Babs Walters goes on Larry King and brands wacko Star Jones a "poor woman." Huff Post vid "Star's a great talent and she's suffering now."Overlooked in all the Babs book hype, how tough it was for her to succeed in the male-dominated TV news biz. I saw Tim Russert scratching the surface in a Babs interview last weekend. It's worth reading the Vanity Fair excerpt of "Audition."
The Ted Baxter of ABC News, Harry Reasoner, was an a-hole from the get go. "The blood was so bad between us, however, that Harry’s cronies on the crew took to using a stopwatch to note my airtime. If I did a segment that ran three minutes and twenty-five seconds, Harry would demand that he do a piece three minutes and twenty-five seconds long. Harry’s hostility soon began to show on the air. I remember reaching toward him at the end of one broadcast, in a friendly manner, just to touch him on the arm. He recoiled, physically recoiled, in front of millions of people. The media picked up on the bad chemistry. “Harry Reasoner … seems as comfortable on camera with Walters as a governor under indictment,” wrote Roger Rosenblatt in The New Republic."
I had the same experience with a resentful 6 p.m. male co-anchor. This was 1976 - around the same time Barbara was battling Harry.
5 comments:
Harry once described his family this way: Our family is a democracy. Each of our 7 kids has a vote. My wife has 8 votes. I have 16 votes.
Did he really say that?
We had two kids, each with one vote. My wife had three votes. I had three votes. Co-operation was essential.
Now, enjoying the empty nest syndrome, we each have one vote. The tie breaker is reality.
Well said, Dave.
Yes, Harry really said that. I forget where, but it was a credible source. Remember what you get when you cross an ape with a computer: a hairy reasoner.
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