with are Jewish. And ence between work and life. And she's been they'll say something and I'll go: Is that wonderful. .. When we did the special on an insult or a compliment? What are you the Clinton scandal for kids last year, I saying to me ?" And more often than not called Katie and said: "Will you come and

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 15 www.americanradiohistory.com be on the show with me and help me talk time and I attributed it to Ingrid Bergman. to kids about this issue ?" And she said: "Absolutely, in a minute." And she did. And UNGER: Speaking of Schweitzer, what she was just great. If she's not the highest work have you done that you're proudest of paid woman in television, she probably ELLERBEE: I'm proudest of my [now ought to be. adult] kids, Josh and Vanessa. About work...not in order.... Overnight, Our World UNGER: There's one Linda quote that keeps and Nick News. appearing over and over: "Men can run the world: why can't they UNGER: And what have you not done that stop wearing neckties ? How intelligent is it you would still like to do? to start the day by tying a little noose around ELLERBEE: Ooh, I have a stack of show your neck ?" ideas this high. Most of which I hope one ELLERBEE: About as intelligent as it is to day to do. One of the things that's in the get up and pierce your ears and Wear high works right now is this 12 -hour mini series heels, I suppose. for HBO that Whoopie Goldberg, Diane Keaton and I are doing. It's a dramatic se- UNGER: And were you really thefirst to say ries on the women's movement of the '60s that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred and '70s. I very much want to tell young Astaire did... but backwards and in high women their history before it's lost or mis- heels ?" interpreted. ELLERBEE: No, I did not. And I have denied that repeatedly. I heard it on an UNGER: When do you 11101k iu might get airplane and then I used it in a speech in a on? story about being on an airplane. The next ELLERBEE: Oh, it'll be another year at thing that happened was Ann Richards least. It's an enormous project .And I still used it in her speech because she heard it want to produce a Sesame Street for from me, and so she quoted me without Grownups Adult illiteracy in this nation is saying the circumstances where I heard it. a shameful thing. And I still believe that we And then the story got started that I had can use television. Because so many people said it. It's not my quote at all. who are grown up and can't read and write, the reason they don't get help is they're UNGER: I did an interview with Ingrid ashamed to admit it. But you can be home Bergman and she told me that when asked watching your TV and nobody knows. I be- the secret of her happiness she quoted lieve the answer could be a Sesame Street - Claudette Colbert, who had once said her type program for grown ups. secret was good health and had memory. Ingrid said that she often felt guilty because it UNGER: Where do you think network news was then always attributed to Ingrid is going? Do you think they are moving to- Bergman. "So" said Ingrid," a few years ago I wards the hour program? Or is that idea met Claudette at a party and I said: something of the past? "Claudette, Ifeel terrible. I've been quoted as ELLERBEE: I don't think whether it's an saying: Good health and bad memory, and it hour or a half hour matters any more. I was really yours." think we'll lose one of the networks in the Claudette said: "Well, don'tfeel badly dear: I next 10 years. You know all the problems.. stole itfrom Albert Schweitzer." the advertising dollars are good but the au- ELLERBEE: That's very funny. I just used dience is shrinking every year. When you that line recently on a wrap- around for Life- say "network" now, you and I and a few of

16 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com us in this city, in L.A., may be thinking of ELLERBEE: I don't know. Media literacy. ABC, CBS, NBC. But Nickelodeon's a net- It puts a great burden on the viewer to work, HBO is a network. Those are all net- decide who they believe and who they works now And since most people now get want to believe, and sort of stick there. all their television on cable, they don't dis- tinguish between NBC and the Fox or Car- UNGER: Do you think it's going to depend toon Network. It's just Channel 68 or upon personality? Channel 2, or Channel 7. The delivery sys- ELLERBEE: It always has. tems are changing so rapidly that that's go- ing to make a huge difference for the net- UNGER: You believed Walter Cronkite. works. ELLERBEE: It always has. Why should When we get into the fat pipes and you that change? It's probably more than ever have the fat pipe coming in your house and that way now. And Walter may in fact be the one machine is your telephone with the person who changed it. Walter may your television and your data and /or infor- have been the first superstar in television mation -let's call it your computer- all news. joined in one machine; that may be brought in through cable, it may be UNGER: Edward R. Murrow? brought in by your telephone company. ELLERBEE: Yeah, you're right. Edward R. But it's going to change the financial land- Murrow. But in his lifetime, while he was scape entirely. And the broadcast networks alive, he was not nearly as revered as he is will not be going away immediately. now. But Walter was the first superstar. They're doing fine right now. But they've all merged with a lot of other companies. UNGER: Do you have patron saint in They're all part of big conglomerates now. broadcasting right now? The old saying used to be that the differ- ELLERBEE: Well, I guess Edward R. ence between NBC and CBS was RCA made Murrow would do for me too, you know. I televisions and CBS made television. Well, mean, look at this. Not only was he a great none of them just makes television any great reporter, not only was he a man of more, none at all. integrity, and not only was he never shy of talking back to his bosses: but he did a UNGER: Do you think we're moving to- coffee commercial, too. wards more news or less news? UNGER: What do you think is the state of ELLERBEE: Well, we're moving towards children's television ? more news, but that's not necessarily bet- ELLERBEE: There's not enough good ter. I worry when I watch a lot of television children's TV on the air. I don't believe in news now, to me it looks like the gene pool censorship when it comes to children's has gotten down to about a quarter inch. television. I believe in making more better And I worry about the near -news shows - TV. More and better children's television is like near beer, almost but not really. I think the answer. A show like Nick News is never it's very easy for the audience to watch In- going to get the same ratings as RugRats or side Edition and Nightly News and confuse Power Rangers. But the wonderful thing the two. I really do. And I think we ask a lot about Nickelodeon is that it will say: "Okay, of the audience to watch this whole spec- look, we don't have to get the ratings we trum of what's being called news and to get on RugRats for everything. It is good for separate out what is and what isn't. us to be doing Nick News for kids." And I think if more networks were to take a simi- UNGER: Is there any curefor that slippage? lar attitude, you would see more shows

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 17 www.americanradiohistory.com that parents feel comfortable with their I'd ever have any show last this long. kids watching. While I do believe in the First Amendment, I also believe it stops at UNGER: Let's go back now a little bit to your front door. I believe that parents have women on television. Do you think a major an absolute right and responsibility about change that has taken place? what their children watch. But they don't ELLERBEE: Oh, there are great changes have a right to tell me what to produce. for women in television, both in front of That's the difference. the camera and behind it. We are finally seeing women executives in television; UNGER: What's the age group that Nick women station managers around the coun- News aims at? try; women news directors. We haven't ELLERBEE: We aim at 8 to 14. We know seen a woman president of a news division that the core audience is 9, 10, 11. And we yet -I don't believe. At the broadcast also know there's a lot of adults who watch networks we haven't. But we've seen Nick News. Some are parents who like to women presidents of cable networks. And watch it with their kids. we have them right now. Jane Pauley talks about being the lesser of two equals when UNGER: Do you let them know ... are you she was on with Bryant Gumbel.Well Katie specific with the age level that you're aiming Couric is not the lesser of two equals. If at? one of them is, it's Matt [Lauer]. ELLERBEE: No, we're not specific. That's where we're aiming and we're crafting it for UNGER: Do you consider yourselfa happy that age. And we work with teachers so we person? know what the curriculums are in those ELLERBEE: Yes, yes. And I also consider groups.. And we assume that at about 13, that a great deal of that has to do with most of them move on to MTV. choice. I think most people have a choice But that's not necessarily true. I did have every day whether you're going to be something very funny happen. A young happy. You don't have a choice always of woman came up to me recently and she what's going to happen to you. But there's said: "I watched Nick News when I was a always that moment when you stand and child." And I said: "Excuse me ?" And she you look in the mirror and you say: "Okay, said: "Yes." She said: "You've been on the whatever it is that happens, this is the air eight years. I watched your very first "what is," and my choice is: How am going show on the Gulf War. I was 12 years old, to handle it." And I think every morning and I'm 20 now. I watched Nick News as a you get up for the most part and you say: child." And I said: "You're my first Nick "Here's the hand I was dealt. I can be News generation to grow up!" happy today or I can be unhappy." I choose happy. UNGER: That must havefelt nice. ELLERBEE: Yeah, it did. I never thought Copyright © 2000 Arthur Unger:

During many years of covering television for The Christian Science Monitor, Arthur Unger won national recognition as one of TV's most influential critics as well as for his revealing interviews with TV, movie and theater personalities. The Arthur Unger: Collection of 1,200 audio tapes is now housed at the Archive of Recorded Sound at the Performing Arts Branch of the N.Y. Public Library and at the Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University. All interviews, including this one. Kill lw available for listening shortly.

18 TELEVISION QUARTERLY

www.americanradiohistory.com Teletubby Trouble

How Justified Were Rem JenyFalwell sAttacks on This Pre-School Importfrom Britain?

By Heather Hendersh o t

n all the excitement over Poké- when he claimed that one of the characters mon -the entertainment concept on this pre -school television show was gay. that has netted Nintendo millions And in August of 1999 the show came from video games, toys, and trading under attack from the American Academy cards- Teletubbies seem to have of Pediatrics, which in response to Teletub- been forgotten. Yet it was only a year ago bies advised parents to keep children that the Rev. Jerry Falwell made headlines younger than two away from television

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 19 www.americanradiohistory.com completely. Meanwhile, some adults Street was attacked on a number of fronts complained that the use of baby talk on when it premiered in 1969. Right -wingers the show would impair development, objected to its picture of racial integration while others criticized the show for its and its housewife -turned -nurse, whom crass commercialism. After all, Teletubbies they saw as a concession to bra -burners. does market toys to a mewling and puking Psychologists objected to its fast -pacing, audience, one that, as Peggy Charren of which they feared would impair develop- Action for Children's Television noted, has ment. (With its short vignette style Sesame to be propped up to watch the show. How Street was modeled after Laugh -In, a far cry shameless is that? from the slow -paced Ding Dong School or Teletubbies protest was loud, at first, but Romper Room.) Some parents objected to the furor was soon swept under the rug, the show's psychedelic style- bright and Pokémon became the newest cause colors, zooms, and lap dissolves -which célèbre. While adults like to say that television shortens children's Teletubbies will be remembered as attention spans, it is the children's show attacked by Jerry grown -ups who often seem distracted as they Falwell for having a gay character. redirect their ire from show to show. As each new program they feared would get kids turned on to comes under attack, the previous program LSD. Still others objected to the fact that is discarded, the scandal rarely revisited. Sesame Street was explicitly designed to Ten years ago it was Bart Simpson whose look like commercial television, and that it "eat my shorts!" retort had adults up in made use of advertising techniques. In arms. Since then Mighty Morphin' Power fact, Children's Television Workshop Rangers has been attacked for making chil- founder Joan Ganz Cooney criticized dren violent, and Beavis and Butthead for cheap locally produced children's making them, well, stupid. Ironically, the programming for its "slow and monoto- very parents who objected to Beavis and nous pace and lack of professionalism." Butthead, Power Rangers, or The Simpson She envisioned an educational program probably spent much of their own child- that could compete with network televi- hood watching TV that adults wanted to sion. "Children are conditioned to expect censor. There seems to be a pattern: the pow! wham! fast -action thrillers from tele- kids who grew up when radio was under vision [as well asl...highly visual, slickly attack in the thirties become the censors of and expensively produced material." fifties TV, which they charged caused juve- Sesame Street would exploit such condi- nile delinquency, and the kids who grew tioning. up watching fifties TV would later panic about video games and shows like Beavis and Butthead. In sum, our culture's amne- No one attacked the show as commer- sia about media history means that kids cially exploitative for selling toys, keep growing up and turning into the for the simple reason that Sesame censors that they resisted as children. Street was not funded by merchandising One of the greatest examples of this but rather by foundations and the govern- kind of cultural amnesia is surely Sesame ment. Sesame Street toys were only gradu- Street. Currently held up as the epitome of ally introduced, and Sesame Street did not high- quality children's television, Sesame begin advertising its toys until the mid-

20 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com nineties. Currently, of course, virtually all The Post editorial may well have been PBS children's shows are funded, at least tongue in cheek, but it was picking up on a in part, by toy sales, and this is where Tele- story that was old news in the U.K. tubbies comes in. Teletubbies is unique in Apparently, "there was a big flap in that it is directed to the youngest audience England, shortly after the show's 1997 ever, one to three years olds. (At least debut, over the dismissal of the actor play- that's the official line; the show actually ing Tinky Winky," Karen Everhart Bedford appeals to even younger children.) Like wrote in Current, the public television Barney and Friends, Thomas the Tank magazine. Producers said he had been too Engine, and Nickelodeon's Blue's Clues, Teletubbies is yet Fundamentalists carefully moni- another pre -school show that receives much of its funding tor the mass media because from toy sales. With a steady they perceive America as being audience of two million in the United Kingdom, where it was engaged in a cultural war, a war introduced in 1997, the be winning. program had proven its prof- that Satan seems to itability before it premiered on PBS. A Teletubbies song had even rambunctious on the set. But the actor surpassed the Spice Girls on the British apparently endeared himself to viewers by pop charts. flamboyantly waving the now -notorious Although Teletubbies should gain a place red handbag..." (The Minneapolis Star in the history books as the first program to Tribune reports that the BBC wanted to fire target an infant audience, it is possible that the Tinky Winky actor "for dancing in the it will be best remembered as the chil- streets wearing only a balloon.") Presum- dren's show attacked by Jerry Falwell for ably because of his purse waving (and having a gay character. Falwell is consis- occasional tutu wearing), Tinky Winky tently opposed to gay rights, and he has a had been playfully taken up as a gay icon history of censorious action dating back to long before Falwell came along, and there his Moral Majority activism in the eight- was huge buzz about him on gay Internet ies, so one hesitates to defend him. But in chat sites. To say that Tinky Winky was this case, he was clearly set up. In Febru- gay was nothing new; Falwell was simply ary of 1999 Falwell's newsletter the first one to say that this was a problem. contained a "Parents Alert" column attack- ing Tinky Winky: "the character, whose voice is obviously that of a boy, has been Aknd he didn't go on TV or issue a found carrying a purse in many episodes press release to make his opinion and has become a favorite character nown. He published it in a among gay groups worldwide... He is newsletter sent only to fellow fundamen- purple -the gay -pride color; and his talists. The story was picked up by the antenna is shaped like a gay -pride symbol mainstream media because they thought it [a triangle]." Falwell's editors did not pick was funny. Amazingly, everybody "knew" up on the gay subtext by themselves; about Tinky Winky before the story broke. rather, they saw an article in the Washing- Even People magazine had reported that ton Post that pointed to Ellen DeGeneres "gay men have made the purse -toting as a passé gay celebrity and to Tinky Tinky Winky a camp icon." Tinky Winky's Winky as the trendy new gay celebrity. gay adult fan base was well known, but no

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 21 www.americanradiohistory.com one got lathered up about the situation the Teletubbies are oddly sexual. Exhibit- until Falwell was pulled into the picture. ing at least a nascent polymorphous Suddenly, this character's possible homo- perversity, the Teletubbies delight in sexuality was seen as something to take rubbing each other with their bellies and seriously, and to refute. While many behinds, and when their tummies turn on people objected to Falwell's blatant homo- like TV's they look down, fascinated, like a phobia, no one stood up for the idea that it child discovering new body parts for the would be okay for a character on a chil- first time. The Teletubbies' delight in their dren's show to be gay. (The same thing Own bodies may actually contribute to happened when Sesame Street's Ernie and their appeal to baby viewers. There's noth- Bert were attacked as gay in 1994. The ing wrong with this, but it's not an idea Children's Television Workshop laughed it that most adults would be comfortable off and said puppets can't be gay. Maybe with. not, but puppets can't "really" be female The second important thing that the or Hispanic either; Rosita, a Sesame Street Falwell incident reveals is that only certain Muppet, is both.) The U.S. marketers of people are granted the authority to correctly decipher mean- Most adults don't carefully watch ings in children's televi- the shows that they sion. Although Falwell's object to. anti -gay discourse is appalling, his interpreta- Teletubbies, itsy bitsy Entertainment, tion of Tinky Winky's color, his triangle denied that Tinky Winky was gay, and and his purse is not completely insane. their CEO said "There isn't a boy on the Fundamentalists carefully monitor the planet who hasn't picked up his grandma's mass media because they perceive Amer- purse and carried it around. It's okay to ica as being engaged in a culture war, a war carry this bag. You're not going to grow up that Satan seems to be winning. They have to be an interior decorator." A contradic- everything at stake in performing careful tory message: relax about gender socializa- readings of popular culture. They point tion, but don't worry, your kid won't out, for example, that The Lion King is become gay from watching our show. about patriarchal authority, a riveting pro - God story (although some view the "circle of life" as suspiciously New Age). They he flap over Tinky Winky's sexuality observe that Pocahontas is multicultural teaches us several important things historical revisionism, with a dash of about children's television. First, we liberal feminism. And, in the eighties, they see that although liberal adults often talk noted that Saturday morning cartoons like about the need for "positive" gender roles He -Man and Thundercats were full of on children's TV, they aren't comfortable occult imagery and story lines. None of thinking about sex on kids' shows. They these readings is ridiculous. Of course, expect children's TV characters to have fundamentalists often call for boycotting gender, but not sexuality. Falwell's attack and censorship, which is a problem, but kicked up a lot of dust not only because he the point is that when they criticize chil- raised the specter of homosexuality but dren's culture, they are dismissed as back- also because he made people think about wards, stupid people, when often it is not infantile sexuality, something they would their interpretations but their censorious prefer to turn a blind eye to. Strangely moral outrage that should be jettisoned. enough, no one seems to have noticed that Who, then, has the cultural authority to

22 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com make pronouncements about children's the show's simple stories, using the famil- television, or, more specifically, iar rhymes and cadences of children's Teletubbies? books: "Over the hills and far away, Tele- When the American Academy of Pedi- tubbies come to play." Often the adult will atrics responded to Teletubbies, they were say something that the Teletubbies act taken very seriously. In August of 1999, out, or the Teletubbies will repeat some - the Academy advised parents not to expose thing he has said. In "Dance with the Tele- children younger than two to television. tubbies," a popular home video release, Since Teletubbies is the only show to target the voice -over says, "after all that jumping this audience, this was a none -too -veiled Tinky Winky was very tired," and Tinky attack on the show. The report further Winky mirrors his language, responding advised parents to keep their children's "very tired!" rooms free of all electronic media, and said The argument that Teletubbies is not that kids need interaction, not electronic interactive, and indeed, that children's TV stimulation. Itsy bitsy Entertainment said in general is not interactive, also tends to the report was "a bunch of malarkey," but, come from adults who don't actually in general, it found a receptive audience. watch much children's television. In fact, Suddenly, parents who put their toddlers in of all the different kinds of television, it is front of the TV for five minutes so that they only children's television (specifically, the could do the dishes or the laundry were pre -school kind) that aggressively strives vilified by the popular press for "not inter- for interactivity. While cartoons designed acting" with their children. for older kids tend to be straight forward adventure stories, historically the shows for younger audiences-Sesame Street, A!though many adults paid lip service Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, The Electric to their agreement with the pediatri- Company (and, from the fifties, Ding Dong cians, Teletubbies remains popular, School and Winky Dink and You) -all and product sales are high: broadcast strove to get children talking back to the rights have been sold to twenty -two coun- TV screen. These shows would often use tries. If there is a lesson to be learned from direct address or leave pauses where chil- the pediatricians' response to Teletubbies, it is that the voices Some very young viewers may of trained professionals will always win in the popular press, get pleasure but little education but exhausted moms and dads from the show. who need to get dinner on the table will nonetheless do what- ever it takes to get an energetic baby to sit dren could try to answer questions or still. solve puzzles. Many local television shows There is another lesson to learn from encouraged kids to send in letters and art the Teletubbies controversy: most adults work. The best contemporary example of don't carefully watch the shows that they this kind of thing is surely Blue's Clues, a object to. Adults who criticize Teletubbies pre -school show in which the host, Steve, for using baby talk certainly haven't paid speaks directly to the audience as he and careful attention to the program, or they the viewers try to solve puzzles by using would know that at least three quarters of the clues left by Blue, the dog. When Steve the dialogue is non -baby -talk voice -overs asks questions, kids' voices on the sound- done by adults. A male voice -over narrates track respond, encouraging kids at home

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 23 www.americanradiohistory.com to join in. It would be foolish to compare its spectacle of moving shapes, and, above this kind of interactivity to what kids get all, the spectacle of the cooing baby face from parents or other kids; the activities that radiates sunbeams and rises and sets are totally different. Yet it is crucial to to frame each show. In other words, some acknowledge that children's shows try to very young viewers may get pleasure but elicit responses from audiences in creative little education from the show. Alvin Pous- ways that are rarely seen on adult TV saint and Susan Linn argue that "propo- Teletubbies is no exception. The Tele- nents of Teletubbies point to how much tubbies often look directly at the audience, babies like viewing the show. That babies breaking the fourth wall, as is so common enjoy something does not mean it is good on children's shows. The Teletubbies often for them." This is true, but the images and engage in imitable activity such as danc- sounds of Teletubbies simply do not seem ing, and, as the title "Dance with the Tele- all that different from the stories parents tubbies" indicates, the idea is to join in. read to their kids or the questions they ask The adult narrator often repeats simple their kids everyday. Babies are not drawn questions like, "Where did the Teletubbies to other kinds of shows, which are way go ?" or "Where is Po's scooter?" The slow over their heads, so Teletubbies is really all pacing allows older babies time to try to they can watch, and an hour of this a day, understand the questions, and possibly while exhausted parents get a chore done, answer. The most interactive moment in or relax and watch with their baby, does each show is probably when the female not seem as Brave New World -ish as the adult voice -over says "Time for Tele Bye - naysayers imply. But it is creepy when the Bye," and each Teletubby waves, says bye- show opens with a computer animated bye, hides, reappears, and finally goes image of a sprouting plant, with a Kellogg's away. The idea here, as with so much of logo in the bottom right -hand corner, and a the show, is to reinforce object perma- soothing female voice -over says "Rice nence. Repetition is also very important to Krispies- celebrating the joy of kids grow- the show. After the Teletubbies see a clip ing through interaction." Sugar cereal has of kids playing, they shout "again! ", and nothing to do with "growing through the same clip re- plays. Adults find this interaction "; this is just a cheap plug. incredibly boring, but kids love it. Also, in This brings us back to the ethical ques- every show a pinwheel spins, indicating tion of whether or not it is okay to market that something magic will happen. Often, products to babies. I'm not in favor of it, this is when the Teletubbies' monitor - but, then, I don't like the fact that adult stomachs shimmer, indicating that they shows sell junk either. I also think that are activated. The Teletubbies look down Poussaint and Linn's argument that baby- at their aroused bellies, waiting to see hood is "the only time that children can be whose belly will finally show the new easily protected from the barrage of media video clip of children playing. The repeti- advertising" is naive. Babies typically tion of this spectacle from show to show is come home from the hospital with Mickey no doubt appealing, as babies figure out Mouse diapers, wrapped in Winnie the the premise that one of the Teletubbies Pooh blankets. They drink from Bugs will "win" in the end. Bunny bottles, and they wear the newest The youngest children, who are not yet Disney character on their pj's. Parents capable of following the very simple narra- who choose to resist this merchandising tives (Who spilled the Tubby custard? Can extravaganza are free not to turn on the Dipsy catch the ball? Where's the Tubby TV, but the extravaganza will not stop, and toast ?) probably enjoy the show purely for if the baby goes to daycare, he or she will

24 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com almost inevitably encounter licensed prod- television, the U.S. government has left ucts. Not giving in to the Teletubbies hype PBS as vulnerable to market forces as any is a valuable symbolic act for adults, but commercial station. Teletubbies provides any victory over merchandising will be PBS with an undisclosed share of the short- lived. profits from merchandise sales. Most PBS It would be nice if PBS were a safe children's programs are funded, at least space from merchandising, but it's not. in part, by product licensing. Decision Adults irate about Teletubbies should turn about what programs get on the air are their energy from the show and instead unfortunately shaped, more and more, by look at the real problem: the commercial- their commercial potential." This is the ization of PBS. As Poussaint and Linn big "eh -oh" that Americans need to argue, "By severely underfunding public address.

Heather Hendershot, an assistant professor of media studies at Queens College /City University of New York, is the author of Saturaday Morning Censors: Television Regulation Before the V-Chip ( Duke University Press, 1998). She is currently completing a book on Christian fundamentalist culture.

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 25 www.americanradiohistory.com www.americanradiohistory.com Public Television and the Camel's Nose Are PBS stations becoming too commercial?

By Bernard S. Redmont

public television is grappling And in case you hadn't noticed, we're more and more with that now seeing "enhanced underwriter perplexing problem called acknowledgements," which many used to "creeping commercialism." Is think were illegal. the legendary camel's nose The Communications Act of 1934 sneaking under the tent? Are we begin- forbids noncommercial stations from ning to see the whole head of the camel? accepting compensation to broadcast How far will it go? Will the rest of the messages that "promote any service, beast eventually follow in, and leave us facility or product offered by any person admirers of the noncommercial concept who is engaged in such offering for out in the cold? Alas, we're even hearing a profit." But over the years, with deregula- sporadic debate about whether public tion, the law has been pretty much television should become more commer- ignored, or winked at. cial, or be privatized. The Federal In 1984, the FCC relaxed the noncom- Communications Commission at the mercial policy and allowed public broad- moment prohibits commercials as such casters to expand or "enhance" the scope on PBS, and allows only "underwriting of donor and underwriter "acknowledg- credits." They're restricted by Commis- ments." This included "value -neutral sion rules on what they can say and show. descriptions of product line or service" But some station executives think the PBS and corporate logos or slogans which rules arc too tight. "identify and do not promote." So it is that

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 27 www.americanradiohistory.com we see a mini -peroration at the outset of designed, according to it's own descrip- the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer about how tion, "to enrich the lives of all Americans nobly Archer -Daniels -Midland feeds a through quality programs and education hungry world. services that inform, inspire and delight." What's more, while PBS limits the It is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia length of a national underwriting credit to and has operating revenues of about fifteen seconds or less, you may have noticed lately that many large stations If PBS didn't exist, we'd routinely sell 30- second credits. A group of prominent stations beat back efforts by want to invent it. PBS to enforce the 1S-second rule. A study by the PBS Board in 1999 found $450,000,000 annually -rather modest that 30- second credits are not common, by commercial network standards. although half of the stations oppose PBS is not a centrally controlled system. restrictions to them. PBS stations are operated by colleges and Accentuating the impression of universities, state and local governments encroachment and clutter, many PBS and various nonprofit civic groups. Their stations are bundling their credits into audience may be small compared to expanded time around the beginning and commercial stations, but it's generally end of programs. The aggregate time for higher in educational, income and social the quasi -commercials that dare not call class, although PBS shuns any elitist tag their name can go to 60 seconds. You may and tries to appeal to all. Resources come have detected as much as three minutes of from member stations (which don't neces- an hour for quasi -commercials. We don't sarily clear time simultaneously for given yet see the camel's hump, but the animal programs); from the Corporation for is inching forward. Public Broadcasting; private sector alliances, new initiatives and grants, video sales, fees for educational services, licens- Don't get us wrong. We cherish ing arrangements, cable royalties and U.S. public television and agree with Department of Education grants. Boston member station WGBH, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting which calls itself "the best television on serves to channel funds appropriated by television." If PBS did not exist, we'd want Congress to the stations through PBS. The to invent it. Where else would we find the stations also get support from viewers like NewsHour, Exxon Mobil Masterpiece you -and me. The PBS mission calls for Theater, Frontline, Washington Week in quality programming "to advance educa- Review, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, tion, culture and citizenship," serving the Sesame Street, Mystery, Nova, The American public interest and meriting public Experience, Live from Lincoln Center and esteem. Is this mission threatened by any number of examples of quality commercial infestation and clutter? This is programming? what we have to ask ourselves. Just what is PBS? It's not really a In 1998, some 66 underwriters each network -but rather a private, nonprofit gave PBS a million dollars or more-rang- media enterprise, owned and operated by ing from ACE Hardware to the Xerox the nation's 349 public television Corporation, and including Chevrolet, stations. It reaches 99 percent of Ameri- Ford, GTE, IBM, Fidelity, ITT, Chuck E. can homes with television sets. PBS is Cheese's, Libby's Juicy Juice, Polaroid, really a local -national partnership Prudential, Scotts /Miracle -Gro, United

28 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com Airlines and assorted insurance compa- charged that the Mondavi winery had nies, all vying for public support in help- helped arrange funding for the program ing to expand their bottom line. At one through the Mondavi- founded and time, so many subsides came from major funded American Center for Wine, Food oil firms that some wits dubbed PBS the and the Arts. "Petroleum Broadcasting Service." of a "When is a commercial not a commer- "The perception cial?" Answer: When it's on noncommer- conflict of interest." cial television. You may have seen the spots showing a luxury car speeding along a mountain road, a Citicorp bankcard More recently, at the end of 1999, PBS gleaming behind he slogan, "Anyhow. scheduled a one -hour documentary called Anywhere. Anytime. Right now, "and Road Predators, about drunken driving, Chase Manhattan advising viewers, "We underwritten by the Century Council. It believe that helping our customers realize turned out that this organization was their dreams is the best investment we can funded by five leading distilling compa- make." Public TV officials would never nies. WGBH Boston and WNET New York subscribe to the theory that such credits hastily yanked the documentary, due to could taint programming, particularly concerns about "the perception of a news. But those with long memories recall conflict of interest." that the NewsHour in 1990 gave us a news story about a Soviet delegation visit- ing a Frito -Lay factory in Omaha and Another problem is airing credits hat showed them munching Fritos with gusto, can involve public broadcasters in later showing Russians quaffing Pepsis controversies over the products of and Mountan Dew -both accompanied underwriters. Example: Cheetos snack by a narration full of admiration for the foods had been proposed for the sponsor- products. At the time, Pepsico was a lead- ship of a children's program in 1996. No ing underwriter of the show and plugged underwriting credit may depict tobacco its wares at the beginning of the program. products, distilled spirits or firearms, but More recently, in October 1998, KCET diversified companies making them may Los Angeles and Newsweek Productions co- be acceptable as underwriters. produced a one -hour documentary, John Business is business, and even PBS Glenn, American Hero, with an incidental stations are thinking along businesslike segment favorable to the International lines. Six big PBS stations are now joined Space Station project for which the Boeing together in a "sponsorship group" aimed Company had a $5.63 billion contract. at cooperating instead of competing Boeing was the sole corporate underwriter against each other. WGBH Boston, WNET for the program. Some veteran PBS New York, KCET Los Angeles and WETA producers considered this "content corrup- Washington formed the group a couple of tion," although PBS execs denied any quid years ago, and were joined later by WTTW pro quo. Chicago and by Maryland Public TV to Underwriting deals can easily damage "put all their properties in one portfolio," the credibility of programs and their and decide who calls on what company, on producers. KQED San Francisco in 1996 the theory that it serves the companies did a show on the life of the venerable and the stations better and they would do California winemaker Robert Mondavi, better working together than against each but the deal blew apart when critics other. They are leading producers of

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 29 www.americanradiohistory.com programs -WGBH alone produces up to auctions, merchandise sales and quasi - 40 percent of what PBS distributes. commercials all become standard options. Another private firm, National Public Critics often question as a semi - Television, started by a cable entrepreneur, commercial practice the direct selling of handles so- called "spot" sales of "corpo- videotapes and other products on PBS rate support announcements" on many stations. The stations regularly offer hooks stations. Public Broadcasting Those of us who are particularly partial Marketing, a to PBS... have become increasingly company that repre- sents public TV and weary of the recurring "pledge weeks." radio stations, ha actively touted the sales potential" of and tapes related to programs, and similar public TV's children's programming to merchandise like T -shirts as premium gifts corporations with deep pockets for spon- for pledge -drive donors. Some former PBS sorship. The head of the company even fund raisers argue that premiums have wrote Advertising Age in 1993, complain- become a form of retailing, and not simply ing about being left out of a "Marketing to thank -you gifts to donors. Kids" supplement. Those of us who are particularly partial to PBS, in part because we want to escape Aistonishingly, Chicago's big public excessive commercial solicitations, have TV station WTTW tried broadcast - become increasingly weary of the recur- 'ng an upscale home -shopping ring "pledge weeks." Typically, a public service in 1993. Opponents petitioned station like WGBH will do on -air fund rais- the FCC, and two years after this ing three times a year-in March, August deplorable experiment, the Commission and December -for a ten -day period found that the station had violated an FCC including two weekends. rule but didn't agree that the fund- raising WGBH's Vice President Lance W. Ozier, technique was too commercial. who oversees much of the station's fund- WGBH, one of the best and most raising, told me that "it's crucial to us, the restrained stations in matters of credits, single most effective way, and the single understands the limitations of the funding largest source of new donors. There's no conundrum. Andrew Griffiths, a vice -pres- immediate future substitute for this." He ident for finance and administration, told agrees that "it's annoying for viewers- I me, "We are playing a balancing act, and don't blame them." But Ozier says the it's relatively successful." Griffiths remarks present system works. Still, there's a satu- that "As long as the public sees us as differ- ration point, and the more you do the ent from the commercial stations, we can pledge breaks, the more viewers tune out. get funding...To the extent that govern- FCC Commissioner Michael K. Powell, ment cuts back and we get more desperate, who admiringly calls public television "a and are forced into choosing longer or national treasure," told a PBS meeting in more explicit messages, in the long run it's 1998 that he heard a commercial radio a recipe for disaster." station advertisement urging listeners to According to Current, a biweekly that avoid stations that "beg for your hard - covers public broadcasting, an influential earned money." But as public funding minority of public broadcasting executives dries up due to a Philistine- minded continue to talk about seeking to drop or Congress, begging, membership drives, loosen laws that forbid them from carrying

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www.americanradiohistory.com outright commercials. Some even argue the same time receiving support from their stations should be given the option advertising. However, this British channel of converting from "noncommercial" to was created under the long influence of "nonprofit" broadcasters, which could BBC tradition, and with a unique financial maintain high quality standards but also structure that at least initially isolated sell commercials. That would be a new program decision -makers from direct kind of FCC license. But most managers financial incentive. consider this anathema. Many of us who know and admire the People I talk to in Boston argue that sell- BBC consider it, if not an ideal model, at ing air time that way would make no least a worthy exemplar. Founded in 1922 sense, nor would it make much money. for radio, it pioneered in television ahead The funding base of public television is the of the U.S. I watched the Wimbledon most diverse of any media outlet in the tennis matches on TV in London in country. Most of the time, this diversity of summer of 1939, when TV was only a funding sources enables public TV to with- glimmer in the U.S. eye. The BBC's long- stand unwelcome intrusions into decision - term funding is assured by an annual making. PBS believes that "the diversity of license fee for TV sets. A parliamentary a program funding sources is a key charter keeps it partially insulated from element in the preservation of a free and government control. It has managed to independent public television system." produce programming that is both cultur- Therefore it encourages national program ally elavated and reasonably popular. We underwriting from all corners of the public see its exports on Masterpiece Theater and and private sector. Reliance on commer- other programs that are most successful cials would probably make public TV more here. susceptible to outside interference. The BBC of course is the target of criti- Some public TV leaders and Republican cism, too. It often gets the same catcalls as Congressmen have toyed with the idea of U.S. broadcasters for excesses of sex and privatizing public TV. Execs like Lance violence. Ozier in Boston say, "We're not in favor of Would a BBC -model financing work privatization. It would completely change here? Ozier wonders "whether our culture the culture and approach of our system." would readily go for it in America." Ameri- One unusual proposal for ads on public can public funding of culture has always TV came from a former PBS president, been retarded. Almost every civilized Lawrence Grossman, in 1995: PTV Week- country in the world heavily subsidizes end. That would be a new commercial cultural institutions, including public network, parallel to PBS, that would broadcasting, but many U.S. legislative provide high -class cultural programming leaders get apoplectic when anybody to public TV stations on Friday and Saturday nights, American public funding of culture with commercials. At the same time, Grossman wouldw has alwaysy been retarded. maintain noncommercial support for the kinds of programming that suggests it might be a good idea. could only be supported in that way. This Many creative approaches to funding would be, in effect, a "mixed economy" on could still be explored. It's been suggested public TV. Those who support it point to that public broadcasters might be allowed to Britain's Channel Four, which serves a use some digital capacity to create a funding legislated programming mission while at source, say partnering with a commercial

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 31

www.americanradiohistory.com broadcaster to share a DTV facility. pledged to serve the public interest. In an However, this could also be another way of ideal world, we could tax the commercial letting the camel into the tent. stations earning excess profits, to support Over the years, suggestions have been public television, but the politicians - made that commercial broadcasters could often elected with contributions from the discharge some of their public- interest commercial broadcasting lobby - obligations by supporting public- interest wouldn't stand for it. programming on public TV. The cable Sen. Pat Williams (D.- Mont.) introduced industry, for example, supports C -Span. A a "One Percent for Culture Act" a few few years ago, we missed a monumental years ago. It would have Congress endow a opportunity and instead suffered the great trust fund for CPB and the arts and Spectrum Giveaway. Major broadcasters humanities endowments, with a one -time spent millions in lobbying and campaign appropriation of several million dollars.It contributions to get an estimated 70- never got off the ground. Conservatives in billion- dollar government giveaway of Congress thought it was too much like a rights to new unused broadcast systems new tax. Nor is there enough support for a used for digital broadcast technology. proposal to put a minimal (2 percent) tax Some of its money could have been used on the sale of broadcasting licenses. to help public broadcasting to fund Does this leave us to tinker with the production of children's programs and commercial option? Not as long as we fund nonprofit access to advanced TV have other choices. Commercial television networking, or better still, to provide a merits commercials. Public television, trust -fund endowment for public broad- with other values, would do well to shun casting. advertising as a solution to its funding Even an auction of new frequencies problems. The humorist Stephen Leacock could have yielded ample funds for public once defined advertising as the science of TV, with plenty left over. After all, the arresting human intelligence long enough broadcasters coin money by operating the to get money from it. Why let the camel public's airwaves and have supposedly into the public tent?

Bernard Redmont is Dean Emeritus of Boston University College of Communication and a former foreign correspondent for CBS News, Westinghouse Broadcasting Company and other media. tie is author of Risks Worth Taking: The Odyssey of a Foreign Correspondent

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www.americanradiohistory.com Point NAACP Attacks the Wrong TV Target

New network moves misfire because African Americans waste an appalling number of hours watching television, to their own detriment.

By Michael Medved

ontinued agitation about broad- Mfume threatened "sustained, focused and cast "diversity" by the NAACP continuous consumer action in the form and other activist groups only of repetitive boycotts, picketing and large - serves to distract attention scale demonstrations." In response to from the more profound and such pressure, CBS President Les Moonves important problems concerning the announced a radical new program to force African -American community and its executives at every level on the network connection to TV. The most significant food chain to hire more minorities. "Let challenge in that relationship has nothing me reiterate," he declared, "managers' to do with the number of black characters compensation will be directly tied to their or writers on the major networks. It ability to bring diversity to their depart- centers, rather, on the appalling (and ments." In other words, executives will hugely disproportionate) number of hours receive extra pay packages based on the that black viewers already waste on skin color - rather than the performance network offerings. - of their new hires. Of course, most people of will instinc- It is difficult to understand how such an tively sympathize with NAACP President emphasis could help the network, or the Kweisi Mfume's recent demands for more black community at large. Any considera- black characters on network TV. But few tion of the recent past makes it obvious commentators have bothered to explain that African -American writers and how success in this admirable endeavor producers are every bit as capable of would in any way benefit the African - promulgating insulting and demeaning American community. stereotypes as their white counterparts. By In a Hollywood meeting in December, the same token, white artists can occasion-

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 33 www.americanradiohistory.com ally create sympathetic and intelligent More and more parents of all races programming on black themes. To assume have come to think of network TV that the ability to create quality television as a broken -down, poorly is dependent on a writer or producer's designed, rust -encrusted, pollution- belch- ethnic identity is racism, pure and simple. ing jalopy. Establishing more ethnic diver- If you question this proposition, sity among television characters may perform a simple thought experiment. provide the clunky old car with a spiffy Imagine for a moment that all of the new two -tone paint job, but it would do nation's broadcast executives follow the nothing to correct the more serious prob- lead of CBS and take threats of boycotts lems under the hood. The pathetic and demonstrations instantly to heart. machine still would run just as clumsily, They immediately agree to multiply many and spew the same noxious exhaust fumes times over the number of people of color into the environment. depicted on prime -time TV series, and the How, for instance, would black children percentage of minori- ties behind the scenes. More and more parents of all races Suddenly, the percent- age of black protago- have come to think of network TV as nists soars to more than 20% well beyond the a broken -down, poorly designed, rust - 13% of the population encrusted, pollution -belching jalopy. identified as African American. But as part of this fantasy, also assume (or anyone else) gain if Men Behaving that everything else about network televi- Badly guiltily agreed to add more black sion's offerings remains exactly the members to its cast? One of the relatively same -the same crudeness, rudeness, few recent shows with a black main char- mindlessness, sniggering sex references, acter provoked passionate protests from immaturity, exploitation and emphasis on the very community that it attempted to instant gratification. Would merely adjust- represent. The Secret Diary of Desmond ing the skin color of some prominent char- Pfeiffer (on UPN) focused on a fictitious acters significantly alter the nature of tele- African -American White House aide to vision itself-and automatically improve its President Lincoln, but offended everyone impact on black people? with its joking references to slavery and its Consider the question another way by putrid, impenetrable witlessness. Adding looking at TV as it exists today. Broad- more "authentic" black characters, or even casters vastly over -represent the more black writers and producers, would members of the white middle class - do nothing to redeem such a patently who comprise, by most counts, more defective product -or to lessen its insulting than 85% of the fictional people whose and mind -numbing impact on everyone lives are dramatized on the big four unlucky enough to watch it. networks. Does this over -representation Any consideration of the recent past mean that TV therefore exerts a positive makes it obvious that African -American influence for white middle -class kids, writers and producers are every bit as and that their parents should welcome capable of promulgating demeaning the more than three hours a day (on stereotypes as their white counterparts. By average) that their children devote to the same token, white artists can occasion- the tube? ally create sympathetic and intelligent

34 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com programming on black themes -as the epic African -American families, too much tele- miniseries Roots most famously demon- vision remains a critical problem. Ronald strated. To assume that the ability to F. Ferguson, a researcher at Harvard, has create quality television is somehow been surveying students at Shaker Heights dependent on a writer or producer's c e l l nic High School outside of Cleveland, an acad- identity is racism, pure and simple. emically acclaimed school where both By focusing on the racial identity of white and black families can be classified creative personnel, the NAACP also serves as solidly middle class and upper middle to distract attention from far more urgent class. In attempting to explain why black and pressing problems concerning the rela- students perform far worse academically tionship of the African -American commu- than their white classmates, despite simi- nity to the TV industry. lar economic backgrounds, Ferguson The sad fact is that even with the current suggests: "Black kids watch twice as much under -representation of black people on TV as white kids; three hours a day as network TV, African -Americans already opposed to one- and -a -half hours a day." watch more television than white people. The most questionable aspect of the The most recent figures from Nielsen NAACP's new initiative is that if it Media Research suggest that black families succeeds in its ambitious goal of bringing watch an average of 40% more TV than more black characters to the networks, it whites - turning to the tube in every may well result in even higher levels of segment of the weekly schedule more African -American television addiction - frequently than any other ethnic group. making the fundamental problem worse, One can partially explain these figures in rather than helping to solve it. Instead of terms of higher African -American rates of pressuring the networks to expose more unemployment, providing more time black characters, Kweisi Mfume might available for viewing-especially during have encouraged black parents to impose the day. Higher rates of poverty also play more restrictions on the amount of time a role -since poor people of every race their children waste on TV. Recognizing generally watch more TV than those in the that television programming is insulting, middle class or above. often idiotic and yes, generally unrepre- It's easy to understand why overdosing sentative, the nation's premier civil -rights on television would be a result of poverty, organization could have helped to orga- but we should face the fact that it's also a nize the one sort of boycott that could contributing cause. Someone who's spend- immediately benefit the black community. ing 30 hours a week (and sometimes Instead of waiting for the broadcasters to much more) watching the tube will change, African -American families -and predictably lack the time and energy all families, for that matter - can needed for economic or educational instantly change the dynamic in their own advancement. homes by consciously committing them- And even among privileged, successful selves to watching less TV.

Film critic Michael Medved, a member of the USA TODAY Board of Contributors, hosts a nationally syndicated daily radio talk show and proudly raises three children in a TV -free household.

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 35 www.americanradiohistory.com Warner Bros. congratulates

Warren Lieberfarb

and his colleagues at

Warner Home Video and

Warner Advanced Media Operations

for the achievement of

winning the Emmy® Award

for the Development of

DVD Technology.

© 1999 Warner Bros. All Rights Reserved. © ATAS /NATAS www.americanradiohistory.com Counterpoint Culturally Diverse TV Would be Better TV

Perhaps the NAACP's appeal to the networks to become morefully representative of American pluralism isn't such a bad idea after all

By Christopher P. Campbell

ertainly we all remember appear and transform their lives. And now, Nancy Reagan's campaign to in a similarly brilliant proposal, Michael solve the growing problem of Medved has targeted television "addic- substance abuse among young tion" as the culprit that is at the heart of people in the 1980s: Just Say the most serious problems in the African- No. And we remember the dramatic American community. If black people success of the campaign. Drug use would just watch a little less television, vanished, the nation's crime rate dropped, they would perform better in school, they schools improved, poverty was eliminated. would find gainful employment.... But And all it took was very simple, common- wait, weren't those problems already sense logic that went straight to the root of solved by the last Just Say No campaign? the problem: If people just took more Perhaps the NAACP's appeal to the responsibility for their libertine personal networks to become more fully represen- behavior, educational, economic and tative of American pluralism isn't really social opportunities would magically such a bad idea after all.

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 37

www.americanradiohistory.com Mr. Medved has challenged us to imag- appealing to the most sordid human ine a world in which the television indus- instincts, Oprah Winfrey is hardly driving try was as culturally diverse as American the "pollution- belching jalopy" that has society. 1-le contends that because of its Mr. Medved so concerned. The reigning very nature, the TV business wouldn't champion of syndicated television, her really change; we would simply get more occasional focus on literature has more programs such as Men Behaving Badly, Americans reading good books than ever only with multi -cultural casts. This may before. be true, and judging by some of the What do these three programs have in programming produced in recent years common? That they demonstrate the great with black audiences in mind- see, for potential that television has for providing instance, The Pis or Martin - he has thoughtful entertainment? That they draw evidence to support such an argument. the kinds of audiences that make TV execs But perhaps we shouldn't be too hasty to froth at the mouth? What about the fact dismiss all of television based on the ques- that the programs are primarily the enter- tionable value of a few sophomoric prise of people of color? Mr. Medved has sitcoms. And perhaps we should consider suggested that "to assume the ability to this: If, indeed, the virtually all white, create quality television is dependent on a middle /upper class ranks of TV executives writer or producer's ethnic identity is were truly integrated with people from racism, pure and simple." I'll ignore the other avenues of American culture, what fact that he is dredging up the most perni- we might see on television would be cious of contemporary racist arguments - dramatically different. resisting attacks on white supremacy by Let's look at a few of television's greatest claiming the high ground of racial equality successes, programs that were substan- (at least he didn't quote Martin Luther tially successful in the ratings and also King, Ir., which my fellow Louisianian lifted the medium's cultural level above David Duke likes to do when he argues the "noxious exhaust" that Mr. Medved that affirmative action is an assault on the abhors. Remember Roots? Of course you rights of white people). But he is missing do, as do the other 80 million Americans the fact that people who come from differ- who watched night after night, marking ent backgrounds than those who control the beginning of the era of the mini -series, the television industry might actually a genre that - at its best - can rival the have different stories to tell. If Mr. Medved theatre and film industries and their is so concerned about television's "crude- potential to provide audiences with intelli- ness, rudeness, mindlessness," etc., he gent, moving and edifying fare. Or how should welcome programming generated about Thee Cosby Show? By drawing half of by someone who comes from outside of America's television audience week after the industry's impenetrable walls. week, the program set a ratings standard for sitcoms that will never be rivaled. Who would have thought that so many white r. Medved also seems to have viewers would come to identify with life decided that programs produced in a black family that - in defiance of the by people of color would only be stereotypes that still dominate African - watched by people of color. This is not a American sitcoms - lived in an educated, surprising attitude; indeed, it appears to be civilized and culturally rich environment? a sentiment common among television And then there is Oprah. The only remain- executives. Quality programs that feature ing talk -show host who doesn't survive by African -American have a history of being

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www.americanradiohistory.com poorly marketed -- feckless promotions, same for Americans whose roots are in bad time slots -then canceled because Latin America or Asia or the Middle East they fail to draw the audiences demanded (or, for that matter, in North America). by advertisers. In the 1950s, it was The Perhaps that's for the best; television Nat King Cole Show, gone after one year. In portrayals of minorities tend to fall into the 1960s, East Side, West Side, a drama horrendous stereotypes - evil -doing that featured major talent - Cecily Tyson, outsiders or thickly accented dimwits. But James Earl Jones, George C. Scott- lasted I can't help but wonder if the industry is paying any attention -at all - Mr. Medved seems to have to this country's significant demographic shift? By contin- decided that programs produced uing to produce programs by people of color would only be designed to draw white view- ers, the industry is speeding up watched by people of color. the erosion of its rapidly shrinking audience. I am confident that the TV only a season. The networks loved the business will someday open its doors to "ghetto sitcom" era, but in 1987, CBS people who don't happen to be white. This axed Frank's Place after its first year. The will happen not because it is the morally program was hailed as a ground- breaking correct thing to do, but because it will program not only because it featured intel- mean that the networks will make more ligent and nuanced representations of black money by producing programs that attract people, but because the high quality of the larger audiences. I believe that once the writing and production elevated the level of industry embraces America's cultural the sitcom genre. Similarly, Roc and South diversity that prime -time television will be Central were victims of poor promotion enriched with the different perspectives and the quick network ax. More recently, that people of color can bring to the after failing for seven years to figure out networks. I also happen to believe that how to market Homicide: Life on the Streets, television at its best has enormous poten- NBC gave up on the most intelligent show tial to contribute to a more intelligent and in prime time. Certainly, the business of compassionate democracy, and that prime -time TV is complex, and many programs such as Roots, The Cosby Show factors affect the success or failure of and Oprah actually affect viewers' atti- programs, but is it just a coincidence, or do tudes about race. Unfortunately, far too good programs with predominantly many Americans embrace the racist senti- African -American casts simply get short ments of people like Michael Medved, who shrift? would have us believe that black people would be better off if they were to play an even lesser role in the TV business. To lack -cast programs these days are dismiss television as a medium that Amer- generally relegated to the mini - icans would be better off without is to 13 networks, but at least African-Ameri- dismiss its immense potential to tell the cans can find programs that feature people many fascinating stories that our remark- who resemble them. We can't say the ably diverse culture has to tell.

Christopher P. Campbell is an associate professor in the communications department at Xavier University in New Orleans. Ile is the author of Race, Myth and the News.

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 39

www.americanradiohistory.com T E L E V I S I L,

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Panasonic: the company with the me st firsts in digital oc itinues to se: the pace. Panasonic Broadcast 3 rigital Systems Cornpai/ ti.pa i )soni r m/p cl www.americanradiohistory.com Go Westinghouse, Young Man!"

A pioneer reminisces about TV's early days: Excerpts from an interview with Joel Chaseman conducted by Michael M. Epstein

The Center for the Study of Popular Television, located `., + at Syracuse University's , I. e w \ S.I. Newhouse School of ;, L;-4, Public Communications, is building a practical Television History Archive at Syracuse University Library. To that end, scores of interviews have been conducted with key seminal figures, and hundreds of artifacts, including scripts, videotapes and ephemeral, have been collected and catalogued at the Syracuse University Library. The Steven H. Scheuer Collection in Television History is among the Center's earliest accomplishments. It includes 130 taped in -depth interviews with an array of industry giants including the likes of Frank Stanton, Leonard Goldenson, Steve Allen, Ethel Winant and Gore Vidal. Joel Chaseman, a pioneering executive at Group W- Westinghouse and Post - Newsweek, is today a respected industry consultant with his own firm, Chascman Enterprises International. The following excerpt was culled from approximately four hours of an audiotaped session conducted by Dr. Epstein, a professor specializing in law and television at Southwestern University in Los Angeles. - Dr. David Marc, Project Coordinator, Steven H. Scheuer Television Collection

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 41

www.americanradiohistory.com ME: What was it like workingfor the television networks, and they ranked 1, 2, eleventh TV licensee, WAAM, Baltimore, in 5, and 12 -with CBS and NBC being 1 1948? and 2, ABC being 5, and Dumont being JC: When I got to Baltimore, at first I lived 12. There are still, I suppose, extant some with my aunt and uncle and cousins. On veterans of the Dumont television network, "35 bucks a week, you didn't have too who might conceivably argue with that, but much independence. I was 22. [WAAMI I doubt it. Allen B. Dumont was a technical was a hole on top of what became Televi- guy who had the foresight to establish tele- sion Hill in Baltimore. Now, by the way, vision stations in places like New York and that hill houses at least three of the major Pittsburgh and Washington. He had his television stations in Baltimore. In those own camera system and so forth. He later days, it was just WAAM. It was a group sold out pretty well. He didn't do badly. But then of probably about 15 of us in August the network itself wasn't much, especially of 1948. Those of us who were there - when, in a few years, the network extended whether our backgrounds were technical, all the way to the West Coast via mi- or business, or whatever-laid cable, crowave. painted, built, worked in the art shop, did whatever we had to do to try to get on the ME: You left yourfirst television job in what air in the first week of November of '48. year? We got on the air November 2nd-for the JC: I worked at WAAM in Baltimore from election which featured Harry Truman and 1948 to 1955. In that time, I stopped be- Henry Wallace and Dewey. Interesting ing the booth announcer, art assistant, etc. stuff to start your career. My first new job, along with doing some The program staff was headed by a fellow announcing, was director of public affairs whose name may appear elsewhere in and publicity. In that, I created Babs, the these archives, Ted Estabrook, who had finger -painting chimpanzee, and got her been a New York producer and later was a publicized in Look magazine, in an article New York producer [again], but had been by John Crosby in the New York Herald Tri- found, I guess, by Norman Kal and import- hune. And a bunch of other stuff. But the ed to Baltimore to act as program manager. one I was proudest of is creating a program The operations manager, who was responsi- in 1952, when I was 26 and the industry ble for all the stuff that the artistic Mr. Es- was four, that won both the Du Pont and tabrook could not deal with, was a guy Peabody awards. named Herb Callan, whose name will show That was a program which featured a up if you do anything on Group W, West- cantankerous, deaf old man named Gerald inghouse, etc. from 1955 or so through W. Johnson, as a commentator on Ameri- Herb's death. He worked with Westing- can political life and social mores. Johnson house the entire time. had been a contemporary of Mencken at Those two were extraordinarily sophisti- the Baltimore Sun. I knew about stuff like cated people to be involved with a nascent that. I asked Herb Cahan and the Cohens television station at that time, in 1948, be- [station owners Ben and Herman] if it cause there wasn't much television. Balti- would be okay if we had a commentator. It more had two stations on the air. The idea was unheard of in television in those days. of network television was basically Boston - There weren't any such. There was no net- to- Washington. Kids' television was defined work news. You must put this into context. by Bob Emery's Small Fry Club, out of New There was no network news in 1952. They York, on the Dumont television network. It said, 'I guess so.' [Locus] I said, 'You know, was said in those days that there were four you're not going to be able

42 TELEVISION QUARTERLY

www.americanradiohistory.com to control a guy like Johnson.' They Anyway, I did that. I organized a seminar thought that was okay. They came from a for college students that ran for about three tradition, too, and it was okay: a good First years, for five different universities, from Amendment tradition. Unconscious [per- North Carolina up to Temple. Did a lot of haps] but good. creative things. We did a Netherlands flood So I found I couldn't talk with Johnson, relief, a spot campaign for the UN. We did a because he was so deaf. I wrote him land] lot of things that people don't do now and had a correspondence with him. He agreed. certainly didn't do then. There was a guy He would do a fifteen- minute thing. I went named Franklin Dunham, who at that time to a guy named Ed Sarrow, who was then was running the Office of Education here in our production manager, anti talked about Washington for the government. He was in- how we do this, how we stage this. We de- volved with UNESCO and the United Na- cided that Mr. Johnson was what he was. tions and television and so forth. I got this He was a mild -looking, wiry little man, blue envelope in the mail one day from the probably 5'4 " -5'5 ", probably weighed 13(I Director of UNESCO. 1 guess [in] Paris, of- pounds. Probably ten years younger then fering me the job -I had no idea I was a than I am now, he was probably sixties. Wry, funny, in his early I didn't want to be approved or tough, wonderful writer. We decided we'd stage him in a disapproved by the ad agency's wing chair, with a music stand account executive's wife. in front of him, and he'd read his stuff at the camera. That's it: "Ladies and Gentlemen, Gerald W. John- candidate; I had never been interviewed- son." He was magnetic! He was absolutely of Director of UNESCO Radio and Televi- hypnotic for those who bothered to tune in. sion Worldwide, headquarters in Paris, six Maybe especially [sol in those days, but I weeks vacation a year, and I don't even re- have a hunch it would work today, because member what the money was. I cannot tell he's so different, because it isn't staged, be- you how tempting that was. Had I not made cause it's just one person to another, look- the commitment to Bake] Embry at WITH, ing you right in the eye and saying stuff and to Marlene, my then fiancée and still that you can't believe. "The oily Mr. my wife, I probably would have gone to Nixon," in 1952! Stuff like that. Anyway, UNESCO and would not have clone all this he won, we won. He gave the medal to me, other stuff that you're here to talk about. so I guess I was partly involved in winning At any rate, that's how wide open the both the Peabody and the Du Pont. 'l'hat business was in those days. I didn't know hasn't been done that often in one year by a was making that point, but that might be program. the point I was making. At any rate, I left In answer to your unasked question, we Channel 13 in '55. I left lake in the spring paid him fifty dollars a week. He liked me of '57 for a couple of pretty good reasons: and I agreed- [butll didn't tell anybody I (11 I decided I didn't want to be talent the agreed -not to touch his stuff. I said, rest of my life. I didn't want to be audition- 'Who are we to censor you?; which I still ing. I didn't want to be approved or disap- believe. So he went on and said what he proved by the ad agency's account execu- said. Then he got tired of doing it after a tive's wife. I didn't want that life. Howard year or so, I guess. But it was wonderful. It Cosell hadn't emerged at that stage, but I was great television. It was great journal- didn't want to be Howard Cosell. I was ism, I guess. good, but I didn't think I was probably that

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 43

www.americanradiohistory.com good. The world didn't exist the way it does to get ratings because there weren't any today, where you make four million dollars choices. There were three or four networks. a year for doing that. I don't think I would And people loved it. The networks were have wanted to do it anyway. Money has populated with a curious mixture of oppor- never been my drive. Anyway, I left WITH tunists, lucky floaters carried by the tide, and put an ad in the trades, listing my qual- and by a few genuinely dedicated, smart, ifications. I wrote an ad and got a lot of re- creative people. My fear is that you're going sponses, maybe fifty -sixty responses, offers to make me identify some of each. from exotic places. ME: There must have been some good guys. JC: Frank Stanton was probably a good guy, ME: Where did you see yourself going in the for the most part. Still is, for that matter, al- business? though he's clearly not in a position to be JC: My goals were very simple. Remember, active now. He was smarter than practically my dad made $75 a week. My goal was to anybody. He wasn't family and he had to prosper, have a reasonable amount of fun cope with Bill Paley, who was not a bad guy. and, if I ever got the chance, to have some Paley does not come off in my book as a vil- leverage on the business. What I used to lain. Dick Salant was a good guy. Fred say in those days-and I think I meant it- Friendly was a good guy, although I have was: 'I trust me and I'm not sure I trust been known to accuse him of carrying the them: I learned I was right and I have re- body of Ed Murrow around with him so tained a lot of skepticism about the people that nobody would forget. I wish Fred, be- at the top in the networks and their need fore he died, had realized how good he was and their efforts to keep the job, as distin- on his own and that he didn't have to in- guished from my view of "doing the job." I voke the ghost of Ed Murrow to win re- have seen -and this is jumping ahead of spect. Fred Silverman, who understands the story-an awful lot of people whom I popular taste, is a good guy. I remember Jim liked at one level move into responsible Rosenfield, who at that time, I guess, was jobs at networks and suddenly luxuriate in still at CBS. the opportunity to piss on people below He and I had breakfast at the Waldorf one them, take the money of the people above day. Obviously, I was no longer twenty -two them, and last as long as they could until and an announcer. But, on the other hand, their options vested. Rosenfield was no longer twenty -two and a I've seen a lot of that. The networks dur- salesman. I guess Fred Silverman had just ing their prime days became, to some ex- become president of NBC. I think that was tent -and I don't mean to tar everybody the period. I remember Rosenfield telling with the same brush, but I would tar eighty me, 'Joel, don't ever forget how simple a percent of them- country clubs for people man Fred Silverman is.' This is not a nega- who were retiring on the jobs, thanks to, as tive. Fred had an unclouded, very clear per- Warren Buffett once said, "the tide that rais- ception of what the industry is, what the es all boats." They were being credited in public is, and what the connection is. That's their bank accounts and in their PR with a good guy. That's okay. He wasn't being having been responsible for the tide. The dishonest about it at all. Cronkite is a good tide was really the purchase of television guy. Cronkite is a remarkable guy. If he isn't sets by millions who hadn't previously had in your archive, he ought to be. He's excep- the opportunity, and thus the growth of the tional. advertising market, and the opportunity to exploit the advertisers and the people, and ME: What made Cronkite remarkable and do whatever they wanted to do. It was going exceptional, in your view?

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www.americanradiohistory.com JC: A little bit of background. During this Jim Snyder, who is probably the dean of time in Baltimore, around 1950 or so, I American television news directors. An ex- was the summer replacement for a fellow traordinary guy in his own sense. He was, named Gene Klavan, who became a promi- incidentally, one of Cronkite's producers nent disc jockey in New York, but at that while Cronkite was at CBS. We were talking time was on WTOP in Washington. Gene about news directors. There wasn't the usu- and I were social friends. Anyway, he asked al old fart, 'They don't make them like they me to be a summer replacement when he used to,' and stuff like that. It was the con- went off doing whatever he was going to do cern for standards. I guess the short answer on vacation. So I went over to WTOP. At to your question is yes, I think somebody that time, they had two aging news guys on could succeed like that. I think Rather, in their eleven o'clock news team. I'm talking his prime, was a worthy successor to about radio now, probably 1950. It was a Cronkite. I'm not sure, looking around, fellow named Cronkite, who had been who else is, but I'm sure they're out there, [with] UPI in Moscow or somewhere, and a male or female. There was a time, before fellow named Sevareid. These were two other things overtook her (and I'm going to good guys. These were solid, caring, talent- surprise you with this one) that Jessica Sav- ed journalists who understood what news itch could have been. I knew Jessica when was and weren't making concessions. That she was a trainee and was one of her men- doesn't mean they had highly elevated tors, almost until she died. I saw when her tastes or anything like it, because Walter career and her life took a violent left turn, figuratively. She could There are some really good, solid have been that, but she ran into the wrong peo- communicating journalists out there. ple in management. A lot of it depends on has always been a man of the people, in my what management decrees. If Bernie Shaw view. But they were reliable. I could trust leaves that role at CNN, who do they put in them and respect them. I've had a lot of in- there? Who do they give the opportunity tersections with Walter Cronkite since that to? There are some really good, solid com- time -some social, a lot business. I've nev- municating journalists out there. er found any reason to lose that respect for The question in my mind will be: Is there his integrity, his ability to communicate, somebody sufficiently like Frank Stanton, his reflection of America mid -century, and or Jim Snyder, or Dick Salant out there who his talent. He could write, he had good won't have to submit to focus groups and judgment, and he had high standards. I marketplace research entirely? I'm not sug- don't take those qualities lightly in some- gesting that research is bad; I am suggesting body who has to communicate what that it takes more than research to make a should be truth to the American people. decision like that, because there are some things that only long -term exposure can tell ME: Do you think someone of the stature and you about programs and people. [Looking quality of Walter Cronkite could succeed to- for] the public's "hit- and -run" intersection day in television? with a given personality isn't necessarily JC: It depends on management, doesn't it? the best way [to do the news]. In fact, it is It depends on what management is looking hardly ever the best way to tell what the for, because I don't think those people are long term will be. absent: I think they're around. I went to a ballgame last night with a fellow named ME: Do you think the economic realities of a

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 45 www.americanradiohistory.com competitive, diversified broadcasting industry ers. What he saw early was that there was today make someone with the type of influ- almost unlimited upside, relatively, in ence that Cronkite had impossible today? terms of pricing of this "commodity" -the JC: I think I understand the drift of your advertising availabilities between network question. Yes, nobody is going to have the programs and on their own. There were leverage that those people had. In this kind people like [the management at] Westing- of splintered, fragmented marketplace, it's house, for whom I was then working. I put going to be very hard for anybody to be a Westinghouse into the syndication busi- Messiah type, as Cronkite certainly was. ness; I am moving now into the late Fifties ME: When did it become apparent Murphy... began to show us how incredibly profitable television was going to become as a medium? that television stations could JC: I think the first person to rec gross a lot of money... ognize that potential and exploit it

was probably [Cap Cities chair - man]Tom Murphy. It came from stations. and early Sixties. [Westinghouse] sought What happened was that the initial birth to move on that [assumption] by creating pangs of the investment in television sta- programs for the non -network slots. Now, tions preceded the growth of advertising parenthetically -and this may be some- and the recognition by ad agencies that, thing you want to explore -Don McGan- with a hundred percent penetration, televi- non, Dick Pack, John Steen [and I] and oth- sion could be enormously profitable. While ers saw that if the networks were able to I speak, I'm trying to reflect on your ques- pick up all the various time slots, there tion. I went out to Los Angeles to produce wouldn't be any opportunities for syndica- 77re Steve Allen Show in 1962, after a year tors like us. So it wasn't all public interest, in New York with Mike Wallace. Let me put in our view. It was partly a way to estab- it in perspective. A week of The Steve Allen lish new revenue lines for the company. Show in 1962, including Steve's money, Having put that in context, spending which was outlandish in those days - $43,000 a week for an hour a night -in $9,000 a week was what Steve got -a those days, I guess it was ninety minutes - week of that show was $43,000 to pro- meant that the profits couldn't be all that duce. Now, if you put that in context, even great. I guess you weren't charging all that with 1962 dollars, you begin to realize much, if you understand what I'm saying. that the marketplace was not so big as to My recollection is that we charged a guy command the kind of leverage and respect named Stretch Adler [at] Channel 5 in Los that it does now. Angeles, $5,000 a week for The Steve Allen At that time, Tom Murphy, Joe Dougher- Show. I think that's right. If you know any- ty and others were beginning to buy televi- thing about what the rates are today, you'll sion stations in places like Albany, New understand the context in which I speak. York; Providence, Rhode Island; Raleigh - Anyway, Murphy, I think as much as Durham, North Carolina. It wasn't until anybody, began to show us that television they made the deal with Walter Annen- stations could gross a lot of money and berg, who was another one who guessed could put, for the sake of argument, forty - wrong,2 and picked up the licenses in fifty-sixty percent of the net of what they Philadelphia and New Haven, etc. that you grossed into the shareholders' pockets. began to see that Murphy was on to some- That's a lot of money. What I'm saying is thing -much more than most of the oth- that the margins were 55 -60 percent in

46 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com places like Houston and elsewhere. That No question about it. I use the "we" advis- opened a lot of eyes. The other thing that edly because there were a lot of us. Like opened a lot of eyes was that Tom took his most of us, you're carried along by your story to Wall Street. Believe -it -or-not, peo- generation and its values and experiences. ple didn't do that before Murphy did, but he recognized the growth of the financial ME: Tell nie about joining Westinghouse. analysts as a separate subset of the finan- JC: I got to Westinghouse, in 1957, when cial community who had the power to in- Westinghouse bought Channel 13 in Balti- fluence investments. Cap Cities was a pub- more. Westinghouse at that time had cam- licly held company. Murphy's trips to Wall era people classified, I think, as "lathe oper- Street helped everybody to understand this ators," because they didn't have any catego- business and led to the land rush. Now, it ry for this thing. The Westinghouse Compa- wasn't the sole factor. He wasn't the only ny was run by people who manufactured guy. But he sure was pivotal. If your lightbulbs and turbines and big engines archives don't show you this kind of and all that stuff. Don McGannon's divi- growth in the marketplace, along with the sion of broadcasters was, in a way, happily creative side and the network side and all isolated, doing its thing and returning thir- that, they're missing the point of how this ty percent of what it netted to the share- industry got to this era. holders. So Westinghouse didn't want to [Warren] Buffett joined Murphy proba- mess with it. They had this money machine bly in the Seventies at some point, the mid - and they were afraid to impose rules on it. Seventies. When I joined the Washington But it still had to live within a structure Post Company in 1973, Warren was still that was dedicated to manufacture. West- an Omaha investor of some repute. It inghouse would have management meet- wasn't until he bought about nine percent ings. By that time, I guess, I was at that lev- of the Washington Post Company that he el. They'd go to some fancy place like Hot was asked to join that board. That probably Springs [Virginia]. You'd be rooming with a was about 1975. He left to go with Mur- couple of guys who made god -knows -what. phy, because of a major investment in ABC, "Light bulbs and turbines" were always our probably in the middle -to -late Seventies, figures of speech. I suppose that's what '77 maybe. The experience of being with they made. You realized there was no com- Warren Buffett at board meetings and If you were Westinghouse, you elsewhere was very ed- ucational for me. It better do public- spirited programming may be at that time that I began to appreciate the innate values patibility, no understanding. You also real- in these companies. There has always been ized -and this is a fact-that a good part of a split in the business among the sales the dedication of Westinghouse (I don't types, the program types -creative mean to malign anybody; it was just a con- types -and the business management dition of existence) to public service had to types. A lot of us program /promotion types do with lit being] a major defense contrac- fought the influence of the sales and busi- tor in those days, [not] owning broadcast li- ness management types. We want to do censes, because in those days even the Con- what we want to do to make stuff better. gress had a social conscience. We've lost Given my social conscience, which I men- that somewhere. But in those days, if you tioned earlier, we got confused sometimes, were Westinghouse, you better do public - especially when we were in our twenties. spirited programming, because you needed

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 47 www.americanradiohistory.com to drag something out when people began house. Larry interviewed me after I had to question why GE and Westinghouse been passed on to him by the Westing- would have broadcast licenses. house people. I guess part of it was that I In those days [Westinghouse] was condi- was in Baltimore and they wouldn't have to tioned by what GE did. When GE decided move me. Larry said I took myself too seri- to become a conglomerate of sorts, so did ously. I learned later he was some guy to Westinghouse, except that theirs was stu- talk about that! [LAUGHS] Anyway, I was pid. They bought Econo -Car and a motel okay. company and a bottling plant. They didn't We took over and, thanks largely to have the slightest idea how to run any of Larry's vision and McGannon's backing them. My point is that, in the broadcast and, I guess, a little bit to what I did, we line, they made radios, they made televi- moved that station from a weak third po- sions. They don't any more, thank God! But sition in the market in August of 1957 to they were trying to do what RCA did. They a 42 percent, No. 1 share in November of were a big technical company and they had 1957. It was absolutely meteoric! We to- this thing in Pittsburgh. I really do remem- tally reworked the program schedule. We ber how Westinghouse was dominated by put in a lot of local programming. I was the Pittsburgh country club set. [They had] nuts. I didn't know what I couldn't do. I KDKA; somebody got the bright idea to just wasn't very smart. I hired a local disc start that. Then it had a momentum of its jockey named Jack Wells to do a two -hour own. My guess is, KDKA became moderate- live morning show, which we started off ly profitable and it made sense to have an- down in Camden Yards, which has since other station, like Boston and elsewhere. become famous for the Orioles park Then you got Chris Witting in there. there. Hired a local disc jockey with Witting came in from Dumont. Coinciden- whom I had worked at WITH, named tally, Dumont sold its Pittsburgh television Buddy Deane to do a show. This was station to Westinghouse, once Chris got about the same time as Dick Clark was there. Amazing! Witting came in and Wit- growing in Philadelphia, but this guy ting had the macho thing: grow as much as Buddy Deane, who in his own way is a ge- you can. This was the Forties and the nius, saw the possibilities. And so did I. Fifties. This was the pattern. It was the post- So we started a kids' dancing -to- records war American euphoria of finding undevel- show on Channel 13 from 3:00 to 5:00, oped markets and new technology. Even to- or whatever. I hired a handsome, kind of day, the combination is wonderful. Think of ne'er -do -well, wonderful storytelling, an- this morning's headline, June 24, 1998: chor guy named Keith McBee. "AT &T to buy ICI for $30 billion." Same This will tell you about news in those thing. days: at 7:23 p.m. and, I think, 10:30 p.m. When Westinghouse took WAAM over We were merciless with the networks. Lar- in 1957, I was responsible for everything ry had the balls and the clout with Westing- on the air. They imported a guy that Mc- house to just preempt the hell out of the Gannon had known, another key guy in my network. Our network was ABC at that career, Larry Israel. Larry had been running time. We bought a lot of movies. We two UHF stations, one in Pittsburgh and bought the RKO package and a bunch of one in Minneapolis; had worked at the Du- other movies and we did an early show and mont station in Pittsburgh and, later, at KD- a late show, which Baltimore had never KA, perhaps as local sales; I'm not sure. seen. We started the early show at 6:00 and Larry was McGannon's fast-track choice to ran it to 7:23, when we broke for local run Baltimore and then prosper at Westing- news. Then we ran from 10:40, we ran The

48 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com Three Stooges until eleven o'clock. Then we going to be and what we saw and why we went back into the late show. It worked like were doing what we were doing -from a charm. It just went through the roof. that moment, Larry and I were marked. So, within Westinghouse, from the There was no question about it, because management meeting which we attended we had done something nobody else had in September or October of 1957, before been able to do. the numbers came in, where I stood up and did my monologue about what it was ©Syracuse University 1999

and An attorney with a l'h.D. in American Culture, Michael M. Epstein was a visiting professor of television public communication at the Newhouse School of Syracuse University before joining the faculty of Southwestern University's School of Law in 1999.11e is a frequent contributor to Television Quarterly, having examined a range of topics from women attorneys on TV to Star Trek and science- fiction fandom.

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 49

www.americanradiohistory.com INNOVATION IN NEWS, SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT

ROMÁN(E (LASSI

American Movie Massics .

00' RVNBOW /i SPORTS NE 7 rY O R K

THE FILM AND ARTS NEwS1Z r NETWORK

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1999 fiambow Mad Holdings Inc www.americanradiohistory.com Is Holdup One or Two Words?

Another TV veteran describes some hair-raising news coverage experiences in Maryland's racially charged atmosphere of the early 1960's.

By John Baker

Time back then seemed to stand still. shoes Yankees wore. Mel's open face and Some of the moments lasted ever so the understanding glint in his eyes belied long. Now, pinching and poking myself the uncertainty churning him up inside. It to remember visions of the past, famil- was a scary time. Mel tired of meetings iar faces are so fleeting, like riding with program manager Win Baker and lead horse on a spinning merry-go- general manager Herb Cahan. He was tired round, looking into the crowd for a of putting out brush fires of incompetence brief glimpse of a time gone by. that constantly sprang up in his under- staffed, ding -dong kind of newsroom. He Mel Bernstein was a small fish knew he needed to make a statement. He in Boston, but he caught had to keep reassuring his staff he was the eye of those who boss and an advocate of change, and WJZ's counted. He had been a news was damn well going to change... producer /writer at WBZ with them or without them. He wasn't and wrote some of those do -good docu- getting through preaching to the incompe- mentaries TV stations during the late 50's tence around him. What Mel needed was a believed proved their commitment to deed, not words. public service. In 1962 Mel became the Mel sat in a rest -room stall, assuming news director for WIZ Channel 13, the the position of "The Thinker." Channel ABC affiliate in Baltimore - definitely a 13's men's room offered four stalls and big fish with great opportunity. four urinals down one wall, while five Mel looked the part - tall, well -built, wash basins fronted the mirror along the short blond hair. He wore salt -and- pepper opposite wall. The area also served as a suits and thick -soled brogans, the kind of dressing room for recording artists who

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 51

www.americanradiohistory.com came to appear on the Buddy Deane Program manager Win Baker was an Dance Show. (Can you imagine 45 expert at the shell game. He, Mel and members of the James Brown Band cascad- general manager Herb Cahan juggled the ing off a bus in front of the building and books like a latter day savings and loan rushing into the limited confines of WJZ's association. Mel began adding reporters, men's room ?) On this day, Mel was alone camera crews, camera equipment, and until two voices -one he recognized as a even cars to transport the newly hired new news -film cameraman he'd inherited - breed of Eyewitness News reporters. broke into his meditation. The cameraman said to the other, "I don't think I can work one more day for that goddamned Jew Mel any people claimed credit for the Bernstein." title, Eyewitness News. My co- From behind the door of his stall, Mel worker, director Sheldon Shemer, screamed, "You don't have to work told me he thought of it first and told Win another day -you're fired!" Mel punctu- Baker. Win said, "Not true." He had ated his statement with a chug -a -flush of decided on the title and researched it to the toilet. He felt good ... the jump start avoid any copyright problems. Win found he needed, he thought. Maybe no more Eyewitness News was first used by a radio Mr. Nice Guy. He walked with a quicker station, WCCO in Minneapolis, years step down the hall and through the lobby before. Whoever, whatever - Eyewitness toward the newsroom. News became the title of choice all over Norm Vogel paced the lobby, waiting to the United States. apply for a news cameraman's job. He During build -up resurgence of the new didn't hold out much hope. Rumor was Eyewitness News, news personnel were they were only hiring from outside, and carried on the books as working in the new managers were mean and crazy. accounting, production art or engineering. Mel Bernstein spotted Norm and almost The sales department traded commercial passed him by before stopping. "Your time with a local Chevrolet dealer for new name's Norm Vogel, the cameraman, Corvair station wagons. It was long before right ?" Mel asked. Norm nodded yes. Ralph Nader destroyed the Corvair in his "You're hired;" Mel stated forcefully, "we book, Unsafe at Any Speed. The new just got an opening," offering his hand. Corvair was a fitting vehicle to begin Norm Vogel marveled at Mel's direct- Channel 13's spin -out, turnover, rise -to- ness and short interview time. Mel left the the- top -of- Baltimore TV news. Mel Bern- lobby and entered the newsroom, a smile stein, artist extraordinaire, painted Eye on his face. A screwed -up, misplaced anal- Witness News backwards on the front of ogy played over and over in his brain, the Corvairs. Drivers, looking back in their "kick the torpedoes, full speed ahead." rearview mirrors, would get the idea. A As I would find out many times in later stroke of genius, everyone thought. years, platitudes and dreams of television WJZ's ratings put them number four in wonder cost money. Mel Bernstein inher- a three -station TV market. A radio station ited a news budget that had been squeezed beat them out for number three. They had from a turnip by former management. a long row to hoe, as we say back in Texas. Nevertheless, Mel was expected to perform Herb Cahan walked into WJZ's news- a silk -purse trick with the present budget. room at 6:00 a.m. George Bauman was There are ways to spend more money shocked. The last time he'd seen a general than is budgeted. The easiest way is to manager up close was at a Christmas party. steal it from someone else's budget. George usually had the quiet of the morn-

52 TELEVISION QUARTERLY

www.americanradiohistory.com ing to sip coffee and prepare his five "SMA" rang through the intercoms. minute 6:55 a.m. newscast. Herb looked The basic news camera was a windup You actually around the news room. The pushed - toy made by Bell and Howell. together stained desks and peeling paint wound it up with a key that popped out of weren't particularly attractive. "We'll have its side. A full wind would expose a to do something about this awful news hundred feet of 16- millimeter film in just room," he said, almost to himself; then under three minutes. The camera was asked George, "Where do you get your extremely portable, being the size of your news, the copy you read an hour from mother's chocolate- covered, two -pound now ?" layer cake. It took the pictures, but there "From the newspaper," George replied, was no sound. Unlike the movies, televi- holding up the local section of the Balti- sion began with talkies, but no one had more Sun. invented a camera that could shoot sound Herb Cahan's face became red, "This and still be portable like the windup Bell will never do. Use the phone, call police and Howell. and fire, call politicians and reporters if TV's standard sound camera was a you have to. Get confirmation and think knockoff from the huge 35 millimeter cameras that shot movies in Holly- The Aricon was a 16- millime- wood. The Aricon was a 16- millimeter sound camera big as the motor on ter sound camera big as the your lawnmower and twice as heavy. A motor on your lawnmower crew of two or three was needed to lug it around, depending on how many and twice as heavy. union members were needed to screw in a light bulb. (Negotiating contracts about what you're reporting. Never read or between management and unions on in the trust a newspaper again." manpower requirements was a pain George realized then that Eyewitness ass.) When video tape replaced film in News was more than a title. news gathering, the one -man band was The crew, the guys, were impervious to born ... one man replaced three or four. change. They'd never stopped doing things That day was far down the road in the that pleased them. Lenny Lorensky loved early '60's. adding fictitious names to closing credits. All early television stations built a Ozzy Kaplan rolled by as a special- events client's or sponsor's room. I never knew coordinator for years. Ozzy should have why; I never saw a client or sponsor in paid union dues. there. The room had windows looking out Carmine Lucendrello, our crack engi- to the studio in case anyone cared to see neering malcontent, was always in trouble what was going on. Most of the rooms with his mouth. He held world records for became brown -bag lunch rooms for engi- reprimands and suspensions because of neers and secretaries. Mel Bernstein his use of free speech. Carmine finally kicked all the brown bags out and made a gave in and offered the phrase "scratch my newsroom out of it. News -wire machines was never ass" as a substitute for what he really and desks lined the walls. There wanted to say. The union and management enough room -the news staff doubled, then reluctantly agreed. From then on, there tripled. Everyone was reduced to sharing was a lot of "scratch my ass" going on. drawers to keep personal stuff like Later, Carmine himself shortened the pancake makeup and half a pack of ciga- phrase to the first letters of the words .. . rettes.

53 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com According to Mel Bernstein: affected people's lives. Sports reports that made sense. Jim Karvellas had joined the People didn't make appointments to watch sports department. He wisely listened to like they do today. Back then, the lead -in crew members George Mills and Lenny rating was most important. Our ABC Lorensky. They told him what was really network hardly ever gave us a good lead -in at going on in Baltimore sports. Mel let 11:00 p.m. The Buddy Deane Show, the Karvellas do sports commentary. Having most-watched program in Baltimore, deliv- an editorial page on TV was rare. The ered a tremendous audience base. I believe worker bees knew the shows were better many viewers discovered Eyewitness News and began to take pride. There was a grow- for thefirst time. ing camaraderie among the troops. It was too early to tell if the audience was catch- The news room always felt like a theater ing on. lobby between acts. It forced the new guys Before pre -recording audio or video for to integrate with the old guys. George playback became feasible, TV stations paid Kennedy, the new sports anchor, and announcers to sit in a booth eight or ten George Mills, the resident old -guard union hours a day, sign -on to sign -off. You're steward, got into a heated sports argument watching WJZ, Channel 13 in Baltimore, in the parking lot, then into the lobby. spoken live in resonant tones on hourly Finally, Kennedy gave Mills the finger and station breaks, was their major responsibil- moved into the news room. George Mills ity. Other duties included reading live followed, uttering frustration. Suddenly, commercials or dressing up like an idiot to with no more discussion, Kennedy threw host children's cartoon programs. his typewriter at Mills, barely missing Mel Announcers who worked the late shift Bernstein, who had inadvertently walked usually became the weatherman. The into the typewriter's line of fire. highs, lows and occluded -front informa- "Enough!" Mel screamed. tion was provided by the United States The news room fell silent except for the Weather Bureau. The booth persistent tap- tap -tap of the news teletype announcer /weatherman exposed himself machines. "I left Boston for this," Mel said to the camera and read the forecast and under his breath, then announced, "I'll do next day predictions as if he knew them to the typewriter throwing around here. be true. Everyone knew it was just a wild Understand?" Minutes dragged until the guess. TV weather presentation was in the normal voice hubbub of the newsroom dark ages. competed with the tap- tap -tap. Will Rogers said, "Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about the weather." TV stations The news shows definitely got better. around the country did their best. They They were reporting more than car tried to mix sex with weather. The weather wrecks and fires. But even the fires girl, lady or mom, found a niche on early had the sound of crackling flames and television. desperate voices. Politics were being Serious TV weather forecasting began covered. You could debate whether expos- when Channel 13 hired a professional ing the public to politics was good or bad. meteorologist. Jim Smith had the training Spiro Agnew, our future crook Vice Presi- to draw his own maps and charts. Jim dent, was cutting his teeth on dastardly could interpret local and national data and deeds in Baltimore County. make Jim Smith's fearless forecast, not the Channel 13 began to do stories that Weather Bureau's. Jim Smith was one of

54 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com the nation's first meteorologists working less blue sky reflects a blinding glare off on television. WJZ produced a huge last night's snowfall. Our TV camera picks promotional campaign that asked the up Jim Smith wearing a heavy black over- question, "Who do you trust, a weather- coat, walking along a freshly cleared side- man reading outdated information walk still dotted with melting salt crystals. provided him, or would you trust a profes- Jim approaches a little old lady walking sional meteorologist who knows what with an umbrella tucked under her arm. weather is all about ?" WJZ displayed Jim Recognizing Jim Smith, she starts shouting Smith's weather seal of authenticity as if it and shaking her umbrella in Jim's face. We was a royal seal. Some of the promotions don't hear the sound of the shouting. We told the viewers the Baltimore Orioles hear the music scale played on a slightly baseball team called on Jim daily for ball - out of tune piano. A silent movie back- game weather forecasts at home and on ground if you will. Jim waves his arms in the road. apology and moves away from the umbrella -wielding little old lady. Next, a fat man walking a Labrador Jim Smith reeked of credibility. His retriever approaches. The lab, recognizing stature as a professional weather fore- Jim Smith, begins barking and straining caster was unchallenged. It was also against his master's leach. Jim moves painfully true that Jim Smith's TV presen- quickly around the dog and master, only to tation of weather facts was dull as dirt. Jim encounter two children playing in the was of normal height and weight. He snow. When they recognize Jim, they pelt always wore a dark -blue sports jacket over him with snowballs. The do-re-mi-fa-sol -la- his khaki pants, a rep tie always tied ti-do continues to discord on the piano as beneath an angular face that looked better Jim dejectedly hurries away, his head on camera in profile than straight on. Jim down. A voice over announcer says, "Jim had no distinctive features or mannerisms. Smith doesn't make the weather; Jim News director Mel Berstein tried to get Jim Smith just predicts the weather. Have a to smile occasionally. Jim's attempts heart." looked like he needed a quick Bromo The promotion campaign changed, or Seltzer. A fashion consultant gave up after didn't change, Jim Smith's dull image. a week of dressing Jim Suddenly, dull as dirt was in. The audience felt sorry for Jim. They called to Program manager Win Baker say so every time that promo ran. Viewers respected Jim took the presentation of news Smith, and he became the most watched weatherman in Balti- out from behind desks. more. Dull or not, another piece of WJZ's success puzzle "Jim Smith wears a $300 suit like it fell into place. came off a thrift store rack," Simon Bezio, Program manager Win Baker took the the fashion consultant, told Mel Bernstein. presentation of news out from behind An outside advertising agency came to desks. He designed the set himself despite WJZ's rescue. The agency had a controver- the artistic objections of art director Rocco sial idea. It would be more attuned to Urbecci. It was simply a 12- foot -long, six - today's TV promotions of Letterman or the inch -high welded iron map of the world's sports reporters on ESPN and CNNSI. land masses. It hung out from a light blue The sun's brightness through a cloud- wall. The wall became the world's oceans.

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 55 www.americanradiohistory.com The news anchors and other participants face," he said to no one and everyone. sat in roll -around chairs in front of Win's He rushed to help Allen, who was strug- creation. When we took the wheels off the gling to rise. Mel got the dazed Allen into a chairs and everyone stopped moving off chair, tilting his face toward a bright neon camera, it worked pretty well. No desks for Miller beer sign hanging on the wall the Eyewitness News staff to hide behind , a behind the bar. He was looking for the tell- new concept for the early 60's. tale facial signs that indicated he had beat Mel Bernstein worked hard on the esprit the shit out of Allen Smith. Allen was a de corps thing. His challenge was to get little swollen, but no cuts. He would live the old guard (native Baltimorians) and the to anchor another day. Mel put his arms new hires, who now outnumbered the around Allen and apologized. Someone originals, to feel at ease with each other. put more quarters in the jukebox. Patsy After the Eleven O'Clock News, Mel often Cline sang I Fall to Pieces Each Time I See took a mixed group of news staffers to a You Again. local bar. He wanted them out of the work The eastern shore of Maryland was full environment. He believed a few beers of coughing pickup trucks adorned with could bridge the gap between the "been boat- trailer hitches. Their likes joined the here" and "new here" people. half -scraped boats and rusting tire rims everyone kept in their yards. The center of commerce for this ugly peninsula that Mel and anchorman Allen Smith separates the Atlantic Ocean from the had a serious conversation about Chesapeake Bay are the towns of Easton news philosophy one evening. and Cambridge. Allen believed news was all in the writing. The roots of this area go back to the Newspapers had proven that you didn't American Revolution (the first one). The need a lot of pictures to tell a story. Mel state of Delaware claims almost half the countered that TV, by definition, was a land, Maryland claims the rest. New Jersey visual medium. Why not take advantage should have annexed the whole thing. It of it to tell a story better than a newspaper. would have made it easier for map makers. Their conversation became heated and Before they built the Chesapeake Bay attracted an audience of onlookers. bridge, the eastern shore remained remote Allen finished his fourth scotch with and hard to get to. Few wanted to get there little water and stood up. He pointed his anyway. It was populated by descendants finger and said to Mel, "You're not smart of Jeffersonian philosophy who made their enough to be a news director. Let's arm living over -fishing and over -oystering the wrestle. May the best man win." Chesapeake Bay. An occasional visitor was Allen began to lower himself back down quick to recognize the uncomfortable into his chair, assuming his arm- wrestling looks from the weathered local faces. Their position, when Mel offered a straight right look was similar to the one received while fist into the middle of Allen's face. The stopping at a one -pump gas station on a blow propelled Allen backwards over a two -lane road in Mississippi. Blacks who table and chairs. A couple of patrons dared to invade the sanctity of the shore avoided an Allen collision as he came to were turned away from hotels, often rest spread -eagled on the floor. Suddenly, ignored at gas stations and home- cooking- the only sound in the bar was Patsy Cline to -go diners along the road. singing on the two -play- for -a- quarter Wurl- On a sunny day in Cambridge, Mary- itzer. Mel's hands book-ended the sides of land, a car carrying four blacks stopped for his head. "I've just ruined my anchorman's gas at King's Garage and Gas Station. Their

56 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com car's tires rolled over a strip of hose that 60's was in the Cro- Magnon age ( wel- no live -shot sa ris, , rang a bell somewhere inside the garage. opment. There were They waited. No one came to serve them. no cellular phones, no videotape. Niws The blacks, one woman and three men, crews on the road sent their undeveloped waited some more. Still, no one came. film back to the station on a Greyhound They were about to leave and try to find bus. Reporters informed the station what another place when a man dressed in oil - was going on by pay phone. The logistics stained khaki shirt and pants stood in On that quiet, sunny day in Cambridge, front of their car. wiping his hands on a Maryland, the unrest began. dirty rag. "Why don't you niggers go back to were a pain in the ass, and pain in the ass wherein you come from. The only niggers usually costs money. here are slaves," the man said, with a All of the above was known when WIZ menacing smile. decided to make the eastern shore their The driver of the car screamed, "Son of a story. Baltimore's other two TV stations bitch," and stepped on the accelerator. The were giving the story news -copy coverage gas station man spit tobacco juice on the only. They sent no film crews. They hoped windshield, just barely getting out of the the story would go away. Channel 13's way. Past the man, the car screeched to a news crew was the only one there all the stop. The driver got out, walked back and time because the story wouldn't go away. hit the dirty khaki suit five times, leaving WIZ rotated camera crews and reporters him on his knees, gasping and spitting out down to the east. rn shore. The locals chewing tobacco residue. The stained stub- weren't happy watching news crews roam ble on his chin glistened with sweat. His their space. Some were embarrassed eyes reflected surprise and hate. He hurt because of what was happening around too much to grasp his gas pump to rise, so them. Others were outraged and reacted he remained on his knees while townspeo- with long- nurtured, kick -ass racial hatred. ple witnesses arrived. Someone called the Both points of view wanted to resolve the state police. problem themselves. They didn't want the whole world watching. WJZ's news crews became their enemy. On that quiet, sunny day in Reporting what you saw was easy. Cambridge, Maryland, the unrest Getting state officials or police to confirm, began. First, rocks being thrown deny or add to the facts was almost impos- and houses burning for no apparent sible. But attempts to downplay what was reason. Then, human beings hurting other happening and freeze out the press didn't human beings. The serene, secluded east- work. Reports of new outbreaks, violence ern shore was drawn into a new revolu- and demonstrations kept happening. tion. Who would have thought ... Mary- Channel 13 covered the story as it land before Mississippi? unfolded despite the foot -dragging inter- WJZ's Eyewitness News was beginning ference of state officials. It took only a few to take shape, but needed a cattle -prod days for Channel 13 to piss off all the poke, the kind you stick into a bucking locals on the eastern shore, the Maryland horse's hindquarters when the gate opens. state police, and every politician who was Easton and Cambridge were a long way connected to the eastern shore. from Baltimore. News gathering in the Up the road a piece from Easton, Mary-

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 57 www.americanradiohistory.com land was the quaint, quiet town of Queen up from the river. The students, in battle Anne. It sat close to the Choptank River. dress of shorts and t- shirts, began their H. L. Menken called the land south of the march along the dusty road between the Choptank River "Transchoptankia." The rows of corn. They sang songs, chanted river separated people of reason from slogans and raised last night's hastily those who had none. Along Queen Anne's painted protest signs high above the tall paved main street were two gas stations, a corn tassels. post office, a bank and a restaurant that The dirt road had never gotten so much claimed to serve the best catfish on the attention. Around the last turn out of the eastern shore. A billboard on the small cornfield was the paved main street of movie theater announced Tammy, Tell Me Queen Anne. At this juncture, the protest- True starring Sandra Dee would have its ers suddenly stopped. The Maryland state first showing at 7:00 p.m. police stood in full battle dress. Two rows South of town, the main street turned of men stood across the road where the into a dirt road that wove through a corn dirt ended and the main street began. The field ending in front of a group of buildings front row of police held on to attack dogs near the river. "It's that colored teachers straining at their leashes. The second row college," a kid at the gas station told Chan- of troopers stood at the ready with fixed nel 13's camera crew. Our camera crew bayonets. had been alerted that something was Norm Vogel, Channel 13's cameraman, coming down in Queen Anne. More and had filmed the march by walking in front more blacks were arriving from the main- of the students and shooting backwards. land. They were getting organized and told Now, he found himself in between the Channel 13 what was going on if we asked police and the protesters. A great place to them. A lot better response than we take pictures . .. not a good place for received from the local government. survival. Norm dropped to his knees and started filming the barking dogs. Without any warning, the dogs were released. he black students from the teachers Norm was knocked flat on his back by one, college were not welcome in Queen another German shepherd leaped across Anne. They couldn't order the his body. He grabbed his wind -up Bell and catfish in the restaurant, they couldn't buy Howell and began filming the dogs attack- a ticket to see a movie, and couldn't even ing the front line of protesters. The dogs enter the beer joint north of town for knocked demonstrators off their feet. Their powerful jaws bit on arms and legs, Without any warning, trying to drag them down on the dirt road. The protesters panicked, some running the dogs were released. into the cornfield, others back down the road. Some tried to defend themselves carryout. How is a college student going to with their poster sticks. Everyone was relax or blow off steam? Protest seemed to screaming. Some dropped to their knees be a good answer. Help was coming in crying out to God. God wasn't listening on from more protest- experienced brethren. that day. They got ready. The dust from the road formed a red Bright morning sun penetrated three cloud around the students and dogs. The thickly leafed trees, then rose above their helmeted state troopers entered the fray, tallest branches ... its rays burning away using their rifle butts to inflict damage on the low fog that spent the night creeping heads and stomachs. After the violent

58 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com Channel 13's news ratings rose announcement after a grueling day of shooting demonstrations during the conflict...Television and the charred black beams stepped up a notch in its power where houses once stood. "If somebody torches a place after to communicate. midnight, forget it. I'm not gonna go out and shoot it." confrontation, the students freed them- "What ?" a reporter responded. "We're selves from the attack and retreated back in the middle of history here. What we along the dirt road to their college. The report here will be remembered forever." state police let them go. "A lesson will be "Yeah, well, sure," Tony responded. learned, I'll bet," one policeman said to "Just use the history part of last night's another, as they collected their canine burning building. They're all the same. assault troops and left the scene. Use last Monday's if you want. That was a Back in Queen Anne, the Channel 13 real burn -to -the- grounder. I need some reporter rushed to a phone booth to call sleep. Wake me, and I'll hit you in the balls Baltimore to report what he had seen, with my camera." what had happened. He was thumbing Threats had become commonplace on quarters into the phone when some local the eastern shore. residents knocked the phone booth over Back at WIZ, Allen Smith protected his with the kicking, screaming reporter face until he left for a higher- paying job in inside. Just doing your job was tough on Washington, DC. Jerry Turner had been the eastern shore. hired as a booth announcer. Suddenly, he became a news man and, by default. became the number -one anchorman for Amonth later, the authorities had Eyewitness News. "Best hire I ever made," finally gotten the idea that Channel Win Baker told everyone, after the ratings 13 was not going away. Other Balti- kept rising. What's the phrase? ... better more TV stations and one from Washing- lucky than ....? ton, DC were occasionally seen on the The unrest on the eastern shore became shore, doing quick reports and leaving. a national story and attracted black Channel 13 was the only game in town; activists. Nick Gregory and H. Rap Brown and at last the authorities began to share joined local activist Gloria Richardson. information and cooperate. WJZ's cover- The news reports vividly showed the age lasted over three months. The stories brutality of the state police and the dramatically affected the TV audience in national guard. Tremendous pressure was Baltimore, no matter whether racist, put on those who wielded riot clubs to redneck or someone who is appalled by treat civil disobedience with a kinder man's inhumanity to man. hand. Meanwhile, back at little Queen The camera crews and reporters Anne, the students at the college prepared changed their minds about the eastern to repeat their march down the dusty road. shore being a place to take the wife and All could almost smell something was kids for a vacation. Where's the pleasure in going to happen. It was too quiet. No state cheap motels with scallopini- thin walls? police were spotted until the marchers And, who can eat crab every day, every reached the edge of the town proper, day, anyway? Low -country cooking didn't where Queen Anne's volunteer fire depart- include franks and beans. ment truck rolled to the center of main Cameraman Tony Duphree made an street, blocking the path of the marchers.

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 59 www.americanradiohistory.com State police, in their familiar riot gear, because he survived. News director Mel backed up the fire truck. Bernstein had fired most of George's contemporaries and hired new people. George didn't feel great about the changes, he protesters kept marching, closing but knew Channel 13's news was getting the gap between them and the fire better. He just didn't feel appreciated. truck. Norm Vogel, Channel 13's George was a slight, handsome man. He experienced riot cameraman, ran to the possessed a square jaw that was becoming side of the street next to the marchers, the fashion for anchormen. The only phys- trying to capture close -ups and expres- ical, visual difference separating George sions. Suddenly, a flood descended on all from others was his wavy, almost curly, of them. The fire hoses sent their missiles brown hair. His hair seemed to be streaked of water against the marching front line, with shades of brown before hair stylists knocking them down and backwards. One knew what hair streaking was. stream caught cameraman Vogel and lifted Program manager Win Baker hated him off the ground. Norm swears he never George's wavy hair. Mel Bernstein told stopped shooting film with his wind -up George to flatten his hair, get some hair Bell and Howell. straightener or something. Being a good Months later, confrontation and negotia- soldier, George attempted to plaster his tion brought calm back to the ravaged east- waves down before he was seen on ern shore. Channel 13's camera crews and camera. He knew he was not popular with reporters left, most swearing never to set his new bosses, but was determined not to foot across the Bay bridge again. make a wave. For WJZ, the benefits were many. Chan- George finished the noon news, hair in nel 13's news ratings rose during the place, looking forward to the rest of the conflict. Jerry Turner became a recognized day and tomorrow off. He had worked personality. All of the Eyewitness News eleven straight days without a break. reporters gained recognition during this Before he could leave the building, George unfortunate time. All of us at the station was told, "Get some sleep and return at were rightfully proud WJZ had the guts to 5:00 p.m. And, by the way, your day off see it through. That year, WJZ won the tomorrow is cancelled." This was too national DuPont award for documentary, much! editorials, and continuing coverage of In recollection, George says of this what happened on the eastern shore. Tele- period: vision stepped up a notch in its power to communicate. Liberal, conservative, racist, I couldn't take it anymore, so I quit ... just Democrat or Republican all knew what quit. Righteous indignation took over. I was happened on the eastern shore that dumb not to read the signs earlier. Win summer was wrong. Baker was a son -ofa- bitch. He'd walk During the unrest on the eastern shore, through walls to get what he wanted. I quit. Channel 13's news department was The son -of a -bitch got what he wanted: I got stretched beyond reasonable limits. Equip- my hair back. ment and cars were breaking down. News personnel were working ten- and twelve - Righteous indignation doesn't always hour days. Most worked six days, some provide a figure ora job. I didn't plan my seven days a week. quitting very well.1 had no job and no George Bauman was the senior resume tape to pass around. Unreliablefree- reporter/anchor in the news department lancing was my only option.

60 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com Two months later, my problems started back- what is happening. Others stare in disbe- ing upon me. My daughter developed lief as the modern masked man walks past rheumaticfever and had to he hospitalized. I them carrying his bulging paper sack. had no insurance, my insignificant savings ROBBERIES HAVE BECOME AN were payingfor her hospital care. I was in a EPIDEMIC headlined The Baltimore Sun. box. Some banks were hosting repeat visits from the robber, now named by a clever A couple of days later, that son -of a -bitch TV reporter "The Paper Sack Man." Stand- Win Baker called me. "George," he said, "it's ing in line at your bank had taken on a time to come back to work." I couldn't believe whole new meaning. the son -of a -bitch called. `And, by the way Norm Vogel and Tony Duphree, two of George," Win continued, "stop messing with Channel 13's crack news -film cameramen, your hair." The son -ofa -bitch saved me. I stood in line inside the Baltimore National went back to WJZ and have been there 38 Bank on Falls Road. "Hold still," Norm years. demanded, while attempting to endorse his paycheck against Tony's back. "Is holdup one or two words?" Norm asked Branch banks in Baltimore were expe- Tony louder than necessary. "Either way, riencing serial bank robberies. The they'll get the idea," Tony responded. robberies were always on Fridays Police appeared from everywhere. They (payday) when customers stood in long had guessed this bank on this Friday could lines to cash or deposit their checks. The be the Paper Sack Man's next target. Tony dastardly felon waited in line with the and Norm were roughly escorted out of others to make a large withdrawal. When the bank and taken down town. WJZ TV's it became his turn, he shoved into the news crew waved their arms in protest. window a new, still creased paper sack The police thought they had nabbed the with a grease pencil message written on Paper Sack Man. Not exactly. And, not the flat brown paper. This is a holdup. Fill exactly the notoriety on TV and in the the bag with big bills. Three guns are newspapers Channel 13's news director aimed at your head. Mel Bernstein had in mind. While the frightened teller stuffs bills The flip side was that any publicity was into the paper sack, our robber pulls a silk good. Another segment of the TV audience stocking over his head. Most of the discovered or rediscovered Channel 13. customers standing in line have no clue to Eyewitness News was on a roll.

Production manager at WJZ Channel 13 in Baltimore at the time of this narrative, John Baker also served television time in Houston, Philadelphia, New York, Washington, DC and Detroit. He was among the originals who started Cable News Network. Currently residing in Atlanta, he has a book in progress describing 40 years in broadcasting.

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 61

www.americanradiohistory.com THE GOLDEN AGE

ITS RIGHT HERE. ITS RIGHT NOW. IT'S MUST SEE.

t .NBC

www.americanradiohistory.com Once There Were Three, Now There Are Seven

In the wake of the AOL Time Warner tidal wave, an expert examines the thorny issue of TV ownership as it has very recently evolved

By Douglas Gomery

January, ten years to the day 21st -century television surely looks differ- Time and Warner merged and ent. Through the 1970s, it was a world of similarly shook the world, Steve but three networks, plus a PBS station if Case, head of AOL, and Gerald we were lucky, and maybe an independent LastLevin, head of Time Warner, station with sports, re -runs, and old announced a truly blockbuster of deals. movies. Now it takes a whole page of The Better than any fact I know, the new New York Times to simply list what's on corporate title - AOL Time Warner - each day, and even that is not complete. reflected the recent ascendency of the There seem to be so many choices, and Internet, but it surely also seemed to with AOL taking over Time Warner lots reflect a new concept of ownership for the more owners, right? Well sort of... television industry. Less than two weeks Leaving aside home video and pay -TV, into the new millennium, AOL bet its which I believe are simply extensions of considerable corporate wealth on some- Hollywood's movie world, only seven thing we might call Internet -TV by buying corporations dominate a world of televi- Time Warner. sion divided into three parts: broadcasting, For those of us old enough, the world of cable and satellite -to -home delivery (DBS).

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 63 www.americanradiohistory.com The AOL merger with Time Warner does used to be that the networks only not change that. produced news and sports. Now their Thus the seeming plethora of choices Hollywood parents can create all forms of collapse to seven media conglomerates. programming. The ability to produce the But to the customer, she or he in nearly all show, then distribute by your own cases has but a single franchised cable network, and then to much of the nation company to choose, and as DirecTV takes show it on your owned and operated over DBS, one alternative in the satellite station has become the defining force of market. broadcast television. As a consequence, while we no longer So today's networks have greater have a TV world of three network owners, economic clout than TV networks of the we surely do not have the dozens of past. The Hollywood connection helps companies competing promised first five, and while NBC stands studio -less, its during the 1970s cable revolution, and partnership with Microsoft allies it with lately in the DBS revolution. the biggest company in the nation. (Of course, NBC's parent, General Electric, is the second -biggest company in the nation.) For broadcast TV, networks still domi- With these deep pockets, a direct tie to nate. Only now there are five owners: Hollywood seems unnecessary. We shall Disney's ABC, Viacom's CBS and see as AOL has added equally sized deep United Paramount Network, AOL Time pockets to the executives of The WB. Warner's The WB, News Corporation's Fox During the middle 1980s a new set of and General Electric's NBC. These six - owners moved into broadcast TV General all parts of vast corporations - define Electric grabbed NBC while simultane- what most of us watch most of the time. ously Australian Rupert Murdoch rede- Broadcast TV reaches millions and fined the television- Hollywood relation- millions of households. while cable ship by first buying a studio - Twentieth Century Fox - then AOL purchased Time Warner and purchasing Metromedia promised stations (for his owned and some sort of Internet operated group), and broadcast -television synergy. But launching Fox. Murdoch was such a that will not come any time soon. success during the early 1990s that Viacom network rivals often reach viewers best followed his lead and fashioned its United measured in the hundreds of thousands. Paramount Network (supplied by its Para- The stations themselves function simply mount studio), and Time Warner followed as spigots, drawing their programming with The WB network. Disney under- from these networks plus some syndicated scored the importance of this new broad- fare (such as Oprah or Judge Judy), and cast network economics when in 1995 it locally only produce news broadcasts. acquired ABC for what then seemed a stag- Since the middle 1980s, all the familiar gering $17 billion. networks have new owners. Enter Holly- Two significant changes occurred since wood. All save NBC are tied directly to a then. In 1999, Viacom purchased CBS, Hollywood studio. Thus broadcast televi- thus owning two broadcast networks. And sion has become a classic case of what it looks as if the FCC - despite rules economists call vertical integration. It prohibiting a single company from owning

64 TELEVISION QUARTERLY

www.americanradiohistory.com two networks - will make an exception have a new player, unconnected to Holly- for Viacom. wood. In deals worth an estimated $120 Then as the 21st century commenced billion, AT &T acquired cable franchises AOL purchased Time Warner and for about third of all customers. promised some sort of Internet broadcast - Forget AT &T as a long- distance television synergy. But that will not come company: CEO Michael Armstrong has bet any time soon. the future on cable, based on two princi- ples. He loves the fact that cable is a legal monopoly, reminding him of the old These five giant corporations control phone company. Secondly, AT &T seeks to broadcast TV. On the margins public use these broadband cable wires to offer television struggles along despite not only television but also the Internet. If threats of elimination. PBS used to be the this two -part strategy works will be a lone "quality" alternative to the broadcast defining question of how cable TV is networks, but now it has rivals from A &E owned and operated through the next to C -SPAN. Indeed, in terms of audience decade. AT &T adds a sixth company to the size, it is best to think of public television list of giants dominating television. as a cable -like network, one with audience Following AT &T - at about half its size shares measured in two or three ratings points. The future of In the 1970s there were three government -owned television would seem secure, but perpetu- choices; now the single local ally underfunded - surely as cable provider chooses which compared to the monies avail- able to the five billion -dollar channels we can watch. broadcast corporate rivals. Yet the distinction of all of us watching broadcast TV most of the time in terms of cable customers - is AOL seems to be disappearing. As the 20th Time Warner. Indeed AOL Time Warner century ended, cable television was where figures that it can follow AT &T's two -part most Americans watched most television. strategy: (1) produce programming from About two -thirds of us paid from $30-$50 its Hollywood studio to give it an extra a month to our local cable company, with edge; (2) offer the Internet as well. Here rarely a second cable provider from which we shall see if AOL's presence makes a to choose. difference. Here the world of cable is worse that the three- network world of the 1970s. Then there were three choices; now the single The age of small, locally owned cable local cable provider chooses which chan- companies is over. There still exist a nels we can watch. Few systems carry all few holdouts, mostly in rural Amer- of those channels listed in The New York ica, but they should be acquired before the Times. And there are dozens the Times decade is out. In the 1970s who would does not list. The cable company chooses; have imagined that the then -small cable the consumer gets no vote. system operators would be consolidated The news about cable -franchise owner- before the decade was out? But they ship in the late 1990s - since the should and will disappear as cable- system passage of the 1996 Telecommunications ownership continues a process of consoli- Act - has been consolidation. Here we dation begun with the freedom provided

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 65 www.americanradiohistory.com by the 1996 Telecommunications Act. change as the 21st century unfolds. But what about all those cable Again, NBC offers a different sort of networks? The BETs, the TNNs, the cable network strategy. Microsoft and MTVs? Well-surprise!- most are owned General Electric have gone the way of in part (or completely) by one of the major news radio. That is, their MSNBC and cable companies, or one of the parents of CNBC may not be watched by millions of the broadcast networks. The cable powers viewers, but their audiences are have high - led by AT &T and AOL Time Warner - incomes, and so are valued by advertisers. take the tack that owning the franchises Make money with niche cablecasting. guarantees their networks favorable treat- Who cares if the audiences are measured ment. Thus we ought not be surprised to - on average - at less than one million learn from the National Cable Television households? Association's own list of the "Top 20 Cable Networks," that AT &T - through its corporate partner Liberty Media - Cable networks add no dominant new controls the Discovery Channel, The owners to the list of TV power- Learning Channel, BET and others, while houses. As a consortium, media AOL Time Warner controls TBS, the corporations already noted above finance network piped into the most cable homes, C -SPAN. Indeed, only one of the Top 20 plus CNN, the Cartoon network and both cable networks can be called independent CNN services. - Landmark's The Weather Channel out Not all cable networks, however, are of Norfolk, Virginia. It is more efficient to controlled by these two vertically inte- think of the dozens of cable networks as grated giants. An alternative tactic reasons simply outlets for the Hollywood- broad- that if one controls the top programming cast TV- AT &T -AOL axis discussed above. fans desire to see, viewers will find those To think of a separate "film," "broad- channels that serve it, and whoever is the cast TV" and "cable TV" industries no longer makes sense from an The 1990s introduced a whole ownership perspective. They all new means of gaining own sizable broadcast and cable access television properties. I note to television -DBS. that they also dominate pay -TV (Viacom's Showtime and the Movie Channel), and Time local cable operator will run it. Disney, Warner's HBO and Cinemax), as well as Fox, Viacom and NBC executives reason it the creation and distribution of movies is not necessary to spend billions of on rented and sold video (Viacom's Block- dollars to acquire and /or build a system of buster defines that sector). cable franchises to make money owning But the 1990s introduced a whole new and operating a cable network. means of gaining access to television - In particular, Disney owns the ESPN DBS -and with it the hope that new family, Fox has FX, Fox News, and its owners would add to the "Big Six" plethora of sports networks, and Viacom discussed above. Indeed, many new controls MTV, VH -1, TNN, TV Land, and entrants flooded in; one in ten of us signed Nickelodeon. Here the surprise is how up so we would not have to be limited to little, so far, their Hollywood divisions the 50 channels on the average cable have contributed to these cable networks system, but could choose from 200 to original programming. Look for that to 300 channels. DBS pioneers took direct

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www.americanradiohistory.com aim at TV's junkies. and TV series on cable than ever before. Broadcasters did not cooperate. Until But within each genre of programming, the final month of 1999, one could not the choices will be limited. So for news, get one's local TV stations though DBS, for around- the -clock coverage of breaking but in the most significant TV related legis- stories and regular summaries of major lation, the Congress removed this restric- news, for example, we can pay for and tion, and DBS will be able to compete watch CNN, MSNBC and Fox News - "equally" with cable as the twenty first depending on which services our cable century begins. company has contracted with. But that Yet by the time the law was changed, in will be it; there will be no new entrants, November 1999, the world of DBS and so while choices have expanded, they competitors had be winnowed to a reality will also be constrained. of one dominant player. DirecTV owned In a world of one local cable company by Hughes Electronics, a division of and one DBS provider, the seven are best General Motors, possessed more than 90 imagined sitting at a poker game. They percent of the market, with tiny EchoStar compete among themselves, and try - and its DISH Network struggling to stay in within the rules- to win ratings. But they business. So while DBS has promised to be also have a vested interest in keeping more able to offer up competitors to cable, by players from the game. They will seek to 1999 it was offering up but one dominant protect their monopolies. company. Looking back, it does not seem More alliances will be formed as those surprising that a division of a company at the game keep barriers to competition almost the size of Microsoft or General high. In the extreme cases, an AOL Time Electric would survive. Warner cable system will promote AOL DirecTV thus completes the list of the Time Warner-owned channels and try to seven dominant TV companies. In nearly keep all the revenues in- house. AOL all markets across the United States it simply added Internet possibilities to alone is positioned as an alternative to the cross promotion. Yet AOL Time Warner monopoly cable company. DirecTV will surely permit movies from other pushed hard for the new law enabling it to studios so that when it needs cooperation offer local stations. Now, will cable from another member of the dominant switch? Will DBS replace cable as the seven, it can obtain the needed channel choice for those willing to pay ?. slot or some other favor. What to make of these trends and ques- tions about the future? How will seven dominant companies - General Electric, So in the end, are we better off in terms Viacom, Disney, News Corporation's Fox, of TV ownership? The complaints of AOL Time Warner, AT &T and DirecTV - the domination by NBC, CBS and treat their viewers? ABC seem far off, indeed something strange to young folks. ( "Really? That's all you could watch ? ") Cruising TV will Fors there will be no return to a world remain a way of life for those Americans of simply three broadcast networks who can afford the money and time to - except for the poorest among us. watch TV day and night. There will be a The world of TV ownership changed limited set of choices of news channels, for during the final quarter of the 20th example. The complaint of "why does century, Hollywood was the big winner, there really seem to be nothing on televi- and we should expect to see more movies sion?" will grow worse as the seven seek

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www.americanradiohistory.com to squeeze maximum profits from their the promised world of 500 channels. We new economic organization. remain a long way from Internet TV, as There is no new TV technology on the AOL Time Warner will roll out new horizon to alter the domination of this choices, but no one is sure if the audience seven (surely not HDTV). The monopoly is there to make them profitable. The problem of cable vs. DBS will define the bottom line is simply this: we had three very base of future ownership in the TV companies in charge a quarter- century industry. We will remain a long way from ago, and now we have seven.

Douglas Gomery is professor in the College of Journalism at the University of Maryland and the author of a dozen books on the economics and history of the mass media. His column, "The Economics of Television," is a regular feature of the American Journalism Review. This article is adapted from his chapter on the television industry in his and Benjamin Compaine's book Who Owns the Medial, just published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates (Mahwah, NJ).

68 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com TV's Distorted and Missing Images of Women and the Elderly

Two studies highlight how the elderly and women in newscasts are shortchanged in prime time

By Bert R. Briller

rnior citizens and women do not Studies Center. Both panels found the ;,et a fair shake on television. We basis of bias in economic factors-and in know that in a general way, but misperceptions of economic factors. They new studies of program content pointed to anomalies and raised several document the extent and specifics salient, sometimes controversial issues. of the discrimination, with results Let's start with the question of age bias. discussed at two recent forums at New In the forum "The Missing Image: Older York's Newseum. People in the Media," Robert Prisuta, asso- How to tackle those shortcomings was ciate research director of the American explored by experts in panels moderated Association of Retired Persons, quantified by Marlene Sanders, broadcast journalist a disturbing contradiction. Although 13 and resident professional of the Media percent of the US population is 65 years

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 69 www.americanradiohistory.com or older, only about 2 percent of the char- "We have to get people when they're acters in prime -time television are in that young, to buy their first Chevrolet. Then, age group. The data was developed under when they get older, they buy a Buick, and the direction of Temple University Prof. hopefully they eventually buy a Cadillac, George Gerbner, who has been statistically and we've got them for life. That's why we surveying TV program content for more advertise to the young." Poltrack coun- than two decades. tered by saying that the experience of the There is also a strong gender disparity, Lexus car explodes this concept. Most Prisuta reported. Although women repre- Lexus owners, he said, are over SO years sent 60 per cent of the older population, old. "Lexus is a car that didn't exist four they account for only one -third of the years ago," he stressed. "So how did these older characters in prime time. Prisuta older people come to buy it; did they think called this a "double whammy" against they were buying a Cadillac?" women, not only are there fewer of them He added that the age bracket with the on the screen because of their gender but least amount of brand switching actually also because of their age. "So they truly is the 18- to -34- year -olds, "because are virtually invisible in prime -time network television," he declared. "The myth that the elderly Sanders asked David Poltrack, veteran researcher at CBS- tradi- don't try new products...is tionally the network with the oldest -skewed audience -why gradually wearing away." having the most older viewers was considered a detriment. Poltrack replied they've just discovered their first brand. that advertising -media activity is largely And, by the way, their brand of detergent based on age -and in 1998 CBS did no is the one that Mom told them to buy. The business where a program's large number myth that the elderly don't try new prod- of viewers over age 55 would be an attrac- ucts persists, but I think it is gradually tion to sponsors. wearing away, because the economics are wearing it away." In the revival of interest in Frank Sina- hat did not mean that advertisers tra and Fifties and Sixties music Poltrack give no value to the older audience. sees inspiration for advertisers to change Rather, many advertisers explain their marketing strategy and look to the their reluctance to direct commercials to older generation. "Particularly," he says, the elderly by citing two myths: first, that "now that the baby boomers, who have seniors are "set in their ways" of brands been courted since they were teenagers, they buy. Secondly, these advertisers are moving into that category." contend that "older people watch more Poltrack reviewed the circumstances of television and we'll get them by default; the cancellation of the highly successful they'll have to watch the programs for series, Murder She Wrote, because of its younger people anyway." older -age appeal. "The decision was made On the myth that the elderly are stick - by certain people at CBS that we couldn't in- the -muds who keep buying their effectively sell the show, despite the fact favorite brands forever, Poltrack recalled that it had one of the most upper socioeco- meeting with a General Motors executive nomic audiences. Moreover, it had one of who rationalized why the company the most highly educated audiences in doesn't direct advertising to older people: television. The two very positive qualities

70 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com of Murder were basically cancelled out by scores. She said that there are marketers the 'negative' trait of an older audience." who are geniuses at transgenerational After Murder was dropped , two come- branding. An example, she cited, is The dies were substituted in its Sunday 8 PM Gap, where everybody from babies to hour. The result: the networks collectively grandparents can go in and buy some- -not just CBS, but as a group including thing. Benetton is successful in bringing ABC and NBC - lost 17 percent of their races and nations together. "New global S0 -plus audience on Sunday evening. marketing strategy calls for a new imagery Media -watchers were perplexed: "Where that adapts to the fluidity of the culture did all these people go ?" The myth that and the fact there aren't rigid definitions older viewers "just watch television by and lines any more," Lippert suggests. default" began to crack. The AARP's Prisuta noted that enter- tainment programs distort the realities of older people. "If you look at the resolution The displaced older viewers were not of outcomes in dramatic fictional program- in any one specific place. They ming," he observed, "usually an unsuc- moved to watch old movies on TNT, cessful or ambivalent resolution is associ- they caught the news on CNN, they were ated with older people. In a nutshell, older all over the dial, Poltrack recounts. The characters don't come across as effective two comedies failed. Two years later, when in problem solving, in dealing with issues, CBS replaced them with Touched by an as do younger characters. And this is espe- Angel, the whole 17 percent came back. cially true with older women." The lesson, Poltrack prophesizes, is that if Older men are shown in a different the networks continue a narrow, single social context than older women, he focus where they are all targeting the same reported. Male characters aren't necessar- audience, the majority of viewers will go ily associated with a family or with a somewhere else. spouse. By contrast, female characters are Poltrack makes another point, ironically. and they are family motivated. As a result, Although the program Dawson's Creek viewers are not only seeing fewer older was far down on Nielsen's list, in 100th place in terms of total audi- They don't see effective, ence, it was the number 1 show attractive older characters. with teenage girls. As a conse quence, Dawson got twice as much money for a unit of advertising as did people on their sets, but those they do see Touched by an Angel, which was the fifth - are not necessarily reflecting the real lives highest -rated show on network television - of the elderly. And especially, they don't and had about ten times Dawson's audi- see effective, attractive older characters. ence. Sanders quoted Sybil Shepard, the Barbara Lippert, ad mavin for Ad week, former CBS sitcom star, at age 49 saying, cautions that to be perceived as an old "Think about it. In one year Murphy product or medium is the death knell. Brown, Ellen, Roseanne and Sybil all went Magazines with a name indicating an older off the air. They took all the women in readership have failed. For example, read- their 40s off TV. When you're a woman in ers didn't want to be seen with a magazine your 40s, where are you represented in like Fifty Plus. People don't want to be this culture ?" grouped, they want to think they are Asked about the plethora of programs unique, an individual, Lippert under- pitched to 18- year -old males, Poltrack

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 71 www.americanradiohistory.com said, "The whole creative community is women speaking as "experts" in the busi- oriented to the New. It's not necessarily ness- economics reports than was the case the young. It's the New. But the New is ten years ago. The percentage increased equated with the Young." from 12 percent in 1988 -89 to 18 Poltrack cited material from the percent in 98 -99. But women are still National Council of Families in Television, seen and quoted far less than men. which reported a disturbing influence. Between the ages of nine and 14, as a Andrew Tyndall, whose ADT research normal physiological development, a company has been monitoring the nightly female will gain 40 pounds while a male newscasts since 1987, noted sharp gender will gain about 60 -80 pounds. He added, differences in coverage of the economy. "Yet people are telling the boy, Great, He divides economic and business news you're getting bigger, while people are into eight areas -five of which depict "the telling the girl, You're getting heavy, you're commanding heights of the economy" and getting fat." three dealing with "the everyday Progress is starting to be made in chang- economic life of ordinary Americans at ing attitudes toward gender, he believes, home and in the workplace." but it's probably going to be another generation that realizes this, not ours, The first five areas, which deal with unfortunately. power, Tyndall found can be called the Poltrack related that he asks students in Male Preserve, and include: a college media course he teaches to describe people in their 50s. The descrip- Financial markets (stocks, bonds, interest tions they give are of oldsters, people in rates, currencies, etc.) their 70s. Then he asks the students, do Banking (Federal Reserve, bank regula- those descriptions fit your parents who are tion, insurance, etc.) in their 50s? And the students say, "No, Fiscal policy (federal budget, taxes, no." Their fuddy -duddy characterizations Social Security, etc.) actually had described not their parents, Trade (imports, exports, foreign competi- but their grandparents tion, globalization, etc.) He concluded that CBS has regained its Business (corporate profits, takeovers, number 1 position by recognizing the industrial sectors, etc.) importance of programming to older view- Macro economy (expansion, recession, ers as a constituency. "A hit show on CBS inflation, consumption, etc.) starts old and gets younger. A hit show on Fox starts young and gets older. You'll The three areas which deal with people continue to see programming that will on the lower rungs of the economic ladder, reach the older viewer ... it's part of our and which Tyndall classifies as the strategy," Poltrack declared. Woman's Sphere, arc: Covering the Economy Labor (unemployment, job market, wages, work conditions, etc.) he Media Studies Center's eleventh Family finance (retailing, retirement annual survey of Men, Women and planning, housing, etc.) Media focussed on the coverage of Poverty (welfare, minimum wage, home- the U.S. economy on the three networks' lessness, etc.) evening news reports. It found some progress has been made in terms of more Although these three topics are desig-

72 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com nated the Woman's Sphere, the stories Patience: The exuberance of Wall were not covered most of the time by Street's bull market will fade and attention women. Moreover, the experts selected for to the male -dominated financial markets soundbites were still mostly male. In a will inevitably shrink. significant finding, Tyndall reports, "The Hiring: As the networks continue to hire world of high finance receives six times as more women journalists, they will inter- much coverage as the world of the poor." view more women and the number of female sound bites will increase. Awareness of Two Approaches: The way The networks have made welcome economic stories are covered in the changes in their reporting of the Women's Sphere is radically different from economy during the past ten years, treatment of reports in the Male Preserve. according to Tyndall's research. Notably, Activists should learn the differences and they have expanded their horizons outside tailor their efforts accordingly. the Beltway. They are giving more airtime Rolodex: The roster of experts queried on to women reporters. And more sound - economic news should expand. There bites are coming from female experts. But should be an expanding proportion of these advances, Tyndall finds, are over- female experts who are routinely shadowed by a fourth, dramatic change consulted in the Woman's Sphere. "which has ensured that, taken as a whole, Economic Power: When covering stories economic coverage remains a man's in the Male Preserve, it would be inaccu- world." rate, and therefore shoddy journalism, to That factor is heavy coverage of the feature women as if they held equal power financial markets, in particular the bull with men in the economy, Tyndall argues. market in stocks, since Wall Street is Boy's On the other hand, coverage of the Male Town. High finance got three times as Preserve could expand to include more many reports as ten years ago. Market about how the policies and decisions of reports alone account for fully one third of the "The world of high finance receives Economy beat, and as a bastion of the Male six times as much coverage as the Preserve it features very world of the poor." few women. Tyndall's data points up an imbalance in network business cover- the economically powerful affect average age. In the 1998 -99 season,for example, Americans - and quoting more "real there were 148 reports on the financial people" (as opposed to politicians, govern- markets, more than the other five areas of ment officials and experts) would make the "male preserve" combined (144). It women more visible. seems that Brokaw, Jennings and Rather's Summing up the media report on the editors are obsessed with the numbers but economy, Robert H. Giles, executive direc- neglecting the deeper forces shaping the tor of the Media Studies Center, economy. concluded, "While it is encouraging to How television's coverage of the econ- hear news of progress, the coverage of omy might change over time to represent women's contributions to the economy is the sexes more equally was explored by still far from adequate. The key to contin- Tyndall. He made suggestions under five ued progress is assigning more women to headings: cover the story of the economy and

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 73 www.americanradiohistory.com encouraging journalists to seek more cally that there would only be more articles women sources for their business stories." coming from female sources when the Getting a more representative staff and daily began featuring "news about tea more balanced coverage will probably parties" on Page One. In protest over his require methods of consciousness- raising insensitivity, the next day most women on and protest. During the Media Studies the staff wore tea bags in their buttonholes. forum it was recalled that some women on Solidarity even of the tea -bag genre, can the New York Times told the editor that the make a point. And tea parties may trigger front page included no stories whose bigger events - as Boston history source was a woman. He replied sarcasti- reminds us.

Bert Briller has contributed articles on media to publications including Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia and Scribners Encyclopedia of American Lives. He was executive editor of the Television Information Office, a vice -president of ABC -TV and a reporter /critic for Variety.

74 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com HBO Movies: Has Risk- Taking Made the Cable Giant the "Auteur" of the New Century?

By Al Auster

"'l'he American Cinema is a classical wished to do some further research you art, but why not then admire in it might find out that HBO has won nine what is most admirable, i.e., not Academy Awards for best documentaries only the talent of this or that film- in the last 15 years, and 26 Emmys for maker but the genius of the system." prime time television programs (including André Bazin one for last year's best made -for-tv movie, A Lesson Before Dying). And casual glance at your local newspaper, or perhaps TV trip to any local video store Guide, would alert you to the tremendous might include a number of big critical acclaim for such recent HBO series suprises. The biggest of these is as The Sopranos, Oz, Sex in the City, Arliss, still the fact that the recently and the now terminated but highly eleased video you've been regarded sitcom, The Larry Sanders Show. wanting to see is actually available. At the Perhaps it's time finally to acknowledge same time, a glance along the shelves in what seems to be among the best -kept the vain search for that coveted video secrets of the television industry: that might lead you to notice how many titles HBO is the auteur studio of the nineties. there are formerly made -for -tv movies. As originally coined by French critics in Upon closer inspection you might even the fifties, the concept of "auteur" notice that many of these films were anointed the director as the artist primar- produced by Home Box Office, the ily responsible for the art of the cinema. premium cable service. Indeed if you However, in television, where a different

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 75 www.americanradiohistory.com makes them so unique in contemporary television. HBO has come a long way from the days when it programmed old movies and polka contests, and so have made -for -tv movies. When NBC produced its first made -for -tv movie, Fame is the Name of the Game, back in 1966, it was in response to the slacken- ing stream of new Holly- wood features available for scheduling. By the eight- ies, with some truly classic tv movies (Brian's Song, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman) and even a few future auteur directors like Steven Spielberg (Duel), who earned their stripes directing them, the made -for -tv movie had come of age. True to the pattern set by the networks, HBO turned to producing origi- nal films when the stream of new theatrically released films, which were James Gamer ana Jonathan Pryce: Barbarians at the Gate the backbone of its sched- ule, dried up in the eight- set of circumstances exist, it has been ies. That transition was not taken without most frequently applied to the producer. some risk, since HBO had made its reputa- Thus, HBO is to the nineties what MTM tion by providing previously released and Tandem (Norman Lear) productions theatrical films to its subscribers virtually were for the seventies, and Lorimar and within six months of their release date. Aaron Spelling productions were to the And now here it was scheduling films that eighties - the premier producer of innov- hadn't had the benefit of a studio ad ative television. campaign, word-of- mouth publicity , press It would seem, then, as is the case in reviews or even live audiences of movie discussing any auteur's work, that it's goers. necessary to point out the factors that To put it mildly, HBO's first made -for -tv make HBO so distinctive. To this end, I movies played it relatively safe. The roster screened a selection of HBO made -for -tv for 1983, the first year HBO produced movies produced between 1983 to original films, reads something like Billy 1999,attempting to determine what Wilder's waxworks scene in Sunset Boule-

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www.americanradiohistory.com yard, populated by a host of previously about someone most Americans probably great but over the hill stars such as James hadn't ever heard of. Stewart, Bette Davis, and Elizabeth Taylor. A couple of seasons later another sign that HBO films weren't going to offer the usual run -of- the -mill features, was their

The sole exception to that was the first decision to produce a biopic on Edward R. made -for -tv movie of that year, The Murrow. This was triply risky. For one Terry Fox Story. That film provided a thing, there was the fact that even before hint of things to come for HBO films. his death Murrow was conceived of as the Terry Fox was an athletic Vancouver boy patron saint of broadcast journalism. who had had a leg amputated because of Coupled with that was television's reluc- bone cancer and then became something tance ever to take a serious or critical look of a Canadian national hero when he at its own history (no network, including attempted a cross -Canada marathon to CBS, had ever even attempted to do a raise money for the Canadian cancer soci- Murrow biopic).Potentially even more ety. This could easily have degenerated into a tear - jerking "how sweet are the uses of adversity" film. What saved it from that fate, and was suggestive of what the future might hold, is the fact that Terry Fox (Eric Fryer) was a jerk. Not only does Fox continually dump all over his best friend and his brother, who voluntarily accompanied him on the marathon, he also does his best to alienate his girl- friend, who has stuck with him through thick and thin, and when the cancer society sends an advance man (Robert Duvall) to help him with the public- ity for his run, he barely tolerates him. Adding a bit of authenticity to the film was also the fact that Eric Fryer, who played Fox, was a m both an amputee and Canadian. Certainly, Fox ç as a cranky and unlikable cancer victim was a depar- ture, but what was also m unusual was telling a story Ving Rhames: Don King: Only in a America

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 77 www.americanradiohistory.com troublesome were former Murrow's and Don Hewitt rushed to Stanton's colleagues such as William S. Paley, Dr. defense, protesting that the movie was Frank Stanton and Fred Friendly, who both inaccurate and unfair. were still around at the time of the produc- None of these early made -for -tv movies tion, and were proven veterans at protect- are particularly memorable as works of art. ing the Murrow legend as well as their own Nor are any great claims being made for reputations. Suffice it to say that HBO's them. But taken together they present the Murrow (1986) was a way of tweaking the image of a creative apprenticeship that was networks at the same time as it compelled growing increasingly aware of its them to take notice of HBO films. strengths- first and foremost being how to use cable's natural advantages over the networks. Most important of all of these But the networks needn't have was HBO's lack of advertisers, which worried. Murrow was your basic allowed HBO to tackle almost any subject hagiography, albeit hagiography without having to fear advertiser interfer- with a slight difference, the major one ence. Aesthetically, the absence of being that the film had sufficient faith in commercials also had the advantage of its hero's integrity to include even some of allowing for the omissions of artificial the less than noble moments of his career. script crises and cliff-hangers every eight 1 As a result it didn't hesitate to include minutes or so to keep the audiences hands Murrow's (Daniel J. Travanti) firing of his away from the dreaded remote, and thus oldest friend and collaborator, Bill Shirer allowing for a theatrical feel to the films. (David Suchet), when Shirer claimed that Finally, HBO films could also freely use he was being purged for his too liberal nudity, adult language and violence in sentiments about the Cold War, and ways that television hadn't ever seen Murrow argued that work had become before. shoddy. Of course it doesn't help Shirer's A number of these qualities are on image that he's depicted as a something of display in what proved to be HBO's 1991 a scold. breakthrough made -for -tv movie, The Similarly, the film allowed a bit of Josephine Baker Story. This biopic traced complexity to creep into the depiction of the career of the black washerwoman's such traditional Murrow- legend villains as daughter from St. Louis, Mo. who danced William S. Paley. Far from being portrayed her way to international fame wearing as just another plutocratic waffler and fair - nothing but a bunch of bananas. Despite weather friend, Paley (Dabney Coleman) her near universal acclaim, as a black truly admires Murrow, but is also acutely women Baker suffered her share of racist conscious of the need to deal with his indignities, especially whenever she stockholders and, as he puts it, the "real returned to the U.S. Thus, at the very world." Not so fair was the portrait of Dr. moment Broadway critics were savaging Frank Stanton (John McMartin), who was her starring performance in The Ziegfeld depicted as Murrow's "evil twin ": an icy Follies of 1936, the posh hotel where she numbers cruncher, who even at the was staying was forcing her to enter the moment of Murrow's greatest triumph premises through the kitchen. Then in the following See it Now's McCarthy show, fifties, when she was refused service at the reminds Murrow that 38 percent of Amer- Stork Club, she got into a bitter battle with icans think he's a communist. It's no gossip columnist Walter Winchell, which wonder that CBS stalwarts such as Dan resulted in her subsequent blacklisting as Rather, Walter Cronkite, Richard Salant a communist.

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www.americanradiohistory.com Along the way there were moments of real bravery and eccentric generosity: Baker's participation in the French resistance, her groundbreaking World War II refusal to do any USO shows unless her audiences were integrated and her multitude of adopted multi -racial chil- dren, nicknamed the "rain- bow tribe." Needless to say, what prevents the films from falling hope- lessly into mere historical tableau is the erotic charge that the film delivers in its full frontal nudity re- creation of some of her famous numbers, espe- cially her Danse Sauvage. Indeed the audience got to see a lot more of actress Lynn Whitfield, who won an Emmy for her perfor- mance, than they ever did in such network made -for- tv movies as HeartBeat and The Women of Brewster Place. Angelina Jolie: Gia The Murrow and Josephine Baker movies are just one of the Mandela. genres that HBO films have made its own. Not so the HBO biopic of the life of Indeed the quantity and quality of the President Harry S.Truman. Produced in biopics that stream from HBO would have 1995 and based on a 1992 Pulitzer Prize even made Jack Warner and Darryl winning biography by David McCullough, F.Zanuck envious. Some in retrospect, the movie won the 1995 Emmy award for such as the 1987 made - for -tv movie best original movie. It was especially Mandela, might make HBO execs wince, refreshing and compelling, in our era of since among other things it celebrated the political spin, triangulation and soft melancholy love affair of Nelson (Danny money to see the career of a Glover) and Winnie Mandela.(Alfre Wood- politician(portrayed by Gary Sinise), ward); a tale that would have to be consid- whose decision -making relied on nothing erably altered today in view of the revela- more statistically sophisticated than his tions of infidelity and charges of kidnap- own sense of right and wrong, and who ping that currently plague the ex -Mrs. almost had his 1948 presidential

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www.americanradiohistory.com whistlestop campaign derailed by a lack of succeed in avoiding this flaw, their strategy funds. A truly priceless moment in the for maintaining their productions legiti- film, and one that strikes just the right macy was to produce just as many films note of contrast with today's political about sinners as they did about saints. world, was Bess Truman's (Diana Scarwid) Thus, HBO's list of biopics also include a initial press conference as first lady. In it rogues gallery which ranged from the prac- Mrs.Truman, who was notorious for her tically demonic Stalin (1992), to the hatred of Washington, DC, answered ques- merely villainous Gotti (1996) and tions in monosyllables, and when asked Lansky (1998), to the morally ambiguous how often she intended to hold press Don King: Only in America (1998), and conferences, announced that this was her Winchell (1998). last one. The tactic with any of these evil charac- Of course, the way to undo the credibil- ters, as Darryl E Zanuck once so piquantly ity of any biopic is excessive reverence. put it, was to maintain "rooting interest." And while HBO biopics did not always In the case of Stalin (Robert Duvall) it was hard to make an audience identify with someone whose happiest moments were spent consigning millions to the gulag. HBO's solution HBO was to portray him as a charac- ter whose insatiable ambi- tion made him a dysfunc- tional husband and father: a tyrant who not only spent too much time at the office in paranoid plotting, but a man who hated his own father, ignored his first wife and child. alien- ated his political mentor Lenin (Maximilian Schell), drove his much beloved second wife to suicide, and so alienated his adored daughter, that she took off for the west the first chance she got. Making Stalin into the workaholic CEO of communism may not have been HBO biopics finest hour, but with 1998's Don King: Only in America they hit their stride creating the image of a world -class Laurence Fishbume and Alfre Wood Miss Evers' Boys entertaining rogue. Stage

80 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com managing the narrative of his own life, Eunice Evers (Alfre Woodward) started out King (Ving Rhames) pulls no punches in enthusiastically assisting in the study of the tale of his rise from Mafia leg breaker the effect of syphilis on a group of black to boxing's king of the hill. In this blemish men, and then when government funding filled story, wherein no friend is left unbe- gave out collaborated in the withholding of trayed and no boxer unexploited, there treatment to these men, so that the also lurks the intriguing and seriously researchers could trace whether the interesting theme of a black man who used disease ran the same course in black men his blackness to gain control of a profes- as it did in white. sional sports empire where blacks make up The equally compelling subtext of the a proponderance of the athletes (unlike film was the lengths to which black other sports such as baseball, football and middle -class professionals were forced to basketball, where whites are still in go to puncture myths of racial inferiority control). In the process, King is never in the of south of the thirties and forties. anything less than lethally charming, Indeed Evers and her boss, the committed whether it is initiating a black preacher and brilliant black physician, Dr.Brodus and his wife into the joys of obscenity, or (Joe Morton), while never wavering in the conning Zairean dictator General Mobuto love and support for the infected men, into agreeing to stage the Ali- Foreman took comfort in the fact that they were bout in Africa. doing this terrible deed for the greater good of their race. They still felt proud of their activities 40 years later, when the The epic of the life of an outrageous study came to light and caused a national black confidence man straddles the furor, culminating in congressional hear- gap between HBO's penchant for ings, amidst charges which compared their biopics and their production of quality work to Nazi medical experiments. films with themes devoted to African - Despite bearing some resemblance to a American history and personalties. "ripped from today's headlines" story, Already mentioned have been Josephine Miss Evers' Boys, is too much a tale of Baker and Don King. Add to that list Mike history. character and morality to be Tyson and Dorothy Dandridge, in addition considered in the same breath as that to the non- American but no less of a black genre with its preference for extravagant hero, Nelson Mandela. Even more incident over character. This isn't meant to compelling, however, is HBO's roster of imply that HBO films never attempted that films that have dealt with the portions of stormy and crisis -laden genre. However, black history that have for the most part what sets many HBO "ripped from today's been left out of the history books. This headlines" films apart is not that they revisionism included the story of The avoided sensationalism (some sensational- Tuskegec Airmen (1995), about black ism is an essential ingredient of the genre) World War ll aviators who fought a two but that the sensationalism was frequently front war against both fascism and racial infused with irony, and the often simplistic prejudice, and the tragic story of the morality of these films was leavened with Tuskegee syphilis experiment, Miss Evers' character and ambiguity. Thus, the stories Boys (1997). were lifted out of the realm of pure The latter is especially moving for the "yellow journalism" into what one might light it sheds on how racism permeated justifiably call "quality tabloidism " - even well -meaning government- sponsored films which harnessed the energy of attempts to dispel racial prejudice. Thus, contemporary headline grabbing stories

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 81 www.americanradiohistory.com with quality writing, gifted performances Citizen X (1994), which were about the and innovative film techniques. Bosnian conflict and the search for world's A case in point is HBO's 1993 render- most muderous serial killer in the old ing of the bizarre story of the mother of a Soviet Union respectively, and merely Texas junior high school cheerleader who sustained the popular belief that the real tried to hire a hit man to eliminate her failure of communism and the danger of daughter's rival for that position . In extreme nationalism was that nobody ever 1992, ABC -TV produced a version of this smiled enough. Others such as And the story called Willing to Kill, whose solemn Band Played On (1992), about the early treatment of the facts undermined the years of the AIDS epidemic, and If These essential wackiness of the tale. Titled The Walls Could Talk (1996), a triptych of Positively True Adventures of the Alleged tales about abortion, starring Demi Moore, Texas Cheerleader -Murdering Mont, the Sissy Spacek, and Cher (this latter the HBO version of the story, directed by highest rated of all HBO movies), mostly Michael Ritchie (The Candidate, The Bad impressed with their earnestness. News Bears), and starring Holly Hunter as This was hardly the case with HBO's the mom, Wanda Holloway, captures the Barbarians at the Gate (1993). Here HBO's off beat nature of this story. Indeed some producers faced the formidable task of of the characters, such as Wanda's turning a tale of the 1988 takeover battle brother,Terry Hollaway (Beau Bridges), for RJR Nabisco, chronicled in Bryan whom she tried to enlist to hire a hit man, Burrough and John Helyar's best seller, would make Jethro of The Beverly Hillbil- complete with such unsexy topics as lies seem like a prodigy of sophistication LBO's, junk bonds and assorted other and intellect. financial machinations, into a story that would keep audiences awake. To make matters worse, the major characters in this Nonetheless, this is not merely a epic tale of greed, Henry Kravis (Jonathan story of the comeuppance of some Price) and ERoss Johnson (James Garner), trailer park trash, it also shines a strain Darryl Zanuck's "rooting interest" happy satiric spotlight on the media circus theory to the limits. Indeed they quite the affair became. Indeed the setting of the literally made Gordon Gekko, Wall Street's story is a version of the Oprali Show, or A malevolent mogul, seem almost penny Current Affair. A high point for the charac- ante by comparison. ters in the film comes when Johnny Faced with such a daunting task HBO Carson tells a joke about the incident on turned to Larry Gelbart, who for starters The Tonight Show, and when Wanda learns had already turned the Korean war into the that the story may be made into a tv classic sitcom M'A'S'H. Gelbart essen- movie with Holly Hunter playing her, her tially saw that the essence of this story was sister -in -law comments that, "No,I think it excess. On one side was a millionaire, should be Susan Lucci." Thus, The Posi- Johnson, who headed a company (RJR tively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Nabisco) that had one of the nation's Cheerleader- Murdering Mont, became a tale largest air fleets at its disposal (26 pilots), of how the eccentric often chases the and who thought nothing of sending his conventional in the American landscape. dog home on one of the jets accompanied Of course not every HBO contemporary by a stewardess to keep it from getting drama was a masterpiece or even a clever lonely. On the other side was an icy spoof. Some ranged from the journeyman, billionaire, Kravis, who made Don such as Shot Through the Head (1996), and Corleone seem cuddily: a "master of the

82 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com universe" whose tantrums included these included not necessarily in this smashing companies and laying off thou- order: women and drugs. sands whenever he felt a little miffed or Gia's lesbian love scenes in the film are couldn't have his own way. torrid enough to make the producers of Indeed, playing it for laughs was the Ellen blush. The brutal realism of the drug - only plausible route for a story that begins taking scenes at times makes you want to with RJR Nabisco's experimental ciga- turn away. Yet the story of Gia, who died rette-a new product which was supposed of AIDS in 1986 at 26, is more than just to save the company and reward them one of soft- core supermodel sensational- with additional billions -reportedly tast- ism. It is also a cautionary tale (which has ing like "shit." Of course when this news made it something of a cult film among hits the fan, the limos, faxes and buyout supermodels) about the world of model- numbers start flying about with such ing, where the best that can be said of their intensity and illogic that the takeover treatment is that models are conceived of battle that results resemble nothing less as an infinitely replaceable commodity, or than a corporate foodfight. as one agency head says of Gia, "This is In Barbarians at the Gate HBO realized meat, this is sirloin." that greed was not only good, as those HBO's willingness to tackle a project eighties moguls used to say, it was also like Gia- or even, on a more somber hilarious and a source of great television. level the life story of union organizer and Choosing a very serious story of the eight- rain- forest savior Chico Mendes (Raul ies, one that literally rang down the Julia) in John Frankenheimer's The Bunt- curtain on that financial high -flying era, ing Season (1994)- is symptomatic of and playing it as farce, is symptomatic of what has become of HBO made -for -tv the daring displayed by HBO . If there is a movies in the nineties. These films are hallmark of the HBO auteur style in the energized by the passion of writers who nineties, it has been this willingness to model themselves after such gifted televi- take risks. sion writers as the late Dennis Potter.They want to write for television but don't want the strait jacket of network here is no better example than 11130's limitations. They also benefit from such made- for -tv movie Gia (1998). From creative and talented directors as Paul the moment Gia Carangi (Angelina Mazursky, Michael Ritchie, John Franken- Jolie) utters the words, "Do I make you heimer, et.al., whose names and previous nervous? Good," the screen becomes so achievements seem to have inspired intensely alive with passion that it practi- contemporary Hollywood amnesia. As a cally sizzles. Gia -the seventies super - result HBO has been able to produce a model whose life made an understatement roster of films that would have gained of the old Hollywood film cliche, "live fast, approving nods from some of the Holly- die young and make a good -looking wood moguls of old. Like those old studio corpse " - is a torrid bundle of breath- heads, the producers at HBO have a taking beauty, punk aggression, childlike passion for making films. The final result emotional need and self-destructiveness. is that what matters most about HBO is Of course it's her loves in addition to her its desire to make good films, rather than supermodel status that defined Gia, and to make films that get good numbers.

Al Auster teaches in the communication and media -studies department at Fordham University in New York City.

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www.americanradiohistory.com Remembering Edgar Bergen Aformer scriyt writer evokes a revealing episodefrom the waning days of Charlie McCarthy s beleaguered creator

By Gordon Cotler

the spring of 1954 I received a call bucks would come in handy. U. from an acquaintance at the J. Walter At the agency I was taken to see John Thompson advertising agency asking Reber, who was, and had apparently been of radio programming for if I would consider doing "some part- forever, the head largest agency. JIÌtime work," that he was not at liberty Thompson, the nation's to discuss over the phone, for the Edgar Reber, I was told, had launched the radio Bergen show. careers of Bergen, Rudy Vallee, Ozzie and among EdgarBergen?At the time I was a Talk of Harriet Nelson and Eddie Cantor, changed the Town reporter for The New Yorker. I many others. He was said have had never done comedy writing and radio listening habits from what did you hadn't the remotest interest in it. Edgar get last night (meaning what city) to whom Bergen had certainly been a background did you get last night (meaning what presence in my life. He had gone on the air stars). When he had okayed a ventriloquist years ago the in 1936, when I was 13, and by 1954 his for a radio show those many network radio career was nearly a decade move had been looked on as unworkable, longer than the one Jerry Seinfeld would even ludicrous. Bergen's instant and extra- later enjoy on television. Bergen had been ordinary success had added considerably number one for several years, in the top to Reber's luster. five for many more, and had long since Long- limbed and stern -faced, Reber fit in an become a national icon. Every performer my image of a circuit -riding preacher then and since who works with puppets Arkansas backwater, except for a rare glint has acknowledged a debt to him. of wicked humor in his flinty eyes. He My acquaintance at Thompson was a spoke in rambling generalities but his P.R. man named Al Durante. We had met point was clear. Sponsors would no longer only once, when I did a Talk story about a support radio shows with big orchestras television show sponsored by Kraft Foods, and high- priced guests. The stars who television, a Thompson client. Durante thought I could had already jumped to might be right for this small job for taking their budgets with them. Edgar option. He had Bergen. I was a new father and a few extra Bergen didn't have that

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www.americanradiohistory.com come to radio from the nightclub circuit as Charlie McCarthy was loud, pushy and a technically proficient ventriloquist. But crude, so naturally Bergen turned out to after 17 years of making sure Charlie be soft -spoken, modest and gentlemanly. McCarthy's and Mortimer Snerd's punch He spoke in elliptical and glancing frag- lines went out clearly to a national audi- ments- like stones skipping across a lake. ence he had lost the ability to keep his lips The first unequivocal statement from him from moving. Anyway, ironically, ventrilo- began, "Now, about the dummies..." He quism was too static an act for television. Bergen's big -time performing days were clearly The stars who could had already numbered. jumped to television... Edgar Reber had devised an inge- nious format to keep him on the Bergen didn't have that option. air a while longer. The new concept would slash all costs (except, of was making it clear that he was not a kook. course, Bergen's movie -star salary). But I never heard him use the word again. Bergen's dummies were going to do what Nor did I ever hear him speak in Charlie's no human comic could get away with: voice unless Charlie was sitting on his they were relocating to Washington, D.C., knee. And Charlie never just sat around. to tease, badger and deflate prominent Until he worked he was out of sight. figures in the government. After that vague meeting, Reber took Bergen was resisting the proposed move me aside. Bergen was still not happy with and needed reassurance. The one -hour the format but he had been comfortable show would not lack for comedy writers. with me. Why didn't I take a leave of But before the dummies came on Bergen absence from The New Yorker and come would have to do a straight interview with aboard full time? Not to worry about the each guest to allow him /her to make a comedy parts of the show -two crack pitch for whatever was the inducement for writers were coming east to handle the him /her to appear. Once the show aired a humor. Oh, and Thompson would double writer would be brought from Los Angeles what they were paying me. to handle this job. Meanwhile, could I Bergen took a suite in Washington at the supply a few dry -run Q &A script Mayflower Hotel, where the show would segments to show Bergen that the format be broadcast from a function room. was doable and painless? And would a Another, larger, suite had been reserved weekly check that was a bit more than for the show headquarters. Flanking a three times what I was making after six huge living room that served as office and years on my job be all right? rehearsal space were two bedrooms, one A few weeks later Bergen showed up for me- I would be away from home from L.A. He had read my samples and three or four days a week- and one for asked to meet me at his hotel. The the show's director. All I knew of this prospect shrunk me to the boy who had gregarious man's credentials was that he first heard Charlie McCarthy on the family had been an American volunteer fighter - Stromberg- Carlson, and I certainly wasn't pilot in the Battle of Britain. This was put at ease by the two Thompson people confirmed by a magnificent RAF who separately drew me aside to caution, mustache. "For God's sake, don't call Charlie and The rest of the staff of the stripped - Mortimer the dummies." What kind of down hour comprised the following: a oddball was I being introduced to? posse of hotshot Washington P.R. mavens

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www.americanradiohistory.com who would lasso guests at, I think, so cutting -edge platter, "Rock Around the much a head; the long- promised comedy Clock ", featuring Bill Haley and the writers, two middle -aged men who arrived Comets. The promised big names from bewildered and terrified from L.A.; Charles Congress and the administration had Stark, Kraft's signature announcer, who turned out to be at best medium names, would come down from New York each and a slapdash, fragmented dry run earlier weekend with an actress who would read that day, adjusted for the complex sched- the recipes; Seymour Peck, an entertain- ules of the guests, had revealed them to be ment editor at The New York Times, who no match for Don Ameche as straight men. would select the one or two cutting -edge The director had timed the various records that would stand in for a live segments and calculated the length of the orchestra and who would write a savvy show to within, he believed, two or three paragraph for Bergen introducing them; minutes. two network engineers from New York, a Two or three minutes? Bergen had finally show secretary hired in New York, a secre- exploded. He was dealing with amateurs, tary for Bergen hired locally, and three or the enterprise was a disaster, and he would four local women who would type scripts not subject himself to ridicule. No way and perform office chores. would he go on the air in three hours with Three hours before broadcast time the this sorry mess. His agents stood firmly at Sunday of the first show our large living his sides. room was crowded with almost all of the Some of the women were near tears, above plus a pair of Bergen's agents from while the men offered noisy excuses for William Morris and some suits down from the state of affairs. During the crossfire of New York to observe the premier. John accusations and recriminations I saw the Reber arrived with an expensive- looking show going down in flames, my heart sink- antique volume tucked under his arm. (He ing with it. I had that week been given had once told me that he preferred reading another raise and was now making nearly first editions because they made him feel eight times what I was paid at the maga- closer to the authors.) zine only a few weeks before. Reber was the only serene presence in In this charged atmosphere John Reber an angry, chaotic atmosphere. Bergen had dragged a chair forward and called for until now endured with outward good silence. He had a finger in his first edition humor a cavalcade of humiliations. and looked as if he was about to read a Instead of a large theater -like studio with passage from the Book of Job. "This is from the novel about Gargan- he tua and Pantagruel by This enterprise was a disaster and the Frenchman François would not subject himself to ridicule. Rabelais," he began in his preacher's voice and opened the book. He uniformed ushers and glassed -in control then read in its entirety the quintessen- booth his show would emanate from a tially Rabelasian passage listing in graphic room where a hardware firm had just held detail the myriad substitutes in nature for At a regional breakfast meeting, and the toilet paper, and the advantages of each. broadcast equipment would be stacked on first he was greeted by a shocked silence, a buffet table. Rather than, say, the Ray and then a stifled giggle or two. But as the Noble orchestra and a vocalist like Anita bawdy list kept growing, great gales of Ellis he would he backed by the week's laughter, including Bergen's, convulsed

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www.americanradiohistory.com the room. The crisis had passed. The show workings of government probably echoed went on. the listeners'. Or rather, lurched on. Mid -broadcast, Bergen was a good editor, and he had a the director jettisoned "Rock Around the light hand. He knew that I could write for Clock," one of several hasty cuts. The him before I had the least idea that I could, interview segments struck me as inter- and the comedy segments went at a gallop. minable, the bits with Charlie and My concern was the straight interviews. I Mortimer too polite. Missing was some- explained to the guests when I pre- inter- thing like the raucous banter between viewed them that the answers I would Charlie and W.C. Fields. ( "Is that your write to Bergen's questions merely indi- nose or the headlight of an oncoming cated how much time they had for each train ?" "Be quiet or I'll whittle you down and to change them as they saw fit. I was to a coat hanger. "). The engineers had to surprised that none of them ever did. And work to "sweeten" the tepid reaction of then I realized that these were people our small audience. Reber pronounced the accustomed to having speeches written by broadcast a success, but he may have been staff members. They read what they were the only one. handed. Incidentally, some of these The comedy writers fled back to Holly- makers and shakers became tongue -tied wood. From then on we phoned them a list with awe when they were first presented of next Sunday's guests and they phoned to Charlie McCarthy. back a bunch of jokes for me to adapt into Dwindling listenership was only one some sort of continuity. I was told that one source of Bergen's increasing unhappi- of these writers maintained a vast library ness. Why, he kept asking, did we have so file of drawers crammed with jokes cross - many Democrats on the show? He was, I referenced to a fare -thee -well. Radios gathered, a generous contributor to planted all over the house were timed to go He never spoke a word on the air on, along with a record- ing device, when a show that didn't come off a printed page. aired that might yield jokes. A secretary came in once a day and Republican causes. The answer was that collected the product, much as she might with Eisenhower in the White House the the sap from a stand of Vermont maples. Republicans were more conscious of their Despite this mighty resource we were sent image, less willing to chat with dummies. the same jokes week after week. This One week we took the show to a hotel in didn't bother Edgar. Old jokes were like New York, where Governor Averell Harri- old friends; he trusted them. man was our principal guest. During a Anyway, it wasn't the quality of the read- through in a cocktail lounge Bergen jokes that made Charlie McCarthy popular kept interrupting to complain about the but his larger- than -life personality that Democratic program Harriman was leaped across the airwaves- the brash, espousing. Harriman put down the script monocled, arrogant brat, horny beyond his and said, "This is interesting. Why don't years, in constant rebellion against we forget the script and just have a free- Bergen's avuncular guidance. He was easy wheeling discussion?" Bergen clutched his to write for; he almost wrote himself. Even script to his breast. Oh, no. No way. He easier was Mortimer Snerd, Bergen's exas- never spoke a word on the air that didn't peratingly dim -witted country boy come off the printed page. dummy, whose failure to comprehend the To lift Bergen's spirits Reber let us go to

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www.americanradiohistory.com Los Angeles for a few weeks, where Edgar thrust the tray invitingly between Charlie could be with his family and interview and the microphone, and looked as if he movie people. One night he had the staff wasn't going to move until the dummy to his home for a buffet supper and a took one. He had to he led away. screening of an Edgar Bergen movie. He It didn't much matter what we did, the must have seen the film countless times ratings kept sinking. Listeners interested but he remained fully focused on it, his in politics were better served elsewhere attention diverted only when he had to go and those who wanted comedy were back to the projection booth to kick -start impatient with the format. Where was the the stalled state -of- the -art projector. He old Charlie, bantering with Hollywood was fascinated by machinery. One after- studs and drooling at the sight of Dorothy noon he drove me deep into the San Lamour? Bergen looked more and more Fernando Valley, all orange groves then, to the gloomy Swede. Tired and discouraged, a weathered shed that held a large piece of he missed his California life. After six or antique farm machinery he owned. He got seven months of stoically enduring these it started, we watched it throb and jerk for Sunday nights he announced abruptly a couple of minutes, and then we drove one Tuesday that he wouldn't do another. back to town. And he didn't. Rudy Valee was brought in He owned and flew a small airplane and to finish the season with a different pressed me to fly to Palm Springs with format. him. I couldn't picture him as a pilot and I A year or so later, I was surprised to hear kept making excuses. Finally our fighter - Bergen's voice on my telephone at home. pilot director said, "What's the big deal? John Reber had died suddenly and Bergen I'll go." He returned chalky white, the RAF had come east for the funeral. It would be mustache wilting, and proclaimed it the held in the far reaches of Pennsylvania and worst flight of his life. Bergen didn't see he assumed I would go with him. The very well, couldn't find an airport, and expedition would require being away two landed in a factory parking lot. or three days and despite my respect for Back in Washington we tried to liven up Reber I couldn't manage that. When I told the format with a couple of shows from Bergen so I sensed his disapproval. It was embassies. The first, from the Swedish the last time we spoke. Embassy, was a nod to Bergen's ethnic He lived another twenty -something roots. The second was from the Japanese years and played occasional dates right up Embassy. During the live broadcast a to his death, but his glory days had ended confused servant passing hors d'oeuvres with radio's.

Gordon Cotler is the author of half a dozen novels. His television credits include movies and pilots for Richard Widmark, Art Carney, Margot Kidder, Lindsay Wagner, Tony Roberts, Rock Hudson, Richard Crenna and others, most of them written with longtime partner Don M. Mankiewicz.

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A veteran of the restaurant-and-travel wars remembers what it was meant to be enterprisingly inventive

B .1'lort llochstein

Did you hear the one about the expense account while working at ABC -TV writer who had lunch with a "I once put in for lunch with a horse," he horse or the news correspon- writes, "I was at the Kentucky Derby as dent who submitted a bill for chief writer for Good Morning America in cab rides on a submarine? 1978, the year of the great Affirmed - They're part of the lore of another time Ayldar rivalry. A Churchill Downs repre- when expense accounts were considered sentative had been assigned to the televi- by many to be part of their pay and ranked sion staff, but there was a limit to how among their most creative efforts. many people could plausibly claim to have In his "On the Job" column in The New taken him to every meal every day. So I York Times recently, writer Lawrence Van alleged that I had gained editorial perspec- Gelder did a roundup entitled "Expenses tive in an $11 lunch with "Derby insider" Extraordinaire." Several of the stories were Raymond Earl. volunteered by former newspaper and "Raymond Earl, with his conveniently broadcasting personnel. One that I particu- human, but unrecognizable name, did larly related to came from Steve Zousmer indeed run in the Derby, and as far as I who reported his creative use of the know, he's still running. But I finished in

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www.americanradiohistory.com the money. If challenged, I would have Julian Goodman, then heading up NBC's claimed for my hamburger and SS in oats Washington news bureau, Goodman for the big fella." stormed out of his office, waving Agron- Van Gelder quotes another creative sky's submission and shouted for all the expense account report from Dick Smys- world to hear "My God, they hung the ter, founding editor of The Oak Ridger, a wrong guy!" daily newspaper in Oak Ridge, Tenn. As a writer on the Today show, I worked Smyster recalls that in the paper's early frequently with Molly Sharpe, who years, one of the sundry jobs of its small produced our Washington political news staff was to conduct tour groups, segments. Molly's job depended on being usually children, through the plant. able to deliver Washington bigwigs, politi- After one such tour, a staff member cos and such, with very little notice. So she submitted the following expense claim: was expected to wine and dine the major "Three peppermint candies @2 cents each players in the capitol, and she really did it. in order to cover up odor of Friday lunch Her favorite lunch spot was the Jockey beer before taking Girl Scouts through Club where her maitre'd, a pal, knew her so office on tour." well that he gave her a book of receipts and told her to write her own tickets. "My God, they hung Today, in these times of computerized the wrong guy!" everything, it would be almost impossible to get a blank receipt from a restaurant, All of this brought back torrents of memo- but I am sure there arc enterprising people ries from my days as an NBC publicist and who've overcome that problem. later as a writer and editor for NBC News. There's also a story that Molly had a In Paris last Spring, I found myself rubber stamp made with the name of swapping expense- account stories with a some fictitious restaurant so that she former Time -Life editor. He told me of a could print her own receipts. Those were Time correspondent who had gone on a the days, former NBC Washington long voyage aboard an aircraft carrier and producer Bob Asman observes, when returned home to submit an overblown everyone winked at such devices.. "The voucher that included several long taxicab main thing," Bob says, "was that Molly got rides. the guests when we needed them, always "How," demanded his incredulous boss beating the competition." can you charge for taxi cab rides on an Asman's favorite story is about Charley aircraft carrier ?" Unflustered, the corre- Jones, of the Korean War Jones brothers, spondent responded that it was a very who were daredevil cameramen in the large aircraft carrier. early days of that era. Charley became a "Funny," I told the man from Time, "I've director at NBC Washington and built a heard that same story attributed to Martin career as a get -it -done field operative and Agronsky, when he worked for NBC News . occasional producer. "Charley once Although in his case, I think, he was on a returned from a trip to Florida where he round -the -world cruise in a nuclear sub." directed a feature for Today," Asman The late Martin Agronsky was legendary relates. among the big spenders. On another occa- "His expense accounts were always sion, he was sent to Israel to cover the filled with odd elements, but one caught Eichmann trial and apparently lived very the auditor's attention and was ques- well during that lengthy examination. tioned. Charley had done a feature on When his expense account came before those water-skiing young men and shapely

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www.americanradiohistory.com ladies who put on shows on the Florida trying to do," he growled, "ruin it for the waterways. The item that raised a question rest of us ?" "Here, let me show you how to was a pistol. do an expense account." "And that," Peter "Why," Charley was asked, "did you buy recalls, "is how my first weekly expense a pistol ?" He had an answer ready," Asman account at the New York Post, came to relates: "To kill the snakes that were something more than $15, the price of a around those shallow lakes." Everyone dinner for two in those days." laughed and he got his reimbursement. NBC's affiliate- relations department A British friend tells of a writer at BBC always had a good -times, playboy kind of News in London during World War II. Each reputation inside the company. Harry week he would submit a generous bill for Bannister, NBC's legendary Station Rela- entertaining a certain Colonel Sikorsky of tions VP, was asked in the early '60's by the War Office. Eventually it was ques- one of his brand -new regional managers tioned and he escaped injury by declaring for guidance on the company's travel that Colonel Sikorsky was a valuable expense account policy. Harry's reply: "A contact and great source of information. man who can't get a new topcoat out of a Finally he was summoned to his superior's trip to Cleveland doesn't belong with the office, who told him that he had called the company." War Office and was informed that there Former NBC technical wizard Frank was no Colonel Sikorsky on their staff. The Vierling tells of one of his bosses who correspondent responded indignantly lectured his engineering crew on how to "That man must he an impostor. I shall make a few extra dollars at a national polit- have nothing further to do with him!" ical convention in Chicago. The man advised his staff to use the subway and "Look on it as charge for a cab on their trips to the Stock- yards, not exactly the sort of advice you'd creative writing" expect from a company official those days Robert Heller, formerly with the Wall and these days. Street Journal in New York and now an In the mid seventies, NBC producer author and consultant on business affairs Arthur White took a group to a small town in London, told of the first time he had to south of Oaxaca, Mexico, to cover a solar submit an expense account and didn't eclipse. "We stayed in primitive condi- know the game. "Look on it," a co- worker tions, three in a room, $8 a night," Arthur advised him, "as creative writing." recalls. One day, our rooms became That same sort of thing happened to unavailable and we had to find new lodg- Peter Hochstein, no relative, on his first ings. We got into two cars and roared up to job as a cub reporter on the New York Post Oaxaca. I knew the town, so I told the in 1960. "While running around town on crew and reporter Jack Perkins, to have a breaking stories," Peter relates, "I'd drink at the local bar while I scouted managed to run up a few expenses, some around. I came back and we all headed 15 -cent subway tokens, a few dimes, toward an imposing, gated building, where which in those days got you a phone call. the manager gave each guy a towel and a and one cab fare for $1.15. All told, my bar of soap and told them to enjoy their expenses for the week came to $4.3 5." stay. He snapped his fingers and 28 girls He was about to hand it in when a came out and the guys realized I'd rented reporter at the next desk, read it over his the local brothel for the night, at $25 for shoulder, ripped it from his hands in the rooms. horror and tore it to shreds. "What are you "Back in New York," White recalls, "I

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 93 www.americanradiohistory.com warned Shad Northshield our executive per person in town. That covered a lot of producer, that he'd see a $25 a night entertaining ground, how much I didn't charge among all the eight -dollar billings. I realize until the day when my department also did not know and did not want to manager came to me and asked, "Mort, know if the crew availed themselves of the can I use ['use' being a euphemism for local talent." putting a person down on the expense Necessity, of course, is the mother of account] so and so this week?" He wanted invention. Asman recalls being similarly to "use" one of my press contacts on his creative while covering an Eisenhower expense account. round- the -world trip. "In those days," he Later, as a writer on Today, I enjoyed a remembers, "shipping film was an art and $50 -a -week expense account, which I we aimed at getting it to London, where it often had difficulty filling. After a while I could be transmitted frame by frame on somehow acquired a book of receipts from the undersea AT &T cable to New York. a place called Yellowfingers, where I had This was before satellites, of course. never gone. I submitted chits from Yellowfingers for several weeks and finally "If it had not worked I might the unit business manager called me in, to have been burned at the stake" tell me: "Mort, Yellowfingers is a coffee shop. If you wanted to spend $23 there," "We were in Delhi and I learned of a he said, pointing out that item on my commercial jet flying from Karachi to expense account, "you'd have to eat the London, but I had no way of getting my full menu. Find yourself another restau- film bag from Delhi to Karachi. So I char- rant." tered a plane for about 51,500 - an loe Coggins, a former NBC News writer enormous amount of cash in those days and producer, tells about the radio - just to deliver one can of film to our commentator Morgan Beatty's first and contact in Karachi, who would get it On last days at the network. "When Mo that plane to London. Then he was faced Beatty first came to New York, he was very with the problem of getting a charter to deferential to his new brass hats and some- fly from India to Pakistan, which was what timid about submitting his first 'enemy' country. I went to the Pakistani expense account, which included such chargé d'affaires in Delhi and had him items as a nickel for the subway and some- sign a form and call his government to thing at a Horn and Hardart cafeteria. He allow that charter to land in Karachi, and learned better," says Coggins. "When he it all worked. Since NBC's film from left NBC, he submitted an expense London was fed to NY and aired before account for his final clay. It came to about any other coverage of Ike in India, the $125. When asked about the charge, Mo cost of the charter was not challenged. explained it was low "because I didn't But if it had not worked," Asman laughs, have lunch." "I might have been burned at the stake." From what I know of the current busi- As a publicist for NBC before joining the ness world, the big spenders are still out news department, I was chief column there and I am sure that expense -account planter, which meant I was free to share writing remains as creative an activity as it the company's largesse with any newspa- was in the sixties and seventies.

Since retiring from NBC in 1986 Mort llochstein has been writing about wine, food and business. This article is adapted from a piece he wrote recently for Peacock North, a journal written, produced and financed by former NBC employees.

94 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com Review and Comment

Madness in the moderns that we may be asking for trouble when we insist on permanence in the Morning: Life and news -gathering activities of daily broad- Death in TV's Early casting and publishing. Writer -Editor Pete Hammill put it another, highly accurate Morning Rating War way, when he cautioned in his book, News By Richard Hack Is a Verb, that "40 percent" of anything New Millennium Press, Beverly Hills. CA learned the first day of a breaking story will turn out to be wrong. In supposedly less rushed forms, such as the television documentary or the If It Bleeds, It Leads: printed and bound pages of a book, we An Anatomy of expect a higher standard of accuracy. And sometimes, our expectations are even Television News fulfilled. We can, for example, virtually By Matthew R. Kerbel wallow in the details of Richard Hack's Westview(Perseus), Boulder, CO new history of weekday morning news programs on what used to be the only three networks. His book is called Madness Warp Speed: in the Morning: Life and Death in TV's America in the Early Morning Rating War. This madness began when Today arrived on NBC (Janu- Age of Mixed Media ary 14, 1952) and had only local station By Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel competition for over two years, before CBS Century Foundation, New York began the CBS Morning Show (March 15, 1954). The third network waited until By Lawrence Laurent January 6, 197S to join the competition with the beginning of A.M. America on mericans keep learning, ABC -TV. over and over, that the (lack brings to this history his experi- ate Philip L. Graham. ence as "television critic publisher of The Washington and editor of The Post, was correct in his obser- Hollywood Reporter vation that our daily journal- and West Coast ism - at its very best - National Programming provides only "a first rough Editor for TV Guide draft of history." Or to inter- magazine." He is pret his words in another currently identified as way, the term "journalism" an "investigative writer" comes to us from jour, the and he displays fine French word for "day." determination and great (Our word, "journey," was, endurance in cataloging originally, the distance a every twitch and shift in person could travel in the ratings, the imperma- one day.) nent casts of performers, Which should tell us and the changing producers

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 95 www.americanradiohistory.com Review and Comment in the three -way competition for viewers Or perhaps, a simpler explanation is between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. (E.S.T.) possible. The supply of talented and attrac- The ratings for each show may be small, tive persons who desire a career in broad- but advertising is sold five days a week, 52 casting has always been greater than the weeks a year. The billing prizes in the number of good jobs. Competition for top competition annually run into many spots is endless and continuous. This held millions. true among the three national TV One of Hack's early discoveries is the networks even before their power was existence of what he calls "the Curse" on diminished by the arrival of 400 non - many of those who appear in the "Battle of network TV stations and the hundreds of the Dawn." He says the curse was there narrow -gauge, "niche- oriented" specialized right from the beginning and afflicted the offerings of the cable networks. Perform- calm charm and wide -ranging intellect of ers do wear out their welcome. They do Today host Dave Garroway. Dave arrived age. They pick up bad habits, and they get with a bad habit: a dependence on a replaced. No other way is even possible. Chicago physician's prescription for a Moreover, television, like professional "magic elixir," a combination of "vitamin football, tends to belong to the young. B -12, molasses, and liquid cocaine." Experience often constitutes a detriment Garroway referred to this potion as "The to further success. Doctor," and, writes Hack, "Garroway Richard Hack is to be commended for carried it everywhere and used it often. It his determined command of minutia as he was the beginning of a dependency on follows the winners and the losers. His cocaine that would shadow him the rest of book will prove invaluable to students of his life." broadcasting's history, particularly this Long after Garroway had left the Today view of the never -ending battles between show and had been unable to find a job in entertainment and news divisions for broadcasting, he "committed suicide by control of these income -producing early putting a gun to his head" on July 21, morning hours. As soon as the other side's 1982. He was dead at the age of 69 and, ratings start to sag, either news or enter- according to Hack, "[tlhe curse had won." tainment is quick to move in, convinced This curse fascinates Richard Hack. He that it has the answer to attracting more concludes that the early morning ratings viewers. wars have been overwhelmed with Hack's command of details, however, "tragedy and drama," and he ticks off a list makes a couple of silly mistakes even of past and, he thinks, future victims. He harder for a reader to understand. Millen- writes: "The names are familiar, if no nium Press Publisher Michael Viner's longer the faces: Dave Garroway, the first energy and show -business know -how have human sacrifice, lost his sanity; David led to a successful career in a hazardous Hartman, his power; Kathleen Sullivan, business. He should have hired an editor her fortune and her waistline; Joan to rid the book of two inexcusable Lunden, her marriage but not her happi- mistakes. For example, Hack refers to Pres- ness; Bryant Gumbel, his popularity if not ident's Clinton's "1994 inauguration." his future. Add Lauer and Couric, Sorry, Clinton was elected in 1992 and Newman and McRee, and the story 1996, meaning that his inaugurals took becomes too laden with tragedy and place in 1993 and 1997. (Almost any drama to be mere coincidence." politician can spotlight 1994 as the year

96 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com that control of the Congress changed, as type, contrasted with the regular typefaces the Republican Party took over the House for his commentary. He makes an excep- of Representatives for the first time in tion only for The Oprah Winfrey Show, nearly 40 years). which Kerbel says has "steadfastly avoided The second inexcusable error occurs in the sort of programming described here. an account about African -Americans who Its absence from the book makes it too emigrated to settle in Liberia, on the west easy to forget that responsible program- coast of Africa. Somehow, the Liberians ming exists and that is can command an become confused with the descendants of audience. Like the local news operations slaves, who "dominated Libya's politics that eschew sleaze and embrace a more until recently." Sorry, Libya is on the north balanced perspective, Oprah should be coast of the African continent and is an remembered - and applauded." Arabic dictatorship. (We know that a He does have a grand time with such certain candidate for president can't tell standard practices as the hyping of news Slovenia apart from Slovakia, but publish- stories during the Nielsen ratings sweeps. ers ought to be held to higher standards.) Carefully chosen phrases lend great impor- tance to rather mundane and ordinary events. He has most of his fun, I think, Such errors as those two cannot be with the way that the daily weather fore- found in another valuable addition to casts are produced. Kerbel notes: ". the literature of electronic journal- people seem to love weather ism. The title comes straight reports. Lots of people tune in from any TV newsroom: local news primarily to get If It Bleeds, It Leads: An the weather. They just put up Anatomy of Television with the stuff about murders News by Matthew R. in popular restaurants while Kerbel. they're waiting...." Kerbel, 42, has worked Kerbel cites what he calls as a radio news reporter and "...the Fundamental Rule: a PBS newswriter, and this Successful weather experience enables him to reports should contain as have a lot of fun with both much extraneous infor- local and national TV news. mation as possible." He uses transcripts of daily Another vital rule reads: news programs and the TV talk ÁñAnatomy "Weather segments are shows to demonstrate that the only place where 7etey1s °' NeWKerbetR' little difference can be found Matthew they try to keep things between the two. Meaning that complicated." those deep tones from the seri- Ile makes use of material that was actu- ous "newsman" can sound very much like ally telecast in four of the largest U.S. the scurrilous, lowest- common -denomina- media markets: Los Angeles, Philadelphia, tor, sex -shock -scream gatherings of the Phoenix and Detroit. He takes samples dreadful, dishonorable daytime syndicate from ABC's World News Tonight, NBC's offerings of Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones Nightly News, and The CBS Evening News and Ricki Lake. with Dan Rather. He compares the content Kerbel's documentation is also detailed, of so- called straight news programs with and he takes great care with his selections. the content of emotion -laden talk shows The content of the broadcast is set in italic headed by Sally, Jerry, Ricki, Jenny and

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 97 www.americanradiohistory.com Review and Comment

Montel. Quite often the result reminds a whether the long- standing and useful reader of the kind of dialogue found in the "journalism of verification will soon be first comic novels of Max Shulman or H. overwhelmed by the new journalism of Allen Smith. assertion." Or, to cite a concern of one final book, called The Entertainment Economy, the Another aspect of the nation's deter- number of news outlets has expanded far mined reliance on daily journalism more than ever before. Yet the amount of can be found in the scholarly and news remains no greater than it ever was. sober book called Warp Speed: America in The newer "niche- oriented" news the Age of Mixed Media by Bill Kovach and programs quickly found a solution: they Tom Rosenstiel. A newspaper journalist hire high verbals, available for a price, who for more than 30 years, Kovach now works hurl insults at each other in 15- second as Curator of the Nieman Foundation at sound bites. Harvard. Rosenstiel directs the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a journalists' Lawrence Laurent is the Television Critic (Emeritus) of The Washington Post. He teaches group affiliated with the Columbia Univer- "Critical Writing and Reviewing for the Mass sity Graduate School of Journalism, Media" at the George Washington University in funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Washington, U.C. This fine book begins with David Halberstam's preface and his conviction: "The past year has been, I think, the worst year for American journalism since I entered the profession 44 years ago." This conclusion, of course, stems from broad- cast and print coverage of the Clinton - Lewinsky story that led to the second pres- idential impeachment trial in U.S. history. Kovach and Rosenstiel's first concern is the newly developed "Mixed Media Culture." They write: "These new charac- teristics of the Mixed Media Culture are creating what we call the new journalism of assertion, which is less interested in substantiating whether something is true and more interested in getting it into public discussion. The journalism of asser- tion contributes to the press being a conduit of politics as cultural civil war.' They add: "Television is well suited to symbolic, polarizing issues. And the grow- ing heterogeneity of the press, while it more accurately reflects the diverse inter- ests of the audience, makes it difficult for the press to find common ground." The authors' chief concern, then, is

98 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com I'll Be Right Back: Memories of TV's Greatest Talk Show by Mike Douglas with Thomas Kelly and Michael Heaton Simon and Schuster, New York

By Bernard M. Timberg

Fchoing, mirroring, listening intently, laughing and responding to guest J after guest. Mike Douglas was a kind of Zelig or Forrest Gump passing through two decades of the social history and performing arts on television. His show was nationally syndicated from 1961 -82, and he set a number of important prece- dents for Mery Griffin, Dinah Shore and other syndicated daytime talk-show hosts. Years before Barbara Walters obtained her Cleveland studio and ended up being highly publicized million -dollar contract broadcast all over the worldfor two in her move to ABC, Mike Douglas broke decades?... Was that really me singing duets that mark in negotiations with the West- with Barbara Streisand? Dancing with Fred inghouse "Group W" network that distrib- Astaire? Running roadwork with Muham- uted his show. The book claims he was the mad Ali? Trading barbs with Bob Hope? first television talk personality to do so. Doing bits with Jackie Gleason and Jack Douglas sums up and celebrates his Benny? Playing straight man for Bill Cosby success on TV in a book that might be and Billy Crystal? Chatting with presidents, unbearable if it were not leavened with the kings, and goddesses?" self-conscious and self-limiting humor that was one of his distinguishing trademarks. If the reader can accept his over -the -top, He tells us right at the beginning that he gushy style, there is a good deal of infor- wrote the book with the help of a writ- mation in this book. The author explains ing /editing team who forced him to orga- how he was chosen to host this daytime nize, condense, and critique today's talk show. He includes chapters on the singers, shows. (This latter request was almost composers and songwriters who appeared, unbearable for Douglas, whose innate the comedians, the film stars, athletes and tendency was to be positive about every- politicians, funny, memorable and exas- thing, and it led to one of the weaker chap- perating moments, and includes generous ters in the book.) Still, the talk -show host's tributes to his production team and wife. voice comes through clearly in the book Mike Douglas' memoirs will undoubt- from its opening lines: edly both please and exasperate readers. It will please fans and historians searching Looking back, there are times when it all for nuggets of information about the first seems like one long, wonderful dream... Was decades of syndicated talk, and irritate that my television show that started in a tiny readers who would like him to go farther

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with this material. Those readers will not possessed on the air were uniquely suited be satisfied with the book's breezy to the co- hosting role. He possessed a approach. They will want more back- strange combination of ego and egoless- ground on the economics of the show, ness, the drive to host a show 90 minutes more depth to his explanations of the a day, five days a week, no breaks or vaca- show's success, and more context to the tions, as Douglas often reminds us, and a stories he tells. simultaneous willingness to work with One strange absence in the book is any new situations and guests, to go with the reference to the city of Philadelphia, flow, whatever that might be, week after where The Mike Douglas Show resided week. Douglas possessed an intense from 1963 to 1978, the bulk of the curiosity about people, a star-struck fan show's time on the air, while nine pages quality in the presence of celebrity are devoted to his first two years in Cleve- performers, a relentless cheerfulness and land. Is this a reflection on Douglas' rela- conviviality, and a pliant, "silly putty" tionship with the Group W station in quality (Douglas' own words) that enabled Philadelphia during his final years there? him to respond to any guest or situation. Unlike many chatty show -business He would become the background, the biographies, however, the book is well frame, the responder, the mime or the indexed, and it provides a consistent straight man. He would put on hats, join a portrait of a certain highly recognizable guest in a hot -tub, do whatever it took to and influential type of TV host personality. book a guest and convivially accompany Mike Douglas' talk -show host persona is him or her on the air. by now a familiar one. Part Horatio Alger, Douglas' career is summarized by 75 part Dale Carnegie, he is the loyal and photographs that show him in combina- enthusiastic boy next door, the devoted tion with guests over the years. It is strik- husband, the conservative pater familias, a ing to see how Douglas fits the moods, regular guy. He is someone who devoted costumes, and personalities of his guests. his life to pursuing the American dream - He listens respectfully to Mother Teresa; and achieved it. He is willing to hear the leans like a one -sided teepee into a duet other side but not embrace it. Indeed, it is with Pearl Bailey; or puts on a matching a type that is so recognizable that it is apron for a cooking demonstration with easily confused -as Mike Douglas was Sophia Loren. Sitting quietly to the left in with one of his chief daytime rivals, Merv a triptych with Little Richard and Liberace, Griffin. (Douglas' confusion with Griffin is Douglas' conservatively cut suit is a a running joke in the book.) perfect offset to Little Richard's flamboy- The Mike Douglas Show began in 1961 ant sash, bellbottoms, and silver boots and as the brainchild of an ambitious producer, Liberace's exquisitely tailored tiger -skin Woody Fraser, who had been a production tuxedo. In another photograph Douglas assistant when Douglas was a staff singer imitates, in sync, Jackie Gleason's famous at the Chicago NBC station. Fraser "away- we -go" two -step. In another he convinced Group W executives to hire echoes Red Skelton's tramp costume in a Douglas for a new show out of Cleveland "Freddie the Freeloader" routine. that revolved around a new "co- host" One of the contributions of which concept: a different performing personal- Douglas remains most proud is his show- ity teaming each week with Douglas for casing of African- Americans during an era live broadcasts. The qualities Douglas when, in Nat King Cole's famous words,

100 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com "Madison Avenue was afraid of the dark." late 1960s and 70s Mike Douglas tran- Douglas has a chapter that discusses the scended his own limited on- screen persona African -Americans who appeared on the on television. He became a highly visible, show. One out of every five photographs flesh- and -blood representative of main- shows musical performers like Ray stream American ideas and values. This Charles and Chuck Berry, comedians like cultural role was recognized 20 years after Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby, sports the show had gone off the air when in figures like Muhammad Ali and Reggie 1998 the cable channel VH 1 replayed an Jackson, activists and intellectual leaders entire week of The Mike Douglas Show. like Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson, Rhino Video then took the unusual step of Angela Davis, Bobby Seale and Malcolm reissuing this week in a five -volume boxed X. Douglas made a point of inviting video edition with a commemorative African -American performers, intellectu- book. It was the week in 1972 when John als and political leaders on his show and Lennon and Yoko Ono co- hosted the show would talk with them seriously. The Mike and picked its guests, including singer Douglas Show may have been for many Chuck Berry, consumer activist Ralph Americans the first direct exposure to Nader, Surgeon General Jesse Steinfeld, black perspectives, and sometimes coun- Yippie activist Jerry Rubin, and Black terculture perspectives, unfiltered by Panther representative Bobby Seale. After formulaic news media accounts. Here the 20 years of neglect, The Mike Douglas "soft" entertainment of The Mike Douglas Show had become, once again, a cultural Show did the hard work of cultural infor- event. mation, but here, as elsewhere in the Mike Douglas' memoirs come at an book, the reader is left without context. It opportune time. Up to now what has been would be nice to have more information written about television talk shows and about this policy of entertaining black hosts has tended to focus on CBS, ABC, guests. How much was that policy due to and NBC. This has been reinforced by Douglas' own convictions and previous retrospectives, advertising and public -rela- experience, and what part did the demo- tions campaigns rehearsing or celebrating graphics of the show (he alludes to having network history. As the number of nation- a significant black audience) influence this ally syndicated shows accelerated, the decision? We never know. picture began to change. In pre -show publicity for her morning program in 1998, Rosie O'Donnell paid tribute to the was also proud of his show's hours she spent with Mike, Mery and l)olicy, initiated by producer Woody Dinah. She said she planned to return to

l Duglasraser, of presenting radical the comfort of her syndicated forebears "mixes" of guests: unlikely pairs or oppo- with a "nice talk" format in distinct sites who would encounter each other on contrast to the "trash talk" of hosts like the air within the safely combustible, ritu- Ricki Lake and Jerry Springer. O'Donnell alized world of a TV talk show. Dick writes a short introductory homage to Cavett's show would later capitalized on Douglas at the beginning of his memoirs. just these kinds of "mixes," and others The choice is fitting, linking one genera- would attempt them as well. But Douglas's tion of talk -show hosts to another. disarming personality and programming From the evidence of the book, Mike independence on Group W allowed him to Douglas was a genuinely nice man. Unlike entertain an unusual range of guests. Carson, who rarely made friends on the In the midst of the culture wars of the set and was notoriously uneasy in social

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www.americanradiohistory.com Review and Comment settings, Douglas appears to have made don't worry-I'll be right back." friends easily among his celebrity guests. What is surprising to many television "Niceness" is a basic ingredient of the viewers, critics and fans is that this mostly daytime talk format he helped create. forgotten television personality does keep Perhaps it came from his childhood as the coming back -in his book, on the screen son of an alcoholic (he briefly alludes to and in the avatars of the electronic person- this and the role his strong mother played alities who followed him. in his early life), but one is struck by the consistency of Douglas' role as talk -show Bernard Timberg is an associate professor in the host and narrator of the It communication arts department of Johnson C. book. is the Smith University in Charlotte, NC, and the author conscious role of being a "good boy," stay- of Television Talk: The History, Subgenres and Stars ing on track, being good to his mother, of the Television Talk Shows, to be published later this year by the University of Texas Press. wife and family and providing them with a solid income, all this from the heart of the notoriously unstable world of show busi- ness. His biography begins and ends with these themes. In the end, it was perhaps Douglas' very surface -ness that made him a success. He was a tabula rasa, a foil for all those around him. The surface quality of Douglas' narrative is both the strength and weakness of the book. He alludes, for example, to a "rough transition" when the show went off the air after he was brutally "fired" by Group W executives in 1 982. The show was still at the top of its ratings. He never fully explains why this happened. (One suspects that singer John Davidson, who had a brief run as Douglas' replacement, was significantly cheaper.) For Douglas, the main effect was that it jettisoned him back into civilian life after a brief syndication run when, as Douglas puts it, he and his wife went out "on our own terms." He tells us at the end of the book that he is now happily retired and that his life revolves around his four G's- "Gen, the girls, the grandchildren, and golf." For a good part of his life he has been Correction a television man, and he is telling a televi- In a review of Lesley Stahl's book, Report- sion story. His grandchildren come in and ing Live, in the Winter 2000 issue of this want to play at the end of the book. "You publication her first name was misspelled. know the routine," he says. "Think of it as Our profound apologies. a commercial. Get a quick snack if you -Ed. want, make yourself comfortable, and

102 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com Television, History, and Wisconsin. It was also just my luck, or misfortune, to have an ongoing relation- American Culture ship with that university's Historical Soci- Edited by Mary Beth Haralovich and ety, which collects the papers, videos, Lauren Rabinovitz. films and notes of journalists like me. I did Duke University Press, Durham and London not recall that I had given them my production files on an hour -long documen- tary called Popultion: Boom or Doom, By Marlene Sanders which I produced and reported in 1973. It turns out that some of my notes, long Whenever I am confronted with a forgotten, are quoted. book about the early days of tele- The chapter studied dealt with reporting vision news, I admit to checking done on abortion and reproductive rights the index under my name. I was there in TV documentaries in the early 70's. The from the SO's on, and am always inter- gist of the complaints are that, well inten- ested to see how authors or reporters view tioned and on the "right" side of the issue events that I had something do with. In that most of us cited were, we did not this case, various feminist academics have interview well -known feminists; rather, we examined radio, SO's TV drama, talk selected more establishment types, for our shows and documentaries, among other pro- choice spokespeople. It is somewhat areas from the 20's to the present. difficult to look back 26 years and remem- My obvious focus was on the chapter ber why we made the choices we did. I done by Associate Professor of Communi- have dug out my script, reread it, and cations and Women's Studies, Julia remain steadfast in my belief that we were D'Acci, at the University of fair to the opposition, and fairly presented the views of the proponents of choice. My view has always been, in my long TV career, that our mission was to lay out the issues honestly and clearly. In those days, certain feminist spokespeople provoked immediate hostility and would have done the cause no good. I felt it was better to deliberately choose people who could make the same points and be listened to without prejudice. As for the network interference that the author believes we had to endure, at that time there was very little, and I believe our documentaries were strong, and often brave. Today, documentaries have largely been replaced by magazine shows. My old Teevitiion, Hiators, network, ABC, has given some of its hours to Stoessel and free American Cu9ture precious John and rein to what I consider his anti -feminist ESSAYS CRITICAL FEMINIST views. Our stance of the 70's looks judi-

Mary Beth iaratovich cious and fair by comparison. Edited by Rabinovitz For students and other young people and Lauren who did not live through the exciting days

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of the second wave of feminism, this book tion, and questions of individual identity". will be of historical interest. It outlines Readers used to dealing with academic what many of us knew first hand: that feminism will find the book informative radio was hostile to women's supposedly and without too much jargon. Mere jour- unacceptable voices; that Luci & Desi nalists may find it a bit hard going. Femi- represented the last gasp of the happy nist journalists like me who were lucky nuclear family; that Peyton Place was a enough to report on the movement, along new view of the sexually emancipated with the regular menu of news coverage, woman; that Bill Cosby's TV show came look back with pleasure at the mostly about as part of the fall -out of the civil unsullied freedom we had. rights movement; and, as time passed, that Our voices, however imperfect, were the feminist sit -com progressed from more knowing than those of our male Designing Women to Murphy Brown. counterparts who were clueless about The editors express their goals as what was going on. Media still matter, but attempting "to demonstrate that a feminist the world has changed so much that even politics of critical engagement in televsion its current deficiencies cannot, and will history is crucial for understanding telev- not, turn back the clock. sion's role in modern culture. Its purpose is to examine the social and industrial Marlene Sanders is Professional in Residence at the conditions affecting the Freedom Forum's Media Studies Program. She was struggle for repre- formerly a correspondent for ABC and CBS News. sentation on television -from the very She was also a documentary producer, and later, presence of women on TV to the way tele- Vice -President and Director of Documentaries for ABC News. vision mediates civil rights, sexual libera-

Talking Radio: Corwin "), his work is now largely forgot- An Oral ten while his type of aural drama has not History of been produced in years. Keith, who dedi- American Radio in the cated the book to Corwin ( "poet of air and Television Age waves ") interviewed over 100 profession- als and scholars to understand how such a By Michael C. Keith vital new art form underwent such a radi- M. E. Sharpe, London /Armonk cal change after World War II when televi- sion was launched to the American public.

By Ron Simon Keith, a lecturer of communication at Boston College and author of a dozen he career and achievements of radio books on broadcasting, has created a dramatist Norman Corwin haunt this mosaic of many voices, juxtaposing the new media book. Corwin, the author anecdotal reminiscences of such radio of such radio plays as On a Note of practitioners as Paul Harvey and Stan Triumph and Ballad for Americans, was the Freberg with the historical perspectives of premier artist of so- called "golden age of historians Christopher Sterling and radio." Despite being the Shakespeare of Douglas Gomery. Each chapter deals with his medium (as one witness notes "words a different form of postwar radio, from Top and radio are synonymous with Norman 40 to all news, NPR to Howard Stern.

104 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com What sustains the narrative is that the old frames the debate by stating that t. idio school of radio advocates-Larry Gelbart, rescued the AM band and returned ve Himan Brown, and Erik Barnouw among word back to the medium where r, oi.ted others-make appearances throughout music had taken over. the book, challenging and questioning the The witnesses agree that the major latest trends of radio commercialization. change caused by the dominance of televi- For example, summing up the influence of sion was that radio did not have to be a Stern and other shock jocks, Gelbart hopes mass medium any longer. The airwaves that "these guys are preaching only to the could now serve smaller and smaller perverted." demographic groups, appealing to the most limited cultural interests. One gets the sense that most of these so- called hese oral exchanges can make for experts of radio listen only to programs informative reading if the first -hand, that conform to their tastes and genera- sometimes superficial, accounts are tion. Syndicated host Joe Cortese states put into a larger industry context. A that disc jockeys "helped form my world - running thread in several chapters is an view and kept me tuned into what was hip, attempt to understand what passes for cool, and necessary." On the other hand, political opinion on radio. Several voices Studs Terkel, who grew up in another age lament the passing of such commentators of radio, thinks that most deejays are as H. V. Kaltenborn and Edward R. "pretty devoid of any identifiable talent." Murrow. Even with the lifting of the FCC Even with all the witnesses there are some ban on editorials in 1950, former news notable omission The compelling mono- producer Ed Bliss notes that stations and logues of Jean Sht I.herd are not cited, as is individuals champion few causes. In fact, not the transformation of Don Imus from most opinion today is given by non -jour- radio clown to political kingmaker. nalists, spouting out prejudices with little There seems to be only basic principle informed judgement -the heart and soul of postwar radio: it is never static. Under- of talk radio. But is this really the "single ground, free -form radio of the sixties most important format development in seems as distant as Fred Allen and Inner commercial radio's history," as performer Sanctum. But the even these 100 voices Dick Fatherly alleges? are not enough to encompass all the Why did talk radio sweep the airwaves changes of contemporary radio. You would since the eighties? Two theories are have no idea that of the approximately offered: host Michael Harrison asserts that 10,400 stations in America, the most it was the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine popular format by far is country, heard that allowed stations to tackle controver- over 2,400 channels. Although one chap- sial issues and personalities while founda- ter deals mainly with the advances of tion executive Gordon Hastings states that African -Americans and women in radio, first local and then national radio there is not enough about the significance responded to the average American's of ethnic radio, especially Hispanic detachment from the electoral process. programming. Hispanic radio is a leader in Much discussion is given over to the many markets, especially Los Angeles, and significance of this "chatter that matters." in this new century there are now more Opinions range from talk radio as a new Spanish /ethnic stations than Top Forty form of drama, where callers adlib their ones. The inventor of all -hits radio, Todd lines, to an exploitative asylum for ranting Storz, is saluted in one chapter, but who is fanatics. Whatever its effect, editor Keith his equivalent in minority programming?

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Talking Radio concludes with an icans. With the introduction of the new updated version of Norman Corwin's technologies, especially the Internet, 1939 play, "Seems Radio Is Here to Stay." several voices predict that television will In Whitmanesque fashion, Corwin cele- undergo the same transformation as radio. brates the mystery of the aural medium: Will a similar book in 50 years ask: "Is "The microphone is not an ordinary television here to stay ?" instrument, for it looks out on vistas wide indeed." As Michael Keith's book reiterates over and over, the vistas of radio in the last Ron Simon is television curator at the Museum of fifty years have shrunk. Television and Radio in New York and an adjunct It is no longer a associate professor at Columbia University. unifying cultural necessity for most Amer-

Live from the Trenches: as usual -no foreigners need apply. Enter- tainment reigns supreme again. Domestic The Changing Role of version preferred. the Television News We revert to the tabloid takeover of jour- Correspondent nalism standards, the diet of trash TV, info- tainment, the ever more competitive and Edited by Joe S. Foote fragmented media marketplace, the chaos Southern Illinois University Press, of the Internet with its "anyone can be a Carbondale reporter" and "don't- bother -to- check -it- By Bernard S. Redmont out" mentality. Look backward and summon up the glamorous image of the trench -coated e all sense a growing awareness reporter played by Joel McCrea, mytholo- that something is seriously wrong in the state of our profes- sion. For a decade or two, many of us who have labored as correspondents in the vineyards of television journalism have wondered if we are endangered species. We have seen vast changes in our role, importance and numbers. And not always for the better. Except for CNN, the TV networks in the United States have given up trying to cover international news on a regular basis, unless and until bombs begin falling. A war injects a blood transfusion into this decimated profession -and more than a thousand reporters rush abroad to flood Kosovo, Bosnia, Serbia or the Persian Gulf-areas until then virtually ignored. And what happens when the hostilities fade? Tents are folded. The drill is business

106 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com gized by the movie, Foreign Correspondent. our lives. The changes are "driven by the Sec him rushing out the door to a crisis economics of the industry, the technologi- abroad, shouting, "Cancel my rumba cal changes, and the people who come and lessons!" Was it ever true? go," as Provost John S. Jackson III says in a Still, many of us felt the profession to be preface. It's a world driven by satellites, a vocation, a calling. Once upon a time, cell phones, mini -cameras, and the laptop the correspondent personified prestige. computer. It involves "movement toward He-and too often it was he and not she - corporate mergers, greater concentration embodied the much envied figure of an of corporate power in fewer hands, and the independent, well- educated and even ideal - expectation that the news divisions will be istic-if sometimes cynical -reporter. profit centers for he mostly entertainment - She or he hobnobbed with the world's centered corporations that involve them. great, traveled first class, and called the The contributors to the book include journalistic shots. Danger often lurked. veterans like our Paris colleague Jim But a good deal of the time, it was fun. Bitterman of NBC, later ABC and still later CNN; Chris Bury, who covered presiden- tial campaigns and major Clinton White fee from the Trenches gives us a dose of House stories for ABC's Nightline; Roger this nostalgia about "the good old O'Neil, lead reporter for NBC's coverage of days," along with a measure of real- the Oklahoma City bombing and the

4 ism, and reflection about where it's at now. Timothy McVeigh trial; and Walter This modest book offers a compendium of Rodgers, whom we knew in Moscow for sensible ruminations by some excellent ABC before he went to CNN Berlin and correspondents, war stories, and round- Jerusalem. table talk about their changing role, All four happen to be graduates of shrinking numbers, dazzling new technol- Southern Illinois University, which assem- ogy and implications for the future. bled this book. But others were also Ted Koppel, who writes the foreword, invited to contribute: George Straight of comments: "In what may be one of the ABC, who discusses how race has played a more tragic convergences in American significant part in his career; Marlene history, public trust in reporters has Sanders, formerly of ABC and CBS, who reached an all -time low at precisely the describes brilliantly what it was like to be time that the country is about to be inun- a woman correspondent in the early years dated in information chaos. And to make and what it's like now; and Garrick Utley matters even worse, the chaos is being of CNN and formerly NBC and ABC, peddled as a form of electronic democ- explaining the demise of the foreign corre- racy."" He says the country has never had spondent on network news. Ed Turner of a greater need for serious, no- nonsense CNN winds it up with a round -table reporting. And this book enables us to discussion called "Dialogue from the meet some old fashioned reporters, read Trenches." their stories and hear their message. The riches found in these trenches Koppel signs off: "You'll miss them when demonstrate that good correspondents are they're gone." not travel -weary cynics, but deeply idealis- We do indeed. The book assembles the tic and often intellectual people, with a reflections of nine top correspondents keen sense of history and broad knowledge about their own role, how it was when hey of politics, economics, science, technology began, how it is now, and how it may he and other important disciplines. Indeed evolving. Change is the only constant in the best of them are true historians and

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teachers. spondent." As editor of the collection, Joe Foote, At one all -news channel, recent j-school dean of the College of Mass Communica- graduates package news from third -party tion and Media Arts at Southern Illinois, sources around the clock, with no corre- who had been a radio journalist before spondents and no original news gathering. entering academia, deserves kudos for Limited signs of renewal do show in a few understanding well and telling what it's areas: At CNN, BBC and other global like in the trenches without having served networks, news gathering is on the as a TV correspondent himself. increase and new bureaus are opening. During the "glory days" of the corre- Marlene Sanders, a three -time Emmy spondent, from the fifties to the eighties, award winner, makes one of the best money was no object in coverage. But contributions to the book. Sanders before long, the management consultants pioneered at ABC in covering the real and the bean counters began closing over- hard -news stories of the sixties, at a time seas bureaus and parachuting clueless when women mainly covered soft issues reporters into hot spots in times of need. and stories like candidate's wives- "rele- Producer meddling, a frequent gated to the equivalent of a newspaper's complaint among correspondents, often woman's page." mangled story lines (CNN was more She recalls that it was a great time to be immune to this disease). Foote notes that in news, particularly "because of the producers who commissioned a story autonomy and confidence the network often prescribed the content. Correspon- placed in its correspondents. The constant dents chafed at the numerous, often editing, rewriting and second guessing by contradictory, rewrites demanded by evening news brass that torments today's producers, known as "the butchers in New reporters was minimal." York." More and more stories now are Sanders was the first TV newswoman to assembled by correspondents but not actu- cover the Vietnam war; she covered the ally reported by them. Any story, domestic Eugene McCarthy campaign and the or international, could be told from New Bobby Kennedy death watch. She did the York or Washington. Anyone out in the first documentary on the burgeoning trenches who argues with a producer runs women's movement- and helped us to the risk of being demoted from the A -list understand the story, which was then to B -list, or simply earning the reputation widely misinterpreted by men. She formed of a malcontent. What's particularly grat- the Women's Action Committee at ABC in ing, Foote demonstrates, is that the 1972, and similar groups began at NBC producer corps, who have become the and CBS. Some executive producers made autocratic bosses, have little or no experi- her life miserable with discriminatory ence as journalists, but represent the assignments. She has written most percep- show -business ingredient of the show. tively of the problem of long hours and Corporate downsizing, centralized travel and the juggling of child raising. She administrative control and resource notes that many women have opted out of cutbacks have dulled the correspondents network jobs and gone to local stations luster, as Foote sees it, and "most alarm- where travel, at least, is not an issue. She ing, news gathering has taken a back seat notes that "Most women at the networks to news processing at most networks, are B -list correspondents anyway, rele- marginalizing the role of the field corre- gated to early morning broadcasts, and

108 TELEVISION QUARTERLY www.americanradiohistory.com weekends, and assigned peripheral stories. flying from one international conflagra- Stardom for the few women who achieve it tion to another. Utley once had to do three is now on the magazine shows, not on the stories in three countries on two conti- nightly news." nents in five days -and that was not Marlene says, "I, for one, wanted it all unusual. Paradoxically, he says, "broad and pretty much had it. Not everyone has viewer interest in world affairs is declining been so lucky." It was more than luck, for from it's modest Cold War heights just as Marlene was a real pro. U.S. global influence is reaching new levels Jim Bitterman makes the point that, as the results of several administrations' "faced with declining network interest in efforts to expand trade, businesses' need international events and declining air time to expand overseas, and the global domi- overall, network foreign correspondents nance of American pop culture, all driven are not a very happy bunch these days." by American leadership in the develop- The video news agencies, such as AP -TV ment and exploitation of new technolo- and Reuters -TV have become more compe- gies. Today, more Americans than ever tent and there's an inclination on many before are working and traveling abroad, stories to "let the agencies handle it." from CEOs to sales reps, students and When they do go to a hot spot, correspon- tourists. International trade is equal to dents often sleep in the field, under hard- about one quarter of GDP." ship conditions. Wherever the dish (satel- Utley warns: "The network news lite dish) goes is where you spend the programs, and indeed, news programs in night. Use of non -Americans and local general ought to consider not only stringers and fixers is up. Several of the whether their response to market forces contributors note sadly that job security can sustain good journalism but whether and quality of life have gone downhill. The it is a sound long -term business decision." command -and -control from New York is With all the major news divisions now tighter than ever. owned by transnational corporations, BBC reporters are astonished at the commercial pressures are having a chilling script control that American TV network effect on the independence of reporters, he correspondents undergo, often by four or says, and the growing tension between five people in the home office, many of journalistic and commercial priorities whom have never been in the field but may never be fully resolved. insist on second -guessing. It would have All in all, it's a valuable book that needs been useful for these good American to be studied in the command centers of reporters to give some more attention to broadcasting, and pondered deeply. TV news correspondents how Europe's Bernard Redmont served CBS news as a TV foreign function and see how they do things correspondent in Moscow and Paris. He is Dean better. Incidentally, Bitterman quit ABC to Emeritus of Boston University College of of Risks Worth Taking: CNN, correspondent- driven Communication and author join "a The Odyssey of a Foreign Correspondent. network with an enormous amount of freedom, a young and energetic staff, a lean and enlightened management." Garrick Utley echoes many of the other contributors in deploring the shrinking of foreign news and viewing the network foreign correspondent as an endangered species. He cites many examples of how correspondents have become "firemen,"

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OFFICERS HONORARY FORMER CHAIRMEN THE BOARD Stanley Hubbard, Chairman of the Board TRUSTEES OF John Cannon. President FORMER PRESIDENTS John Cannon S. Joel Chaseman Maury Povich, Vice Chairman Harry Ackerman Berns Irwin Sonny Fox Darryl Cohen. Vice President Seymour E. Lee Polk Linda Giannecchini. Secretary Royal Blakeman R. Rector Walter Gidaly. Treasurer Walter Cronkite Richard Robert F. Lewine Thomas W. Sarnoff Rod Serling Robert J. Wussler Ed Sullivan Michael Collyer Mort Werner David Louie Charles Dolan

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

David Ashbrock Donald Ephraim Ron Louie John M. Odell William Baker Bud Ford Roger Lyons Henry E. Plimack Robert Behrens John Hammond Evelyn Mims Sue Ann Staake Diana Borri Wiley Hance Ed Morris Maury Povich Frank Cariello Jan Jacobson Carol Naff Bill Stainton June Colbert Roger La May Paul Noble Ellen Wallach C. Paul Corbin Ann Liguori Fred Noriega Terry Williams

CHAPTER PRESIDENTS AND ADMINISTRATORS

Chapter President Administrator Arizona Dennis Dilworth Patricia Emmert Atlanta Darryl Cohen Nancy White Boston / New England Greg Caputo Jill D. Jones Chicago David Ratzlaff Miki Yurczak Cleveland Steve Goldurs Janice Giering Colorado Tim Ryan Tracy Hutchins Michigan Carlota Almanza- Lumpkin Arlene Coffee Nashville Phillip L. Bell Geneva M. Brignolo New York William F. Baker Gordon Hastings Ohio Valley Willis Parker Peggy Ashbrock Philadelphia Sam Schroeder Grace Stewart St. Louis Jim Kirchherr Cathy Spalding San Diego Esther Jane Paul Jonathan Dunn- Rankin San Francisco / Northern California Cynthia E. Zeiden Darryl R. Compton Seattle Steve Quant Diane Bevins South Florida Doris Davila Vivienne Pestana Washington, D.C. Paul Berry Dianne Bruno

TELEVISION QUARTERLY 111 www.americanradiohistory.com THE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF NATAS

Executive Committee Pierre Lescure (France) Ronald Devillier (USA) Fellows l'resident Sr. Fernando López -Amor Ho Anh Dung (Vietnam) Biagio Agnes (Italy) Mr. Fred Cohen (Spain) Craig Fisher (USA) Edward Bieter (USA) Michael MacMillan (Canada) Richard Frank (USA) Richard Carlton (USA) Chairman Gary Marenzi (USA) Ms. Mary Frost (USA) Murray Chercover (Canada) Mr. Bruce Paisner Dr. Roberto Marinho (Brazil) Ms. Mabel Garda de Angel Bruce Christensen (USA) Ms. Meryl Marshall (USA) (Colombia) Mark Cohen (USA) Vice -Chairman Lee Masters (USA) Ms. Phylis Geller (USA) George Dessart (USA) Mr. Larry Gershman Douglas McCormick (USA) Pierre GrandJean (Switzerland) Irwin (Sonny) Fox (USA) Greg Meidel (USA) Edward Grebow (USA) Ralph Franklin (USA) Treasurer Halsey Minor (USA) Mario Guglielmotti (USA) Karl Honeystein (USA) Mr. Jack Healy Koichi Mizuno (Japan) Andy Hadjicostis (Cyprus) Norman Horowitz (USA) Molefe Mokgatle (South Africa) Robert Igiel (USA) Gene Jankowski (USA) Secretary Julian Mounter (Australia) Bruce Johansen (USA) Arthur F. Kane (USA) Mr. Don Taffner, Sr. Ivica Mudrinic (Croatia) Dheeraj Kapuria (USA) Len Mauger (Australia) Ms. Dariga Nazarbayeva JunJi Kitadai (USA) Richard A. O'Leary (USA) Chairman Emeritus (Kazakhstan) Pavel Korchagin (Russia) Kevin O'Sullivan (USA) Mr. Renato M. Pachetti Sam Nilsson ' (Sweden) Ms. Zorica S. Kostovska Renato M. Pachetti (USA) Robert A. O'Reilly (Canada) (Macedonia) Robert Phillis (UK) Members laroslaw Pachowskl (Poland) John Laing (USA) James Rosenfield (USA) Mr. Ralph Baruch Lucio Pagliaro (Argentina) Lee Cheok Yew (Singapore) Dietrich Schwarzkopf Mr. Georges Leclerc Bruce Paisner (USA) Richard Lippin (USA) (Germany) Mr. Bruce Paisner lobst Plog (Germany) Liu Chang Le (Hong Kong. P.R. James T. Shaw (USA) Mr. Rainer Sick Ian Ritchie (UK) China) Donald D. Wear (USA) Mr. Don Taffner, Sr. William Roedy (USA) Igor Malashenko (Russia) David Webster (USA) Tom Rogers (USA) James Marrinan (USA) Directors Steven Rosenberg (USA) Veran Matte (Yugoslavia) Alternates Charles L. Allen (UK) Jeff Sagansky (USA) Kip Meek. (UK) Shariar Ahy (USA) William F. Baker (USA) Moriyoshi Saito (Japan) Farrell E. Meisel (USA) Ms. Ginette Ast (USA) Carlos Barba (USA) Samir Sanbar (Lebanon) Prince Alexandre de Merode Zane Bair (USA) Ralph Baruch' (USA) Remy Sautier (Luxembourg) (Monaco) Gabor B nyat (Hungary) Steve Bornstein (USA) Jeffrey Schlesinger (USA) Ms. Peggy Miles (USA) Ms. Rebecca Battles (USA) John Cannon (USA) Sheng Chong QJng (P.R. China) Prince Albert of Monaco Mario Bona (USA) Chabin (USA) Jim Rainer Sick (USA) (Monaco) Harold C. Crump (USA) Chen Chien -ten (TAIWAN) Dr. Pedro Simoncini' William Moses (USA) Fritz Dickman (USA) Cheng Su -Ming (TAIWAN) (Argentina) Jean- Bernard Munch Ms. Nicole Devilaine (USA) Cheung Man -Yee (Hong Kong. Sergei Skvortsov (Russia) (Switzerland) John Fitzgerald (USA) P.R.C.) Harry Sloan (Luxembourg) Armando Nudez, Sr. (USA) Harry Forbes (USA) Gustavo Cisneros (Venezuela) Michael Jay Solomon (USA) Steve Perlman (USA) Ms. Ellen Frey- McCourt (USA) Roberto Civita (Brazil) Giovanni Stabilini (Italy) Ms. Monica Ridruejo (Spain) Ms. Stefanie Gelinas (USA) Jeróme Clement (France) Jean Stock (France) Bill Roberts (Canada) Sergio Gil Trullen (Spain) Bert H. Cohen (USA) Prof. Dieter Stolte (Germany) Ms. Mirtha Rodriguez de Saba Bernard Guillou (France) Fred M. Cohen (USA) Howard Stringer (USA) (Paraguay) lunnosuke Hayashi (USA) Bob Collins (Ireland) Yukio Sunahara (Japan) Xavier Roy (France) Takashi llogasident (USA) Ervin Duggan (USA) Donald L. Taffner ' (USA) Johnny Saad (Brazil) Ms. Elisabeth Johanson (USA) Kalsuji Ebisawa (Japan) Dr. Helmut Thoma (Germany) Didier Sapaut (France) Ms. Maggie Jones (USA) Ivan Fecan (Canada) Ferenc Tolvaly (Hungary) Ms. Rita Scarfone (USA) Shigetoshi Kobayashi (USA) Larry Gershman (USA) Ms. Katharina Trebitsch Ilenry Schleiff (USA) Ken Krushel (USA) Peler Gerwe (Russia) (Germany) Reese Schonfeld (USA) Ms. Alexandra Leckre (USA) Stuart Glickman (USA) R.E. "Ted" Turner (USA) Werner Schwaderlapp Klaus Lehmann (USA) Xavier Gouyou- Beauchamps Blair Westlake (USA) (Germany) David Levy (USA) (France) Bruno Wu ()long Kong, P.R. Nachman Shat (Israel) Adrian McDaid (USA) Herbert Granath' (USA) China) Zafar Siddigi (Pakistan) Ms. Margarita Milian (Puerto Jean -Louis Gulllaud (France) Will Wyatt (UK) Sanford Socolow (USA) Rico) Bruce Gyngell (Australia) Roberto Zaccaria (Italy) Tim Thorsteinson (USA) Horst Mueller (USA) Klaus Hallig (USA) Gerhard Zeiler (Germany) David Tomatis (Monaco) Greg Osberg (USA) Jack Healy. (USA) Vladimir Zelezny (Czech Ms. Ursula von Zallinger Rafael Pastor (USA) Peter A. Herrndorf (Canada) Republic) (Germany) Andres Rodriguez (USA) Steve Hewlett (UK) Alexander Zilo (Saudi Arabia) Ivan Vrkic (Croatia) Felipe Rodriguez Hisashi Hieda (Japan) lames Warner (USA) Jerzy Romanski (Poland) Stanley Hubbard (USA) Associates Arthur Weinthal (Canada) Ms. Gillian Rose (USA) Kunio Ito (Japan) Zorigiin Altai (Mongolia) Arne Wessberg (Finland) Jeff Ruhe Jaber Ali (Lebanon) Robert Alter (USA) Yang Pei chi (Taiwan) Anatoll Samochornov (USA) Michael Jackson (UK) Joseph Barry (Ireland) Vladimir Zvyagin (USA) Toshio Shirai (USA) Brian (Australia) Johns Jacques Bensimon (Canada) Ms. Eileen Slater -Cohen (USA) Chatchur Karnasuta (Thailand) Peter Bogner (USA) Michael Spiessbach (USA) Ms. C.J. Kettler (USA) Martin Bunnell (USA) Donald Taffner, Jr. (USA) Herbert Klotber (Germany) Gerry Byrne (USA) Jorge Vaillant (USA) Dr. Georg Kotler (Germany) Terre) Cass (USA) Dr. Kajohn Wanapun (USA) Ms. Kay Koplovitz. (USA) Michael Collyer (USA) Edward Wierzbowskf (USA) Georges Leclerc. (US) Lee deBoer (USA) Dr. Yu Yuh -chao (USA)

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