The Newslife : from Arkansas to Aruba

The Newslife:

From Arkansas to Aruba

Stephen Cohen

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

The Newslife: From Arkansas to Aruba

Copyright © 2011

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-1565-8 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-1566-5 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 5/17/2011

Dedicated to

The family I neglected, yet, loved nonetheless

And

Charles Rose, the journalist and interviewer

Contents

A Prologue

The Deuce

A Yankee in Arkansas

Will it Play in Peoria

In the Crucible of Detroit

Boston Affair

Los Angeles — Backhand Shot

Philadelphia Saga —

A Play in Three Acts

Adrift — On a Sea of Delusion

Court TV — Back on the High Road

Trucker Television

Buffalo — Long Winter’s Night

Los Angeles —

In the Arms of a News Room

Floating in The Great Salt Lake

On The Hollywood Merry go Round

News By The Bay

Aruba — No River Runs Through It

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

THE NEWSLIFE

A Prologue

Just about every mistake you can make in life and business, I’ve made.

Ego spawned hubris. Failure to plan for the future produced a life propelled by stratospheric highs and face plants on concrete. A manic commitment to work yielded a life outside the office devoid of balance and calm.

My efforts to make a difference through the pursuit of broadcast journalism fueled a life surrounded by some of the most significant contributors to thought and news gathering of our current era.

Rod Serling might have written this script. A life lived entirely inside an office, surrounded by a television newsroom. It is where you encounter a few heavyweight boxing champs, a hard hitting middle weight; a half dozen, United States Senators, one screaming for your job. An entire generation of television executives and their progeny; followed, by many of the most highly regarded and eventually well known journalists of modern time. Then you can add in three Miss America’s, some dark ops guys, a porn king or two, and a handful of combat veteran heroes with the bronze and silver stars to prove it. All mixed in with a few hundred hard working, unheralded journalists who made local news the single most important source of news for most Americans for decades.

It would not have occurred to me to write any of it down in hopes of passing along whatever lessons rest buried in this life. Then, my friends started dying. Guys I thought would live long enough to write the tales, and, I would be a footnote in their ramblings.

Ron Tindiglia, a legendary news director and consultant, told the stories as if they were history. He befriended me in the 1970’s as we rose to run America’s largest newsrooms. Ron Kershaw, famed for his brilliance, wildman ways, and, of course, his long standing relationship with Golden Girl, Jessica Savitch had many night’s full of escapades. Mark bvm Monsky who helped invent local news with his mentor Ted Cavanaugh, and stayed in touch through the years of his illness, and the up and down times.

And, then, Jerry died. That’s Jerry Nachman. He was a fabled cop reporter in radio, and then a street reporter at WCBS, when I came in as news director. He taught me quickly how the Apple was unlike any other newsroom in the world. He was right, and I was savvy enough to listen to him. He opened a world to me that never closed, and we stayed friends for almost 30 years.

We would sit at Victor’s Café in West Hollywood and spin our yarns. I always hoped he would launch them, as a volume someday, like Proust or Izzy Stone. But his last gig at MSNBC would be his last. He often told me to never take the same job twice, a rule he broke, as did I, many times.

The telling of this journey of mine is as much in memory of them as it is a cathartic escapade for me. But, it is more than that as well. Journalism created for television is changing and not for the better. Fragmentation of news providers, the ease of creating stories, and the unbridled power of video streaming on the internet has allowed amateurs to push out journalists with something of value to offer. In the formative years, we had few resources, limited capabilities, but we had passion for telling a story well, presented by one of a kind personalities, and saying what needed to be offered regardless of the life consequences.

For the better part of 40 years, I have roamed through local newsrooms. Whatever else was happening in my life was informed by those experiences. I was surrounded by extraordinary journalists, on screen and off, who taught me more than I gave them. In the passing pages, you will encounter them, as I did, full of youth, energy and hope.

This list, from memory, is hardly exhaustive but they include, Bill O’Reilly, Meredith Vieira, Cynthia McFadden, Bob Pittman, Steven Brill, Brian Williams, Star Jones, Fred Graham, Jack Ford, John Tesh, Roland Smith, Warner Wolf, Sal Marchiano, Jim Bouton, Ralph Penza, Tony Guida, Tom Ellis, Larry Kane, Alan Frio, Chris Borgen, Connie Chung, Maury Povich, Al Primo, Pat Polillo, John Stossel, Arny Diaz, John Coleman, Terry Moran, Tom Synder, Jim Jensen, John Johnson, Lester Holt, and many others you will recognize as major contributors to our modern era of broadcast journalism.

You also rub shoulders, ever so lightly, with fellows who run things. The chieftains to whom you show respect, expect they have earned their gravitas, and who always made me nervous and who I always addressed with some reverence. All were forces through these years, and all cast a large shadow on the rest of us.

My encounters with them were few. I can account for no grand friendship, they are in this story because they knew me for a moment, and offered me a lesson, a gesture, or a story worth passing along.

There is no hierarchy here, but you know, who you will know. Bill Paley, Steven Ross, Van Gordon Sauter, Sir Harold Stringer, Eric Ober, Fred Friendly, Bill Leonard, Don Hewitt, Gene Jankowski, Tom Leahy, Peter Lund, Jonathan Rodgers, Jamie Bennett, Herb Siegel, Evan Thompson, Rick Feldman, Billy Frank, Bob Sherman, and Bob Pittman.

We will also spend some moments with a few dozen leaders about to emerge as significant forces in journalism. They will come onto the stage from behind assignment desks, as assistants, or even as day workers, getting their first taste of a big city newsroom. I marvel at the good fortune of having been surrounded by their presence, and gratified to see what they achieved in their own life’s path.

This professional life would never have been the same without kindred spirits that helped and guided me along the way. This handful of mentors came into my life seemingly without plan, but illuminated paths for me that I would have missed in my frantic quest to contribute.

Two archetypes, now gone, filled the early years. One Virgil Mitchell, Mitch who was an ABC news executive, who took to finding talented kids and sending them, hair on fire, into the stations, he helped. He found me in Arkansas and sent me to Peoria. Between the smoker’s raspy cough, and his deep voice, he encouraged me, as he did others from a small apartment in Los Angeles.

Once in Peoria, the dean of headhunters, Sherlee Barish, put me on her list. She sounded like comedienne, Selma Diamond. Gruff, but still elegant, she knew everyone, and took her commission off the top. Barish made the early years happen for me. By the time, I was 28, I was on her list to get me to New York, somehow. And, of course, she did. No one had more people on the list, or a longer list of IOU’s. Barish made careers, and helped the growing business of local news become what it was about to be.

In what would be the glory years, no one offered more, gave more, or helped more than Neil Derrough. He was a controversial executive at CBS, because he had a soul, vision, and understood how to assemble and lead creative shops. When, he brought me to WCBS, the Deuce, he was challenged by the old school ties, and depicted as nuts to insert a fast track kid, like me, into the vaunted Tiffany network. Everyone thought I was Gimble’s to their Macy’s, except Neil. My CBS years were, in large, measure, due to his faith in me. When he left CBS, my fortunes fell.

Across the 40 years, one executive stayed with me, through the course of this story. He was my first boss in broadcasting, Robert Hernreich. The occasion of our meeting, was my driving from Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan down the Mississippi river valley to find a job as a reporter. I knocked on nearly every station door with my newly minted Master’s in Journalism. I thought this would be a short trip. I had two other degrees, one in education and the other an M.A. in History. But no go. I was too intense, maybe too much a smart ass, and very Eastern.

Hernreich was fresh out of Washington University, with his MBA, and served a father who owned most of radio and television in the state of Arkansas. He asked me when I could start, at 160 a week. I told him, right away. I had everything in the car, except for wife one.

It began a life, long friendship. He’s the only truly wealthy guy and friend, I know. The only guy who can make a deal, between snowboard runs. And like most of us has had his own struggles, defeat and victories in life. Yet, he never gave away his sense of putting some joy into each day, no matter how much sorrow intervened in either of our lives.

Most of my life has been lived inside a local newsroom. That is a place that evolved from the late 1960’s from a few chairs, a typewriter, and film editing racks to a massive enterprise of high technology, live reporting on the scene, and well dressed readers. It is the one place where I felt secure, alive, and worthwhile. Time spent, telling the stories of others, offering empathy to co -workers and those we reported upon seemed to define a well lived life. It was an existence so highly charged with emotion, deadlines, and drama that it could only take a toll on all involved. And the most committed took the greatest hits. I was one of them.

Today, even in the digital era, local news still affords the majority of Americans their take on local events. In the 1950’s and mid 60’s it was radio and newspapers, by the end of the 60’s it was television news, especially local news.

Local news anchors became virtual stars and they became strong voices of how a community was doing. No mayor would cross John Facenda, Bill Bonds, Roger Grimsby, Bill Beutel or any of the Ambergs. Reporters became icons, tough investigative work captured audiences across the country from Geraldo with his breakthrough Willowbrook series, to the commentary of the bull of Los Angeles, Bill Stout.

News expanded from half hours to full hours, and in New York, under the reign of Earl Ubell, a two hour early news block.

Today local news is seen in all television markets. Most top markets have as many as seven stations providing local news. It is, for most stations, 40-60 per cent of their advertising revenue. News people watch ratings like programmers, and suffer the consequences of reduced numbers. Most news directors keep their jobs two to three years, and then are sacrificed upon the altar of bad ratings.

As news chief, or news director, I was responsible for all the operations of the newsrooms I ran. Everything from the budget, to hiring, and the content of the programs. It is an exhilarating role. In one day you can go from revealing the facts on a politician on the take, to calming an anchor who does not get Easter off. And, on some days, everything works. You hire the next somebody, like Meredith Vieira, you send an anchor to Three Mile Island, you get the exclusive interview with Abba Eban or Moshe Dayan.

It is a job for an impresario. You marshal powerful creative forces and let them play. It is conductor, Bernstein, not Pavarotti or Streisand. You are not Sting, or Eastwood, or the mayor. The problem is you can think you are, and when you do, you endanger the balance, the harmony of what it is you spent your time building.

In my time, you’ll notice, I was a good listener, usually. But, then, the mentors faded, and I was left in their spot. It took time, some soul work, to find my way.

I begin the tale in New York, at the Deuce, where local news reaches it’s apex, in a time before the explosion of independent news, and eventually cable news. Then, I flashback to Arkansas to capture the beginnings of localism and it’s seminal impact on my trajectory as journalist. I suspect you will read this as chapters interest you, or, for those who were in the story, where you impacted my journey.

So, here is the Newslife, the one I have lived, now. For all my good buddies, mentors here and gone, and all those who have been part of it. Some history of local news, to be sure, but more the tale of one life lived all out, unaware of where it would lead or how it would change my perceptions of the world or myself.

Steve Cohen /Spring 2011

The Deuce

Somehow, I always expected to be here, in a Midtown, hotel room in New York, waiting to walk into a newsroom in the Big Apple, as news director, the next morning. It had come quickly in eight years, and, effortlessly. There were no outward signs of some struggle or inner doubts. I had been in places were news happened that received people’s attention; picked up some personal advocates who had leverage; and had some skills as a young man that most guys developed over time.

What I had not expected or dreamed that it would be the local newsroom of CBS that by it’s legendary status was simply dubbed, The Deuce.

I was about to fall into a classic moment in broadcast journalism. I could not forsee where it would lead, or know how perfect it was. These moments come in the history of movements, trends, and social and political direction. For one instant, all the best of something are gathered in one place, and it changes the destiny of everyone.

For broadcast journalism this was it. New York City 1979.

There was no cable news. Ted Turner was about to launch it, but not for another 18 months. All the most talented journalists in America were magnetized by New York. The 1970’s gave broadcasters the best opportunity they had ever had to make a difference with their stories, and in so doing launch their own rising stars. The ignominious pull out from Vietnam, Watergate, the end of the Nixon era, economic crisis from city to city, and the rise of investigative journalism, all were part of this moment.

News became a profit center for stations, and more time periods became consumed by newscasts. Emerging live technology assisted in the expansion, and offered viewers a sense of mastery of the events that they wanted to see. The city was overflowing with talented journalists, fluent with the patois of modern story telling. They could write with emotion, relate to their film visuals, and all with a swagger in step and outlook that made them all television stars.

Ed Koch was the Mayor, and his trademark, How am I doin, was the ideal in your face challenge for everyone to be better, wiser, and aggressive. The tone of the times was work hard, play hard.

I had no doubts that I could be in sync with that intensity or that I could inspire the newsroom. I had paid my dues. I stood in the hotel room, overlooking Central Park, until I collapsed from anticipation into a nearby chair. It never occurred to me to be nervous or concerned about the next morning.

In Arkansas, I reported on the political icons of Bill Fulbright, Wilbur Mills and emerging forces like Dale Bumpers, but it was a tornado that leveled Jonesboro that got me noticed. I was in Peoria, during the Nixon years, and when H.R. Bob Haldeman asked, How will it play in Peoria, that’s where I was when ABC News, and Av Westin, called for news reports. In Detroit, everything wrong with urban America was happening on Coleman Young’s watch, the highest murder rate, riots along Livernois avenue; but; it was, the disappearance of James R. Hoffa that gave me a place in the ABC hierarchy of emerging young news executives. Then to Boston, where mayor Kevin White opened doors for me that allowed tough stories about education and segregation; the fall of Senator Ed Brooke, and enough snow to bury the city. But it was the unraveling of RKO and their parent company General Tire, forcing them to sell the Boston station that put me in front of a young CBS executive with a plan to revitalize the newsroom at the Deuce.

Neil Derrough was already a polished, refined CBS executive. He stood ramrod straight, making him seem taller than he was. His actions were deliberate, at all times. He would approach with an outstretched hand and insure a firm handshake, it was a trademark. He was Merv Griffin and Bill Paley combined, entertainer and corporate visionary. His speech was without either ethnic nor regional character, but was articulated in a soft tone that invited conversation. He had a string of successes including creating vital all news radio formats in San Francisco, and he knew New York, it’s people and players. He was, in his way, the quintessential executive to take WCBS into the next decade, someone who knew the CBS traditions, but was committed to a modernization of the station and it’s role in the community.

Derrough’s gift was building teams of highly creative types that could be difficult to control. He knew if he could put the right personalities in place, and have the right leadership, he could win. And more importantly, he could change the CBS culture to be contemporary and future oriented, oriented to current public concerns that met the audiences expanding needs and interests.

Sherlee Barish, a legendary headhunter had put me on Neil’s short list. She had picked me up in Peoria, and guided me from place to place. She was more than an agent, she was a Merlin and a gutsy old aunt. Sherlee had a sense of the alchemy of relationships and teams. And she could see, somehow, years ahead of most others, how one executive would need another, how one lone wolf would need a Shepard.

She had people everywhere, in all the big outfits. The client gave her the fee off the top, you paid nothing for her service. She handled only people she wanted, you couldn’t pitch your way into her world. She either liked you or she didn’t. Her raspy, smokers voice, and loud laugh could disrupt the most chic places she frequented. But she always dined with the power elite, and when you were with her, you felt like somebody.

She knew I was not the polished CBS type. I still saw myself as kid from a row house, working class neighborhood, in Philadelphia. I had big dreams in that small room I shared with my roommate, my grandfather. I grew up older, I never remember ever thinking like a kid. It’s an old family joke, but I didn’t know a room didn’t smell like a Corona until I got to college.

I rushed through Penn State to get to teaching high school history and become a coach. Then, rushed again through an M.A. in History, so I could teach college. By the time I was appointed a young professor at Penn State’s campus in Erie, I had married my high school sweetheart. I was on track to get a PhD, and be a professor for life, earn tenure and have the children.

But Vietnam happened. While pursuing the M.A. in History, I thought I would enlist in Army intelligence, jump into Officer Candidate School, rather than wait for the draft call. I was uncertain about my feelings about the war, but thought having some certainty about the future would be the best course of action.

I was rejected for service, an old injury from a street fight that shattered my left arm had made me 4-F.On campus, my view of the war changed, and I became an advocate of our withdrawal as did many other young professors. By the time I entered the University of Michigan as a PhD candidate, I knew I had to change my direction.

I searched through the course offerings and found a way to get a fast track M.A. in broadcast journalism, so I could be on my way to reporting, I thought this would get me to Vietnam. I had Ed Murrow on my mind, but not the skills or the opportunity to make anything happen.

Barish had picked up all of this biography, and knew that I would be what Neil required. My ability as outlined by Sherlee followed a familiar biography:

He can make a speech like a politician. Has done every job in a newsroom. Can handle bullies, creative talent, and executives. Knows the news. Tells the truth. Nobody bothers him. Grown up.

She was largely right about me. I had few doubts about what I could do in the newsroom. With some introspection, a sense of who I really was, I had no fears about the future. Oddly, this adult I had always been, which robbed me of some sense of humor and joy, was just ideal for WCBS. At 32, I was 46. Unbridled energy, devotion to the task, and determined to walk into that newsroom, as a well decorated, field general.

Of course, the folks at WCBS didn’t want or need another general of anything.After a morning speech about my devotion to the traditions of CBS, my respect for the room and my awe of riding an elevator with Charles Collingwood, white carnation and cane and all. I was by afternoon off of Patton’s high, white horse. Earl Ubell, even white haired then, one of the original modern news directors at WNBC, now a health reporter at WCBS, pulled me aside for the best advice I had ever received. It was Ubell who created a two hour block of news in the afternoon, build around his venerable weather man Dr. Frank Field. In a double truck ad in the New York Times, they laid out every minute of the format, so you could decide what to watch when you wanted. Decades later some minor league consultants shopped the rundown idea around like it was original.

He started with a simple set of rules. Never pass a urinal or a water fountain, as an effective news chief you will not know when you will pass one again in the day. Then, he pointed his finger at me, and offered a strategy straight out of West Point. You don’t lead a group of veterans from the front, Cohen. That’s ok in Peoria, or even Detroit, but not here. You lead from behind. Show people the way, encourage them, and get the hell out of the way.

Off the horse by 5pm, I realized, what the Deuce needed was a colleague, and a collaborator and that’s what I became virtually overnight. And when I got out of line and ran upfront, I was smacked back by the newsroom staff.

They worked at the DEUCE. It was a place of tradition, populated by legacy reporters and staff. It was a room assembled by the doyen of local news, Ed Joyce, who for better or worse, was one of the nation’s toughest, smartest newsmen, and the Talleyrand of CBS inside maneuvers. What the Deuce was, he created. Highly polished reporters, who knew New York. No youngsters or starter kits. It was, in everyway, part of a grand tradition of news gathering.

But, the Deuce was struggling to seize the times. It had not consolidated it’s efforts in investigative work, new faces, and emerging themes of the city. Joyce left for corporate oversight jobs, as VP of News, and left behind a shop largely lost without his imprint. He allowed my taking the reigns, offering no stated objections, and having no veto over Neil, he did not offer a negative.

Derrough was entrusting me with this overwhelming pool of talent, and the keys to cover New York the way a street kid would cover it, from the neighborhood up, not from the suits on Wall Street and Black Rock. It was his vision that the Deuce had lost touch with the people in the five boroughs, and that the very heartbeat of the city was not showing up on television.In those first frantic weeks, I made every effort to see everyone. I engaged the anchors, Jim Jensen and Roland Smith, embraced emerging stars like Carol Martin. I attempted to establish a rapport with the wunderkinds, John Stossel, Arnold Diaz, Steve Wilson, all established tough guys. And walked reverently to long time reporter fixtures, Cop reporter, emeritus, Chris Borgen; master story teller, Vic Miles; and political wise guy, Tony Guida. They all received me openly and gave me some space.

I also spent as much time with the guts of the place, the union stewards and the rank and file. The shop was run by the Guilds. You could not get anything on the air without conducting an intricate arrangement of staff employees. There were electricians, audio, photographers in three different unions, the desk guys, the motorcycle couriers who picked up film at drop off points, and the writer’s guild, the directors’ guild and a few others. Detroit had introduced me to all of this. And, I knew, without them, I was nothing. They became my allies, and provided me with unmatched devotion. I cared about them, and they protected me.

I now had every resource available, there was no excuse for anything but excellence and success. I could run this aircraft carrier towards victory or run into the south end piers. Either way, I was finally on bridge.

The Plan

Looking back on those days, there was a plan in place. It was never stated as such, but it’s pieces emerged as Derrough began putting together the team. He had support, but it did not extend too far in the chain of command. There were forces, afoot, that did not want anything to change. They protected the status quo and lingered backstage, hoping Derrough would lose a battle. There were enough executives and news guys on the come who wanted his job and mine. We chose to ignore them and pursue our purpose.

It was obvious and required no advanced degree to comprehend. Create content that was more in touch with concerns of the average guy; limit official source coverage unless we could show the conflict between factions at war; be tougher and harder on corruption and governance than anyone else in town; and celebrate why we all live in this crazy place.

In this pursuit of grassroots content, we would hire new faces to augment the well known icons. Bring another anchor woman to the fore, find weekend back ups, and expand the multi- cultural and multi- ethnic nature of the marketplace.

This would lead to a personification of the news product. We were after a single definition of who we were and why we existed. And that would require a promotional campaign that would rally New Yorkers and make watching WCBS a ‘high preference" decision.

And while, we doing this we would have to stay out of trouble. Being the rough guys on the block, could get us sued, busted or arrested. I would have to learn how to present our plans to the classic CBS executives at Black Rock and embrace the CBS News fellows down the hall who were led by Bill Leonard, who never watched local news. I could appeal to wonderful subversives like the venerable, Don Hewitt, who thought what we were doing made good sense.

To keep us under control, Neil had a consigliore, Peter Kohler. He was Yale, tweed coats, V neck sweaters, and the University club. He was an adept sailor, and had legal pedigree. They called him Dr. No. Every story the bad boys of Stossel, Wilson, or Diaz wanted to launch, it went through his sieve. We developed a close rapport and when screaming fights occurred, it was rarely between us.

As his promotional chief, he brought in Vince Manzi. Here was a force of nature with a composite of abilities and skills that made him formidable. He was a Philadelphia prodigy who could write copy in minutes, compose a television spot in an instant, and figure out a schedule between jokes.

He was genuinely funny. He had a sense of humor and timing that made him as likely to be a star with John Belushi, as a top promotion executive. He had Neil’s ear. His instincts about who worked on television, team chemistry, and identifying corporate bullshit was usually on target. Of course, he was jester, who could break the most serious session into a raucous bonding experience. But, behind the humor was a brilliance that made him one of the most valuable additions to the team.

Vince with his large eyes, boyish grin, 70’s hair and humor made him a babe magnet. Most conversations began with the exploits of the man about town, but always, most always, ended with something done creatively that took us to another level. What he would create with another New York advertising genius would rock the city and become one the classic news campaigns of all time.

Stealing The Heart

If the content was to be altered quickly, Andrew Heyward could do it. He was an exceptionally bright, if, at times, overbearing, intellect. Clark Gable good looks and a New York state of mind. He had a way of explaining complex stories in perfect sentences, and had a sense of command that accomplished tasks quickly. I hoped to keep him with me for the long run, but, he had already brokered a move to the network, where he saw his star would quickly rise. He offered his best efforts, but knew he would be gone of local struggles.

Next door to my office, Richard Dick Reingold, served as assistant news director. A particularly odious role, which I found uncomfortable for all concerned. To these poor A.N.D souls fell the flotsam and jetsom of running a newsroom; schedules, overtime, and budgets. It was a job designed to have it’s owner largely vilified by just about everyone. Dick however, could not be targeted or disliked. He had a good sense of news, handled people honestly, and was loyal to a fault. We struck an early rapport, and felt, as he did that we were high wire artists, like the picture on his wall of Philippe Petit, who crossed a wire between the World Trade Center buildings. We both knew that in an instant what we had could be gone with a gust of wind, a single misstep or a lack of concentration.

Dick was certainly desired a more grassroots approach. But, he knew that forces in the newsroom would be the greatest barrier. The assignment desk had a team of veterans at its helm, and the more aggressive younger editors were unlikely to emerge under the stern leadership of it’s senior staff.

Try as we might, I could not get a better morning meeting. Stories were still too, meeting oriented and classic old school New York coverage. Heyward and Reingold could feel the tension, were on the same path as I, and I knew I had to break the mold to go forward quickly.

Over at WABC, news director, and friend, Ron Tindiglia was already where I wanted to be in content generation. He had a five borough mentality, and never played towards the elites. He was himself a street product, who made his bones at WFIL TV in Philadelphia, just at the time when local news was about to change. The day of the Gunner Back’s and John Cameron Swayze’s was challenged by a fast paced, video filled format, read quickly, with a wide range of content. ACTION NEWS had many fathers, Al Primo, Pat Palillo, and Mel Kampfman, Ron was one of them present at the revolution. News had not changed much since then, most local newscasts were versions of Action and Eyewitness News.

Ron ran a room with humor, grace and a personal touch that no one could replicate. When he would ask you, How you doing Doctor, everyone smiled, even the curmudgeons, like Roger Grimsby. While at ABC in Detroit we got to spend time together, I soaked in his New York lore and his sense of how to get things done. In 1977, Ron and I did strike duty at KABC, in Los Angeles, during a long NABET strike. I could see, we would be life long friends, this little guy, who could command WABC like Alexander over Persia.

I knew if I could steal the heart of his newsroom, I could get ahead more quickly on my goals and stymie his efforts as well. Traditionally, you think that is an anchor, or a feature reporter. It can be, but here it was his assignment chief, a Brooklyn kid, Joe Coscia.

He was New York. He was Brooklyn.

He knew the smell of the city, the struggles of the strap hangers, and where every cop and source was having their coffee. And he was in his twenties. Joe was Travolta in Staying Alive; hip, active, irresistible.

I had CBS to offer him, a few bucks and a dream that he would be somebody in journalism and at WCBS. Nothing scared him. He was looking to move on, to a place that would see him as the adult player he had become, not the desk jockey he once was years ago.

His perception of how he was seen at WABC was the opening I needed to bring him over. No other hire I made, even his help and Ron’s, years later in stealing sports power, Warner Wolf, meant as much to the success of our plan to reinvent the Deuce as taking away the heart of WABC.

Coscia’s arrival and the firing of some of the old guard signaled, in a few weeks time, that change had arrived.

The Power of Talent

It was too easy to take for granted the accumulation of talented journalists at WCBS. The variety and contribution of each player offered a uniqueness that helped brand the news department. From anchor desk to street reporters, there was an intensity that forced you to be alert, all the time.

Jim Jenson and Roland Smith had shared anchor duties for some time. They were comfortable enough together. Roland had a smoothness in style, and a voice so soothing, it could deliver the worst news with a sense that all would be well. Jensen had a classic style of what was called the A anchor. The program would flow from him and back to him. He had a crooked smile that emerged to offer his editorial comment on a story, or an occasional laugh, that would ignite a super star smile from Roland.

Even in 1979, male teams were in vogue. Women were making inroads, and would in, a year’s time, have broken up most male teams. Carol Martin, a breakthrough, African American anchor, had great warmth and style and served as a counterpoint to the men in the early evening broadcasts.

But there was no mistake that Jensen was the lion of group. He roamed the newsroom with the ubiquitous cigarette, snapped at writers, told jokes, stories and was usually in a good mood. It was at night, after the six, when he would let me sit in his office, gaze at the pictures of his gorgeous ex- wives, his kids, and bear witness to a life lived hard and cold.

Everything that might be ahead of me, he had already lived. Divorces, separation from his children, a painful, long silence with family members, and the questions of where he might be, if he had only made some different choices. When he came to WCBS from Boston, he was eventually paired with Robert Trout. The Deuce was still part of CBS News until 1964. He felt restricted by the form and penned in by copy written for radio. It was not until, he was on his own in 1967, when Newark riots tested him and his experienced team, including Chris Borgen that he emerged in full form.

In resolute demeanor, he reported what his correspondents saw in the streets. They reported what was true and what was rumor. He leaned towards the camera, in what become his classic style, and stared into the lens, past the prompters of the day, and called for calm. It was a stunning example of what a local news outlet could mean to a community. As much as the Kennedy assassination had baptized network news, the Newark riots had done the same for WCBS and for Jensen.

In the office, before the late news, we talked about life. You think you get to New York and you have seminars on ethics, new choices. But, in the end, the most I learned was about life, the grief of it, and the summation of it that choosing life in a newsroom was often a choice away from everything else. Instead of balance, it informed separation, where the only place he and I were really at home was in that room. He suffered mightily. And he included me in the inner circle, it made all my life mistakes that he would witness tolerable, and, it made the tragedies ahead for both of us understandable somehow.

Which is not to say it wasn’t raucous at times. Less than 90 days into my stay, he pulled one on me, just to prove that he was still the guy in charge. Not the suits in Black Rock, nor anyone could really tell him what to do. The occasion was St. Patrick’s Day.

The broadcast began as usual, when I received a call from senior Vice President, Tom Leahy. He was Irish Catholic to his core. He was impeccably dressed at all times, with custom shirts, white collars, and florid cufflinks. He was a true impresario, who had a table at 21, a limo to get him from his Bronxville home to the office, and he indulged a cigar once a day. He knew news, was a Ed Joyce supporter and was uncertain if Derrough would move WCBS. He had been very kind to me in the early days, but I had not heard from him since.

Leahy remarked if I knew it was St.Pat’s day and that the display of the color orange was an affront to the Irish in New York. I agreed, but was puzzled. To my shock, Jensen had an orange pocket square in his pocket. I was instructed to remove it from Jim’s attire.

I ran to the set, told Jim my dilemma and he put it away. I ran back to my office certain I had done the good deed. Leahy calls again, with his quiet voice asking why I did not take action. Sure enough, Jensen waited until I was gone and replaced the square. I ran back, and begged for forbearance. He grunted and removed it again.Leahy calls again. Jensen is wiping his brow between breaks with the orange silk cape of my despair. I begin to run out again, and Borgen, in his deepest tone tells me Jensen and Leahy play at this on this day. Afterwards, they meet for a friendly drink.

It was his way of saying, I’m still the man. And he was, he signed a 8 year, no cut deal with WCBS that year.

For Roland, these playful asides where hardly worth his time. While he graciously played the B to Jensen’s A, he had a full right to his anchor chair. He was one of the best writers in the shop, who could turn a simple feature story into a tearful moment. He would search for stories that distinguished the broadcast that no one else would treat. He offered his insights forcefully, but quietly. When he became enraged, it was over some obvious injustice, including the poor treatment of a production assistant by a weathered producer.

We would talk about stories and balance in the programs. He was yearning for something, and I hit upon letting him do commentary from time to time as an outlet. Roland seized it and developed a form, rare, even now. It was philosophy, terse insights, and, at times, commentary, very off the beaten path. It became a popular feature that viewers wrote about and asked for with regularity. It was a risk, of course, CBS rarely liked to mix commentary and news; Eric Sevareid did hard news pieces. But this was a first in New York, and Roland handled it with a certain class.

Roland and Dave Marash had co anchored one the country’s first newscasts from the newsroom. It was an effort to lose the anchor desk, become more informal, and bring a real newsroom sensibility to nightly, local news. Joyce unveiled it to much fanfare, but it was not a great ratings success, but more importantly, it rattled those status quo sensibilities. Roland and Dave had something very special, but they pulled the plug when Dave went in search of his network muse at ABC News.

In Chicago, a similar experiment had been tried by another intellectual powerhouse, and corporate misanthrope, Van Gordon Sauter. With his flowing white beard, lumberjack shirts and braces, and the ever present pipe, Van offered a newsroom format in the mid 70’ s at WBBM in Chicago. He put himself on the air, along with Bill Curtis, Walter Jacobsen, who perfected, a hard news, commentary cum editoral, Gene Siskel, with his entertainment coverage, and a band of one of a kind reporters. He had a hot shot producer, in Jay Feldman as well, and they were inventing it as they went along.

Roland had survived the transition, anchored with Carol and Jim. His skills could blend with anyone, and his scope as a man of knowledge of all things from Spanish restaurants to songs from Tin Pan alley made him a long term asset as we moved forward.

Of the legacy reporters, Chris Borgen held the most sway. A former detective, a diplomat of some measure, he was, even in his advanced years, a handsome, striking man. He used the King’s English, wrote slowly and carefully, but could often score a story from his sources. Borgen took me on busts, introduced me to his buddies and offered me a quick course in the city’s underbelly.

I was going to be as he called it, a working man’s news director or he wouldn’t listen to me. He would borrow my car for stings, one night returning it with a destroyed front seat, claiming it got a little rougher than he expected.When some fine art was lifted from a dealer, Borgen set up an exchange by Gracie Mansion. I did not know until we arrived that I was the bag man with the cash in paper bag. It was a pimp’s roll, of course, a few hundreds and twenties and the rest was one dollar bills. I was scared, afraid to show it, but worried.The bad guys never showed, but I still had walked Carl Shurz park until 1 am hoping. Borgen thought it was swell to have a news director as a patsy. I treated him like royalty or the Secretary of State.

For Vic Miles, he also had a few decades in television news. He was ageless. He was our Nat King Cole, smooth, traditional but savvy. He never, ever, returned with a standard story. One morning, Coscia sent him to a cops funeral. A processional wound through the streets, patrolmen marched in silence toward the funeral home. Miles saw a women hanging out of a three floor walk up, with a baby in her arms. He and his crew, in those days of three other guys, climbed to meet her. He watched the funeral with her. She told her story of too many murders, not enough cops, no community support.

This woman’s story had a poignancy and a emotional appeal that spoke to the urban nightmare of the citizens in the walk ups and tenements. Miles had by simply looking for an angle found a fulcrum for his tale of life, death and fear in New York.

If Vince Manzi was a scene stealer behind the scenes, Tony Guida was his on air equivalent. A New York original he had a quick wit, was always wiling to poke at our mawkish seriousness, and could tell a political story better than anyone on the beat. He had the looks of a Broadway show leading man, and a softness that made him approachable, unless you were in his crosshairs, and then he would not give you a break. Ed Koch never enjoyed his questions, and would get nasty when he was pushed too far. Guida never cared, he glided through the toughest encounters.

What he had was a regular Joe’s outlook. He was not trying to be Gabe Pressman, WNBC’s dean of political reporters, or challenge the Post or the Times. His power was just being an everyman to everyone. His flaw was wanting to be an anchor, when there were no chairs available, instead of the specialty reporter, where he excelled.

He was always ready to break a story, bust a bubble or simply fill in when needed, but he was a star. When we would go to Riverdale to visit his mother, the neighborhood would come out to greet him. Everyone. He was one of the most undervalued, yet, significant players on the team we were building.

On the weekends there was John Tesh, the heir apparent to Jensen. Joyce had hired him to frame him as the successor. He certainly had the skills and the look. I admired John because he seemed to have this balance that most of the rest of us had lost. He had music and some other direction inside of him. Tesh was somewhat of an enigma, because he didn’t track like the others.

I was not evolved enough to understand him, but I thought his insights and his work was extraordinary. I asked him to become homeless for a few nights, George Plimpton style. He embraced the idea, and turned out a series of pieces never rivaled. Here was a 64 handsome man transformed by beard and old clothes. He plays the role with Olivier presence. He loses his shoe the first night, ventures to a shelter, fights for his bed and one shoe. At night, he rests exhausted under a street light, we are with him now in his sorrow. The men open up to him, we see homelessness in all it’s horror, and we find too many men alone, afraid, and abandoned.

Tesh had a gift that came from deep within him. He partied like the rest of us, gave what he could at work, but he had bigger dreams away from the Deuce.I remember a talk we had after he ran the New York marathon with a camera on his back, and had pioneered a new up close type of coverage that would become a regular practice in sports reporting. He said he didn’t want to be Jensen or anyone else, but who he was destined to become. I could not understand him, then, so narrow in my own world.

He left for Entertainment Tonight and found his destiny, he was looking into a crystal ball that was still very cloudy for me. His departure opened the way for the beginning of a wave of new talent that would cast the Deuce in a new light.

At the Threshold

The newsroom was in transition. A phone on the wall, called the Stanton phone only rang to a wrong number. Dr. Stanton long ago having left CBS. Still we would shutter when it rang. Weeks before, I sat at Stanton’s retirement party, at the Waldorf, swept away by the luminaries of news gathering and watching a retrospective of his life. I was captivated by what he had done and the gravity of the decisions in his life. Then, a curtain opened and Tony Bennett sang to him. Everything CBS and New York that was in my imagination was there that night.

If he had called, it would have been to a very different room. The room once the projection of that culture was turning to a focus on neighborhoods, civic concerns, and an aggressiveness borne of the 70’s, Watergate and the fall out of Vietnam. We trusted no one, honored few, and attempted to get in touch with the viewers by becoming their advocates.

Coscia played disco music at 3:30 every afternoon. He blasted it on the intercom. Everyone smiled or alternatively snarled. Sometimes, he would allow another genre, usually Sinatra. There was more laughter, some off color humor. And always, the push and yaw of reporters for position, more time for stories, and arguments, about everything.

There were no computers, noise enveloped the place. Royal typewriters rattled copy in capital letters, striking through seven layers of carbon paper. The teletypes had bells for alerts and hammered a staccato rhythm all day and night. Editors moved quickly through cans of processed film, and each night, we would run the A and B roll to a place where the projectors rested, telecine. On some nights, I would run the A roll (talking heads) and Heyward the B (pictures) through the cavernous hallways in time for the Six P.M. news. He always beat me, a metaphor of what he knew about the building, New York, and the world, and I, still, to learn.

Some days the film would stop in the gate, burn before the audience. Jensen would read a précis, we prepared for every story, and go on as though nothing had happened. In six months, tape began to overtake film, and we all thought we had entered the space age. Through the noise, and directed chaos The Deuce was being transformed. It was more alert to the times, had a faster pace of story gathering, and was focused on being the preeminent purveyor of the news in the city. But, it’s core was still knowing the streets and understanding what mattered and how to get it on the air.

On my office wall, was a full page ad featuring the personification of that creed. It depicted a short, bald, bespectacled reporter, with a confident stride walking up 5th avenue. It was Jerry Nachman. As a radio reporter for WCBS radio, he had covered city hall, the police beat, and everything else. He knew everyone, had inside sources, lunched with them, hung out at their haunts, and dated any public information officer that would go out with him, few gals turned him down.

He had a vocabulary that could out curse a cabbie, to the refinement to go to dinner at the Low memorial Library, at Columbia and sound like some Rhodes scholar. He knew mostly everything, he could be insufferable. But, to me, he was my journalistic compass, and to him, I was the television guy. Our mutual need created a powerful bond that saw us both through the reformation of The Deuce and ourselves.

A bad back had kept him off the beat for weeks. When he returned, it was clear, he wanted more for himself than reporting. We made a simple deal that came after a fight over covering a redevelopment story in Brooklyn. I gave the story short shrift in the newscast, not realizing the intensity of Nachman’s feelings for the story and it’s players. We actually began pushing each other, wrestling to headlocks and chokeholds, until we stopped abruptly. He walked away, then returned with his stogie crooked in the right side of his mouth, and pulled me by the arm. It was to dinner in Brooklyn, not to finish the fight in the alley.

By midnight, overlooking the East River, I had promised to help him learn about television news, and he to be my guide through the New York he knew. I was escorted from pub to clubroom, and he through producing, blocking shows, and budgeting and running a big city newsroom. With Nachman as an ally, my ability to move the newsroom from it’s Joycean foundation was accelerated.

Within the first few months, I was becoming a New Yorker, and a member of this special club at CBS. I felt that I was in the right place, part of something much grander than myself. Yet, the room was still not mine. What was missing was a key event that would mark my presence and bind me and the entire staff. An event that would put us at the threshold of coverage, where everyone would know we could offer the best coverage and the most insight. In some places, it is a crippling snowstorm, a tornado, or the collapse of a government. Some event that is so compelling it requires every resource and every decision to be on target.

For January 26th 1979, it was an average night. I was circling the park, after the six pm newscast, getting in my miles for the Boston Marathon. At Tavern on the Green, I heard my beeper vibrate, and I ran out of the park to a pay phone. The desk was more hyper than usual- claiming Nelson Rockefeller was dead, somewhere in Manhattan, circumstances unknown.

By the time, I ran into the office at West 57th, the desk had the story. Borgen had determined the Governor died at his 13W 54th street brownstone, not his family address. Nachman called in that he was probably with his assistant, Megan Marchak, and maybe choked to death. The desk checked our day sheets, remembering we covered his appearance at the Buckley school, where his two sons, with wife Happy, attended. He was to introduce, Henry Kissinger to the class.

We dispatched crews, and our live truck. I called Neil, to get approval to break into programming. We prepared news break ins, and began creating a one hour documentary, anchored by Jensen to run that night.

In those days, everyone wanted to be a piece of the story. Calls came in with angles and insights from most of the staff. Throughout the evening, the story became clear. The Governor left the school, ate dinner with his wife and then was driven to his alternate town home. There he met Megan Marshak, his 26 year old assistant, who was helping him in the narrative of a new book on art he was creating.

In 1979, there was still a protective seal on the private matters of well known public officials. Rockefeller was never seen as a man who violated his vows, at least, not flagrantly. He was retired from active office holding, having been Governor through 1973, and Vice President for President Ford from 1974-77. He had his new wife, his sons, and his art. He also had Megan, but the exact nature of that relationship, even if actually known, was not going to be reported that night.

We knew, but did not report that reporter and Marshak friend, Ponchitta Pierce, placed the 911 call, but was not at the scene when the ambulance arrived. They found the Governor, red faced, in his suit and tie. The cause of death was uncertain, either asphyxiation or heart attack. Some source said he had choked on a corned beef sandwich. Everyone wondered if Megan hesitated before she called Ms. Pierce. In any case, what we knew we withheld.

The coverage became the talk of Black Rock. It was measured, thoughtful, and offered the respect required a vaunted public servant. The instant documentary also received praise for it’s honest depiction of the ups, downs, and errors of his life. Even the music was praised, I had chosen Brahms 4th, because a weary audio man could not find, his cuts of CBS’s standard Victory at Sea soundtrack.

With just 30 days into the Deuce, the staff gave me the knowing nods of victory over a story as easily mistreated. They saw me lead, quietly. And of most value, honor their contribution, knowledge and source relationships. A year later, when no one would hire Megan, the code of the times had improperly branded her as misbegotten, I brought her into our shop. She was a masterful writer with sources we could not tap, and deserved the opportunity. And to everyone’s credit, no one bothered to gossip or prod, she was accepted as but another story in the Big Apple.

The first ratings book was really not on my watch. Still, I would observe the Nielsen numbers each morning. Even though, our shares were considerable, any dip in the numbers, usually brought about a morning discussion to determine what we might have done to drive viewers away, or keep them. Research was in it’s early stages, viewers were polled on likes and dislikes by phone or at research centers in malls or in shopping centers. The results could tell you who people liked, when and why they watched. But, it was less helpful in determining what they might prefer or desire. Still, research was part of the new elements of running newsrooms.

It was only a decade since, Frank Magid emerged from Iowa with research based upon his radio work, and a full cast of bright young men that quickly created a new class of critics, consultants. At the Deuce, Neil had his own team, with new research techniques and a forward thinking outlook on journalism in the future. Headed by Willis Duff, a professorial type, in starched shirts, bow ties and suspenders, he looked like a thin man’s, Van Gordon Sauter. His cohorts, Dwight Stone, and David Crane were also straight out of the creative sub- culture of San Francisco. Along with them was a jovial, round faced, Marin County fellow, by way of Alabama, who had an eye for talent, and was collecting tapes of everyone in the country, Don Fitzpatrick.

Together, they offered