Tag: news

Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Cancer, Courage and Rage

Cancer has taken so many people I’ve loved and admired. This new interview with two hugely admired and much-loved celebrities reminded me of how deeply it affects us all .  We know, in our heads, that the presence of beauty, courage, fame and an amazing marriage and family can’t keep the monster at bay.  Neither can being the most respected broadcast journalist of the past 30 years; Tom Brokaw had cancer too.  So did my husband, by the way.  Thankfully, they are still with us.  But it’s a roll of the dice, not fame or fortune, or even education, that’s made it so.

So why are we not all enraged?  Why do we refuse to keep this plague at (or at least near) the top of our agenda?  We face so much right now: attacks on women, racial tension, income inequality, climate change, declining education systems and infrastructure – fill in your own particular blank.  But no matter how we feel about any of these issues, we all grieve for those we’ve lost to cancer; we all long for their presence in our lives and know that it is just a lack of knowledge that took them from us.

No family is untouched; the lucky ones face it among older members but so many lose loved ones — family and friends, well before they’ve seen their children grow up, or get married or find their way in the world and before they’ve exhausted the gifts that brought so much to all of us.  I’ve been thinking about them a great deal recently, and have felt, for some time, a need to honor them once again here.  Many died before there was an Internet but I’ve added links where I could.

We were young journalists together:

Margot Adler

Mary Halleron

Mark Harrington

Joan Shorenstein

Teachers, mentors, friends:

Ed Bradley

Ed Hornick

Eden Lipson

Maggie Morton

Susan Neibur 

The Dearest:

Laurie Becklund

Bob Squier

 

 

 

That’s How I Got to Memphis – Music and the News

Will, Charlie's grandson and Jim sing That's How I Got to Memphis
Will, Charlie’s grandson and Jim sing That’s How I Got to Memphis

Stuck in my head ever since the end of The Newsroom, this song really seems to want to spend today with me, which would be fine if it didn’t make me so sad.

It won’t matter much if you didn’t like the show, or if music doesn’t carry you forward and back or if you don’t mourn the decline of integrity as a core value of journalism, but the use of it at a funeral for Charlie Skinner, (Sam Waterston,) the keeper of the flame, the leader who defended the honor of every journalist and story, is a spectacular metaphor.  YouTube won’t let me embed it, but here it is if you have the patience to link, it’s worth it.

Aaron Sorkin says Charlie represented the loss of decency offered by each of us to the rest of us, but for me, as Newsroom closed down, he stood for the rules that made journalism credible and critical to our country*; rules eroded in surrender to commerce and coarseness and fear.  Even so, The Newsroom closed with the first moment of yet another day’s show.  As Sorkin said, “They’re going to keep doing the news.”  It will, though, be with the loss of just a little more of the combination of honor and power, the Charlie Skinner, that had protected them, and us, for so long.

 

*The Atlantic called it a funeral for “old media” but I’ve lived in “new media” for decades now and the show wasn’t about that change – at least not to me.

 

Bruce Morton: a Master Journalist and a True Gentleman

CBS News camera platform at the March Against the Vietnam War, April 1971
CBS News camera platform at the March Against the Vietnam War, April 1971

Bruce Morton died yesterday.  He was a sensitive and deeply moral man.  He never raised his voice and when I asked him why he told me that he had seen so much violence when he covered the Vietnam War that he didn’t want to be responsible for inflicting any more – even verbally.  Those years had left a deep mark on him, but that reply was about as far as he would go in discussing it out loud.

He was smart too, and funny, and brilliant.  He won an Emmy for his coverage of the 1970 trial of Lt. William Calley for the 1968 My Lai Massacre.  It was tough for someone who had been so affected by the war to cover this tale of atrocities and shame, but he did it elegantly and well, as he did everything.

I learned so much from him; some of it really unexpected.  Once at a party in the studio for the guests who had appeared on a just-completed live broadcast, we got into a terrible fight about Lyndon Johnson.  I was part of the anti-war movement before I went into journalism and was only 23, as you can see in the photo of the two of us ( along with hundreds of thousands of marchers.)  I hated Johnson, blamed him for the war, of course, and had very little perspective on the rest of his history.

With the kind of passion I learned to expect from him but that was really scary then, Bruce ran the litany of Johnson’s Poverty Program, Civil Rights accomplishments and background and insisted that I take another look.  He was, of course, right.  Like every other story, this one had two sides and I had only seen one.  That never happened to Bruce.

He was really nice to me; he and his wife Maggie even hired me, since I was usually short of cash, to babysit for their two fabulous kids Sarah and Alec.  And their Great Dane. And their cats.  It was a real privilege to be invited into their very exciting lives and be trusted with their kids.  All those times are memories I cherish.

As I remember this lovely and remarkably talented man, (I once saw him ad lib a 1:30 live radio report and get it right, beautiful and to the second) I can’t do much better than our colleague Joe Peyronnin:

Bruce Morton was a brilliant political journalist, and a superb writer and reporter. He wrote a script faster than anyone I have ever known. His writing was imaginative, incisive and informative. We worked together at CBS News on many stories in the 70’s and 80’s, and got the scoop of the1984 Democrat Convention, that Walter Mondale had picked Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate. Bruce was a truly remarkable man. RIP my friend.

Joe Scarborough and Crew: How Did They Ever Get To Be Cool? (They are!)

Well this is one reason. 


I gave up my alma mater, THE TODAY SHOW, for C-SPAN's Washington Journal. But no more – nope.  Now I'm strictly a Morning Joe girl.  My insomniac husband and I start our day with these characters, and there's good reason.  They're smart, they're funny, they have real personalities, and they think and react. Both they and their guests deftly provide more information and perspective, than anywhere else you can go in the morning.

When I started at TODAY the theory was that people felt as if we were in their bedrooms.  That Deborah Norville failed at replacing Jane Pauley (as if anyone could) because she was so perfect, so slick, that she was intrusive.  TV was still one-way then; we produced the show, trying to make it as accessible as possible, but still, we were sending it to the audience, not talking with them.

At Morning Joe – the perfect Millennial programming, Scarborough, (former Congressman) the shredding (den mother?  Zen master? daughter of Zbigniew)  Mika Brzezinski, wise-cracking Willie Geist (former Tucker Carlson producer, son of CBS News Sunday Morning contributor Bill Geist) and the rest of the crew are not in our bedrooms, we're in the studio with them.  There's no "third wall" (I always wanted to produce a show like that,) you see
the cameras, the cardboard Starbucks cups and even the
producers.  We're all in it together.  Conversations with their (very well-booked) guests are smart, sassy and collegial; lots of information emerges but from conversation, not inquisition.  There is very little distance between the audience and the studio – bluster is deflated and humor is the tool of choice.  ALL with considerable elan, explication, foresight and accessibility.

I almost forgot the music.  Most commercial breaks are punctuated with music – often Bruce Springsteen, always connected to the last topic of conversation.  During the campaign, of course, Born to Run and Jackson Browne's Running on Empty were favorites.  It's another way of communicating with the audience – fun and usually spot on.  When it's not music, it's clips from late night comedy or other relevant but irreverent television.

I'm not alone in this – didn't invent a new wheel.  The New York Times has called the show "oddly addicting" (my experience exactly); the Washington Post described it as "a provocative, alternate-universe newstalk show."  From six to nine AM Twitter is full of Joe sightings.

I spent many years in broadcast news, nine of them at the TODAY SHOW, and I've mourned its transformation from the informative show I knew to what seemed to me to be an undisciplined mush called, by many production alums, "Friends in the morning."  It's wildly popular so I'm not condemning it – just saying that it isn't the show I worked for.  Now, after a long, sad period of missing what TODAY was, I see in Morning Joe what it could have (and should have) become. 

OBAMA VIDEO, AN AMAZING GOOD DEED, MICHELLE OBAMA, THE INTERNET, JOE TRIPPI AND ORSON SCOTT CARD

VIDEO REMOVED FOR TECHNICAL REASONS.  VIEW IT HERE. 

My younger son sent this ad to me this afternoon.  It really is something, isn’t it?  As I write this I’m listening, on MSNBC, to the mean-spirited, spiteful stump speech that now identifies John McCain.  What a difference.   

Then, the much-admired Liza Sabater at Culture Kitchen posted this and tweeted to be sure we’d all see it.  Since we don’t always travel in the same corners of the blogosphere I’m sharing it with you here.

I keep thinking there must be a catch someplace but I hope she’s right – that it’s part of the impact of what we hope will be the political climate of the next four years.  Respect breeds respect. 
Michelle Obama wrote about it on BlogHer. 

Joe_trippi_big_2 She also reminded that there’s only a week left.  With that in mind, today I went to hear Joe Trippi speak with Simon Rosenberg, founder and president of NDN – mostly talking as if the election were over but so interesting about what would/could happen.  My favorite fact:  You know those Obama-produced videos on YouTube (like the one I’ve posted here)?  TechPresident found that people have watched 14.5 million hours worth!  Think what that would cost if you had to buy the time: somewhere around 46 to 47 million dollars, according to Trippi.  And that doesn’t even count citizen/voter-created videos that voters have watched.  Obama got free, on YouTube, views worth the equivalent of half of McCain’s entire federal campaign budget.  And he got it because he, and his team, have figured out how to use the web.

To Trippi, Obama is a real 21st Century candidate and has built relationships with supporters unlike any ever before.  It’s their campaign too.  I’ve always been enamored of the concept of "taking ownership."  Back when I worked at iVillage in its early days the message boards helped to create communities of women who saw the site as theirs, and helped iVillage become the dominant destination for women online.  They were contributing to the content, and its home became their home.  That’s what is happening, says Trippi, with Obama.  All those volunteers, all those canvassers and phone bankers and sign painters and outreach workers – and all the open conference calls and two-way communication created a new kind of electorate.  Think about this – from Orson Scott Card, author of the beloved Ender’s Game.

Those deep hungers for human connection, for the ability to remake ourselves, for a sense of control over our lives and reputations – those are the senses that the web will speak to does a remarkable job of feeding these senses, despite the relatively primitive technology and laughably low quality of most Web offerings, that people sign on and keep signing on.  They aren’t there for the content.  They’re there for each other.  Trapped in an apartment building or suburban neighborhood of strangers, they come to the Web to find their tribe.

Orson Scott Card in Yahoo Internet Life – December 2000 

What says it better than that?   

PROBABLY THE WORST CAMPAIGN (OR ANY OTHER) INTERVIEW I’VE EVER SEEN!

Myrna the Minx of Reno and Its Discontents found this.  It’s a mortifying, cringe-inducing and heartbreaking example of what has happened to much of local news.  How do we ever put the genie who creates this kind of television back in the bottle?  I dare you to watch it to the end without raising your blood pressure.

NEW FRIENDS ON MY OLD TURF: MOMMY BLOGGERS VISIT KATIE AT CBS NEWS

Katie_shakes_hands
What are the odds?  I spent what would have been my prime mommy-blogging years, before the Interweb was anyone’s darling, working at CBS News at 524 West 57th St.  Now, some of my sweet, funny mommy blogging friends went through the same door I used every day for 7 years to meet with Katie Couric.  Here’s what happened:

Pretty cool, huh?  My 9 years at TODAY never crossed with Katie and clearly my CBS years were the "Place to Be" years, well before hers but it sure was fun to see the girlfriends sashay on in and charm her to pieces.  But then, that’s what they do.

Blogger roll call for The Visit – drawn from original host SV(Silicon Valley) Moms:

THE PLACE TO BE: ROGER MUDD’S NEW BOOK AND SO MANY MEMORIES

Roger_mudd_book
In 1968, when I was working in the McCarthy Campaign against the Vietnam War, one of the producers traveling with the campaign asked me to come work with her at the CBS News Washington Bureau when the campaign ended.  I was thrilled.  I had, however, no idea how thrilled I really should be. Imagine a 21-year-old, just out of college and the trauma of the riots in Chicago and McCarthy’s loss of the Democratic nomination (yes, we knew it would happen, but not in our hearts), walking through the door of 2020 M St. NW – the august CBS News Washington Bureau — (Walter Cronkite‘s Washington Bureau!) because I had a job there.

Working there when I showed up: Bruce Morton, Bob Schieffer, George Herman, Daniel Schorr, Eric Sevareid, Dan Rather, Marvin Kalb and his brother Bernie... and my mentor and friend Roger Mudd.  They were, really, giants (yes, I know they were all men.  Marya McLaughlin died a long time ago; Leslie Stahl arrived a couple of years later).  CBS News ruled the Hill and the White House and everywhere else inside the beltway.  And we did it with enormous scruples; I was trained to be a journalist by these guys, as well as Bureau Chief Bill Small and Face the Nation Producer Sylvia Westerman.  And have been grateful the rest of my life for the privilege.

Roger wrote a book about those years — it’s called The Place to Be because, really, that’s what the bureau was in those days.  And last night, on publication day, there was a party. It was better than a class reunion.  Everyone from the teen-aged desk assistant (now I think in his 40s) to the Washington director  to the octogenarian make-up lady, to those guys we’ve all heard of, were there.  All having a blast remembering those remarkable years.

I’ve been out of the daily news business for some time, and in a way the party reminded me why.  The classy, funny, unpretentious, smart, great people who taught me how to listen and pay attention, ask questions and check my sources, feed the crew first and never leave a person without getting their phone number… I hate to sound like an old fogey but there really aren’t so many like that any more.  For me, Roger is the dean of all of them, not only because I know him best but also because of his deep sense of honor and love of history, humor, curiosity and devotion to his family, and his unfailing kindness and generosity to me.  It was wonderful to hear everyone so happy and proud for him, glad he’d finally written down some of the historic understanding and institutional memory we all treasure. 

I suppose it’s the same when anyone we love finds special success – a promotion, a graduation, a painting or a no-hitter, for that matter.  But because of what’s become of the news business, because it’s now so much more business than news, because of the great joy and pride we felt and how hard we worked to earn the right to feel it, I felt a special warmth and longing last night: grateful for the opportunity I had to share what is universally regarded as a golden moment in journalism – those years in the Washington Bureau — and so very sorry that it’s so hard to find that gold – any gold — anymore.

TIME PASSES: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO A LONG-TIME FRIEND

Mudd_blurrySaturday night we went to an 80th birthday party.  It was for someone whose 43rd we’d also attended — a long time to know someone.  He’s a wonderful man with a wonderful family, and you would know his name if I wrote it here – but it was his party not mine and somehow it feels intrusive to tell you who he is. 

When I was first in the news business, he taught me a great deal.  Ever courtly and generous, excellent at what he did, he shared so much of what he knew and felt about news, politics, government and life.  With humor.  And a gentle sense of irony.  I wish I could communicate how thrilling it was to wander through the tunnels under the Senate, past the secret offices where senators met for gumbo and whiskey, around the corner called "coffin corner" because when the dead lay in state, the coffin had to be tipped vertically to get around the corner on its way to the Rotunda that was its destination — with this gifted man as my guide.

All his kids were at the party of course, along with their spouses and a ton of grandchildren.  All four kids were younger than these grandkids when they attended our wedding.  There were (very short and funny) speeches, lots of teasing, and not an ounce of pretense or artifice.  Of course, the fact that all of them were so happy to see me after our long sojourn in California and year on separate paths, made me feel great.  Even so, the great gift of this evening was that I didn’t even think of that until later.  When you share so much of life, and work, affection and high regard with someone,  you have the luxury of honoring them without obsessing about what it all means to you.  That should tell you more about him than anything.