 Transcript
1.Source(s) of Interest/Early Experiences
I got into this thing by accident. My father-in-law’s – he
was a lawyer and a partner in his law firm bought this little independent
newspaper tabloid called the Philadelphia Independent, which
was–I think it’s the oldest Black newspaper in the country, if I’m
not mistaken. So I went to work with him on that paper, and
I would go report stories – I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.
He made me the Distribution Manager – I didn’t have a clue about
that. I went to a guy at the Philadelphia Bulletin,
the large daily evening newspaper, and I asked him what does a distribution
guy do, and he told me, and I said, “Ok, I can do that.” But
I did that between midnight and 4:00 am, and that was my first experience
with this business.
Then I had a friend who was a DJ at a Black radio station There
were two Black stations in Philly; he was at WHAT, but anyway, I
went to work with him. He hated to do the news. They did five
minute rip and read newscasts back then, so on the weekends and
on some days in the afternoons if I had half an hour, I would run
by, and I would do a rip and read news cast. I didn’t get paid for
any of this, but I really didn’t care because it was all just kind
of fascinating, and a friend told me about a lady who was in an
employment agency – it’s a complicated story. The reason I
am in this business today is because of that woman, because she
sat in that chair when I went back the last time – it was a little
blond-headed White woman, and I walked in, and for the third time
looking for something that might appeal to me -- and she said –
I remember her words: “All I have left is a UHF station looking
to start a news operation; they want a reporter.” And she
had a whole bunch of papers in her hands, and I remember her looking
up over her glasses and saying, “But you don’t know nothin’ about
that.” Who are you to tell me what I don’t know anything about,
what I may or may not be interested in and she – the truth is I
didn’t know anything about it, didn’t care anything about, but I
told her to give me the guy’s name. And I went and did an
audition, and it was horrible, but I got the job to make a long
story short, and that was in 1967.
2. Internship/Work History
A. Story about getting first job
But anyway I went in, and I was just mortally embarrassed
by my inexperience, my lack of sophistication about, you know, all
— they were sitting in this room; they were all talking about all
these assignments they had, different people they had interviewed,
and this whole kind of thing, and I’m thinking, “Why in God’s name
am I here?” Did my thing; it was three minutes of reading
copy in front of a camera, and then two minutes at this map of the
world, ad-libbing--was the audition, and then he called us into
his office one at a time. I was the last one that he called
in. By that point, Shirley, I was convinced I was not going
to get this job. He said, “What are you doing for the rest
of the afternoon?” I said, “I’m looking for a job, man.”
We went out and got stupid drunk, and he gave me the job.
What happened then is I fell in love with this work. I doubt
that there has ever been a better time and place for anybody to
be than in broadcast journalism in the late 60's. For so many
different reasons, not the least of them, every day was not just
an adventure, but a wonder – a wondrous adventure. The world
was changing, the country was clearly just redefining itself, and
every single day was a wonderful opportunity to be amazed.
I only stayed in Philadelphia for one year, and then I came down
here in ‘69 and have been here ever since.
B. Story about CBS guy and the small world of broadcasting
Let me tell you a story. The reason I am not at
CBS. I went to CBS in New York up there in Black Rock, and
there was a guy -- god, I almost remember his name now--who did
the interviewing, and we were in the newsroom, and he told me that
I was going to have to spend a year on the desk, the assignment
desk, before I could actually begin working as a correspondent.
I said, "Why?" And he said, “That’s how we do it” – You
know, you get to learn the ins and outs, the nuts and bolts, that
whole kind of thing. There was a brother on the desk, and
I said, "Like him?" And he said, "Yeah."
And I said, "How long’s he been there?" And this
guy, I almost had his name again, mumbled something like, "Three
and a-half years." And, it’s like, “Well, why’s he there
three and a-half years?” And, he went on with some kind of
-- any way, I was kind of stupid in those days -- really very stupid
in those days--and I told him, “You know, you really oughta cut
this” -- you know what I mean, “because you guys are full of whatever,
and you’re playing games, and I’m not here to play games with you.
I thought this was a serious offer. You ain’t serious.
You ever get serious, give me a call.” Because it was just
abusing people, in my view, and I left in a huff. We didn’t
part pleasantly. I finally got a job down here in June of
‘69. A year later, no, two years later--I’m sorry it was 1972.
I had just started anchoring the 6 and 11 o’clock show, when we
used to be downstairs. And we were downstairs, and back then the
shows were very anchor-intensive, and I was working on the 6:00
o’clock show. It’s about twenty minutes to 6:00, and the News
Director walks through and he says -- this -- I want to introduce
-- he hollered-- I want to introduce everybody -- introduce everybody
to the new Network Coordinator for the owned and operated -- NBC
owned and operated stations of which we are one. And I’m at
my desk, and the guy is walking through, and I look up and he says,
“By the way, this is our new anchor, Mr. Vance,” and it’s the dude
from CBS. And, I looked up at him, and I just opened my drawers
and started taking my stuff out and putting it on the desk.
I said, "I’ll be out of here in an hour. Give me an hour,
and I’ll be gone." And, the guy just started laughing,
and he said, "No, put your stuff back. I’ll come back
in a minute. He came back and he said, “I got no beef with
what -- you know, with you.” He said, “You need to know a
couple of things. Number 1, you were right. We were
full of it.” “But,” he said, “Number 2, you need to keep in
mind that, in this business, you always got to watch what you say
to whoever you say it to because you are always going to see him
again. And you never know in what capacity you are going to
see him again. That’s what I want you to remember."
3. Past and Current Pressures, Conditions, Realities:
Infoedutainment, Accuracy, and Consumer vs. Media Responsibilities
(1) Less emphasis on accuracy today
There was a time in television news where getting it
on first really was only half as important as getting it right,
ok. And the -- there is a shifting in that now. You
know, it seems to be much more important now to get it on first,
even if you have a couple of mistakes here and a couple of things
there. They are forgiven now more than they were back in the
day for lack of a better term. There really was a time – I’m
thinking of a guy named Wally Fang, who was a producer here when
I first came here. If I didn’t come back, or if anybody didn’t
come back, with at least two sources on any particular element of
a story, he wouldn’t run the story, no matter how convinced you
were of the correctness of this particular fact or element of the
story, Wally would not put it on the air if you didn’t have at least
two sources. (Claps hands) There is no checking of sources
on the Internet. You know what I mean? And, there is
a diminished emphasis on that in the more established media.
(2) Economic Pressures
You had the Camel Caravan – John Cameron Swayze(sp?)
came on for fifteen minutes a night, and that was your nightly news.
Local news was – talk about an adventure – you had live announcers,
live music, live commercials; I mean we were very much in our infancy.
Nobody knew what the hell they were doing, and so everything was
new, and it was all a spirit of pioneerism. It’s like, well, let’s
try this, and, if somebody said ok, then you went on ahead, and
you tried [it out OR that—not sure what he is saying]. There
was a time when in this business what we really wanted to do today
was do the very best we could to get as much information as we could
and then tell you what the information was. That is not the
principal function or the principal effort of a lot of news organizations
any more today. We do news today based on -- what you call
them – focus groups. We do news based on marketing studies.
A market-run free press is an oxymoron; it can’t happen.
(3) Other changes in Journalists today
Credentials are a lot more valuable and important for
a candidate now than they were in 1967. I don’t know anybody
in 1967 who came in when I came in – Black or White – or I know
very few, let me put it that way, who had journalism degrees or
broadcasting degrees or anything else like that. We all came
from – Ed Bradley and I went to school together, played ball together,
lived together, that whole kind of thing, both were teachers, and
both got into this thing. He was like a year or two -- he
left for New York about two years before I got into the business.
But that’s by example; we never saw a journalism course. But
anyway, credentials now are much more important. In 1967 it
was important that you could -- that you knew how to write a paragraph,
that you understood the language, and that you knew what a split
infinitive was. In my view, again, this business has changed
a great deal, and good writing does not have the cache that it did
thirty-some years ago in my view. Many people talk about a
lot of things that have gone wrong and changed in the business,
and certainly much of it has – the whole marketing aspect of it,
the entertainment, the seeping in of entertainment into journalism
and into news judgment and that whole kind of thing. I am
convinced that one of the worst cracks and one of the most, um,
one of the worst things that’s happened to us is the fact that good
writing no longer is as absolutely critical a requirement for somebody
working in this business as it once was some time ago.
4. Differences among Kinds of Journalism/Communication Fields
The camera changes everything. I have been on stories
with a subject that might be difficult. I have gone before
the camera got there, and I talked to these people, and I get things
from them when I connect and when they feel comfortable with me.
I get things from them that are just either heart lifting or heart
wrenching, whatever they may be, but they’re real, and they have
impact, and they’re significant. The camera shows up, and
it changes. The person that just gave me their soul and gave
me the essence of them doesn’t give it any more because I’m over
there now, and they’re here, and they’re not dealing with me any
more. Now, they’re dealing with that thing, and they’re wondering
how they’re gonna look, and they’re, you know, all of these things
are going on that have nothing to do with the issue or with the
subject. See what I’m saying? There are other times
and other occasions, obviously, when I wouldn’t have it any other
kind of way. The other thing is, quite frankly, print people
don’t get paid nearly as much as we get paid. This industry
is still incredibly young. I mean we have been writing stuff
on tablets and paper and other kinds of things for thousands of
years. We have been doing this for fifty? You know,
or somethin’ like that. Who knows where this is going to go?
And that is part of the fascination for me.
5. What it Takes to Produce a Good Story
Edie German is one of our planning people here.
Edie right now is planning stories for next Tuesday, all right?
And without Edie knowing who to call, knowing how to talk to them,
knowing how to say, “Well, you know what, we can’t get there at
8:30 in the morning, but, if it was 10:15, we could have a crew
and that whole kind of thing.” If she doesn’t do her thing,
and then, if Bill Starks doesn’t do his thing in terms of arranging
for crews to be certain places at certain times, and other people
to be – so without the planning desk doing their thing, the assignment
desk doing their thing, but anyway, Stan’s on that little raised
platform out there and he conducts his own little symphony of shooters
and couriers and reporters all going all different kinds of ways
and converging. What Milton does is determines how many crews
are available at a given time to do what. Some crews are lunching,
some crews are broken down because this stuff is always breaking
down, some crews have only 15 minutes before they’re done on this
assignment so they’ll be available for this one, except they’re
too far away, so you gotta get this guy over here who only has a
half-an-hour to go, and then he can make it over there. I
mean, there is all of this movement of people and equipment is what
the assignment desk takes care of. There is also E.J.
Back there we have 8, 10 editing decks, whatever the case is, and
there is a coordinator back in E.J., whose job it is to see to it
that, if they’re working now with Julie Carry and Pat Collins, but
Mil Arsaga and James Adams will be in within another hour, that
there will be an editor available to either one of them, or, if
not, then that one of them will have to edit in a truck out in the
field. I mean it’s all these things that are going on all
the time that the viewer doesn’t know a thing about and is not supposed
to.
6. Deaf People in Journalism: Barriers and Opportunities
A. Jobs that need hearing ability
I think it obviously would be difficult for someone who’s
hearing impaired to work the assignment desk because what they are
doing on that desk is listening to these radios all the time from
crews – communicating with crews in terms of where they are what
their status is. Or the other assignment people who deal with
police scanners. Let me be more positive about this and talk
more in terms of what they might be able to do -- in terms -- instead
of things what-- that they might not be able to do. A reporter
comes back with 20 minutes of tape on a particular story; only 50
seconds of it is going to go on the air. What the editor does
is finds out what that 50 seconds is that is most germane to the
point. Obviously, there is also an audio element. In
the studios where the broadcasts are actually done, cameras used
to be manned by people. Now, they are all robotic. Barry
Bower sits in this little corner, and Barry runs four cameras from
a – like a console screen – like a computer screen. Barry’s
only need for audio stimulation is what he gets --his only need–
it’s a critical need is what he gets from the Director in the control
room. I don’t know if technology exists or is reasonable to
anticipate will exist – [like] real time captioning – that will
make that possible for somebody who is hearing impaired to do it.
I gotta believe that that is not difficult to acquire. Frederick
Douglas probably said it best. Power yields nothing without
a struggle. It was a mantra, if you will, of the Civil Rights
movement and that era. Well, the same thing applies with,
I would assume, with the struggle for people who have whatever the
physical impairment, including hearing impairment; if you don’t
insist on it, and if you don’t find ways to make it worth somebody
else’s trouble--that’s part of it, I mean -- not just -- you can’t
just keep coming at people with your knife. At some point
or another, you got to come with a can opener, you know what I mean,
and show them how to open it up. Show them how to do it.
B. A Comparison with the Civil Rights Movement of African-Americans
The reason the Civil Rights movement had whatever success
it had was because White Americans were caused, in large part, by
the way, by Cronkite and Huntley and Brinkley and television pictures
of Bull Connor and all those other folks down there in Selma and
Philadelphia, Mississippi and other places. And folks were
becoming – White Americans -- were becoming more and more aware:
This just isn’t right; we can’t do this any more. And so,
as a consequence of that, things started changing, and doors started
opening, and among the doors that started opening were corporate
doors like at RCA and CBS and ABC and other places like that, and
they were allowing Black people to come in. I got into this
business and got here because the country was opening up all the
stations, and the major markets were looking for Black people to
put on the screen. A lot of them were disingenuous, and a
great deal of it was for show. Very -- not very many-- were
sincere in their effort to open up the business and to consider
a new, perhaps novel, perspective and approach on the way things
were going. . . . One of the problems that many of us who
came in back then had – and I remember this so well – had many long,
through-the night-debates about: Are we Black reporters or are we
reporters who are Black? I think it’s different now in a lot
of different ways. Ok, to begin with, stations and this industry
are no longer interested in looking good by bringing more and more
Black people on board. There is, in my view, a general notion
in the industry that we’ve done enough, and we got enough Black
people.
|
