The Next Andy Rooney

My brush with CBS News in 1996...

A few months ago, I wrote about my experience as a freelance artist for ABC News Nightline, a now-venerable news institution almost 47 years old.

Yikes.

That would be Day 17,155 of the crisis, for those who remember the early version of The Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage—the original name and purpose of the show, hosted by Ted Koppel and created by Roone Arledge.

Now lemme tell you about my experience with CBS News.

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The first major national journalism award I ever won was the Overseas Press Club Thomas Nast Award, which later had the name “Thomas Nast” dropped. I think it was because Nast had engaged in the day’s cultural stereotypes, which I do not condone.

This was 1996, and, honestly, was just a fundraising vehicle for the Overseas Press Club, as is also abundantly clear with the National Headliner Award, sponsored by the Atlantic City Press Club, whatever the hell that is (I won that in 2002, went to Atlantic City, and decided the trek was, um, not really worth it). $200 to enter that award, and I thought, meh.

I lived in Oregon in 1996, and the flight back to New York was and is a huge pain in the ass, a butt-numbing experience punctuated by the requisite stop at Chicago O’Hare. My then-wife and I flew out, but before we got to the airport, I believe she accidentally backed into the garage door, which cost $750 to replace when we got back.

The cash award for the Overseas Press Club Award was, conveniently, $750.

So we lost money on the deal before we left the garage.

I was very excited about this award, because I had been in national syndication for 15 years and had not won one award. Zero.

The other cool part was that the winners got to give a three minute speech. I knew that the Overseas Press Club was a very swanky New York journalism affair, and that there would be lots of name-brand journalists in attendance.

When we walked into the cocktail party prior to the event, I saw virtually every major print and television journalist in the United States standing around, warming their drinks and making merry with each other.

Being (A) 35 years old, and (B) some rube from Oregon, I felt quite overwhelmed by that cocktail party. I stopped to greet Jeff Greenfield, who was then with ABC News. He was, um, not that cordial as I explained my shoestring relationship with ABC News. I saw Steve Kroft from 60 Minutes, who was way shorter than I expected.

We used to play a game at the political conventions called “Taller or Shorter?”—as in, are they taller or shorter than you thought a media celebrity would be.

Sam Donaldson? Taller. Eric Sevareid? Taller. Jackie Mason? Shorter? Jack Germond? Shorter and way heavier than I thought humanly possible. Mike Royko? Taller. And so on. Mostly, they were shorter. But hey. Television is a visual equalizer if you’re sitting down.

Anyway, the winners were seated for the dinner. At our table was the great photographer Cornell Capa, and at the time, I was too dumb to really understand his impact. I don’t recall who else was there with us. I am sure I was my usual hyperactive charm machine self, in the way that young guys can be. Oh! Linda Fasulo, the United Nations Correspondent from NBC News, was there with her husband, and we hung out with them afterwards. They were around our age. They were very down to earth and amusing. Linda is still working for NPR.

As dinner was being cleared, the winners were seated beneath the dais, and the dais was populated by Peter Arnett, the great Vietnam War correspondent, Peter Jennings, the ABC News anchor (I can’t believe I even bothered to identify him, he was that famous), and Lesley Stahl of CBS News.

I sat next to David Rohde, the foreign correspondent around my age (he later won the Pulitzer, along with Yours Truly), and he was really a nice guy who calmed me down.

Lesley Stahl announced my award, and I walked up to the lectern, mostly in stark fear but also with a small splash of hold my beer.

There is a VHS tape of this in my possession, and I really should find this and convert it to something I can watch—although I am sure there are several VHS players in my garage. Oh, and a Beta.

I need to clean out my garage.

I wrote a three minute speech in my hotel room a few hours before, tried to memorize it, and it must have been damp from sweat by the time I got to the microphone.

I had given a lot of speeches for my young age by then—I killed at the Gresham Rotary—so I was confident and terrified all at once.

I pulled out my notes, and looked down at the crowd, which numbered maybe 400-500 people. If I had a grenade, I could have wiped out the entire U.S. media establishment.

Immediately in front of me was Walter Cronkite, who I had seen at the cocktail party. There was Don Hewitt, the legendary CBS News 60 Minutes executive producer, who had also produced the first 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debate. There was others I have kind of forgotten, but as I worked my material, I looked over at Peter Jennings, laughing really hard. Lesley was digging it.

Walter Cronkite seemed to be in tears I was so funny. I was doing my “the Cuban Missile Crisis was my hobby in high school” bit, and he liked that. I am not overselling here. I killed it not to a standing O, but a very solid wave of adulation for this barely-over-acne guy who weighed 158 pounds. I looked like maybe a college sophomore. Maybe. I was also very dapper at the time, my hair looked like a local news anchor’s coiffure, and I sold my act well.

I sat down in a daze of relief.

After the ceremony, two people rushed over to me.

One was Susan Zirinsky, the executive producer of 48 Hours, and Jonathan Klein, the President of CBS News (Susan later held the same job immediately before Bari Weiss, the grumpy charlatan now in charge of this now-imploding news giant).

Susan and Jon introduced themselves.

Susan said, “Don Hewitt says we’re going to make you the next Andy Rooney”.

Oh, Andy Rooney was also in the audience, and I am not sure how felt about his EP saying I was going to be the next him, but he wasn’t in earshot.

Oh, they speed-rapped me as fast as they could. Jon Klein said he was going to send a crew out to make a demo with me, or maybe I could come down to CBS News studios later? When are you going back?

My poor wife looked dumbfounded. Period.

This was not anything she signed up for. I don’t blame her.

This was 30 years ago, and some details are lost to the ages, but I had a chat with Susan the next day.

“We can’t put you on 60 yet, but we can find a show for you to work on. I can’t put you on 48 Hours, wrong format, but we will find you something.”

Huh. OK.

I had a broken garage door and three young kids back in Beaverton, Oregon I needed to attend to, so we flew back home. I was, of course, hallucinating about the potential of being a commentator on 60 Minutes, book deals, honoraria, and all the attendant bullshit that this kind of life entails.

This was in the very early phase of the internet and e-mail, so I was informed by Susan that I was going to be introduced to an EP of a new show starring Bryant Gumbel.

I was not this EP’s idea. At all. If you are not someone’s idea in New York, you are not anything, let alone an idea.

Initially, there was talk at CBS News about sending a crew out to Oregon. Then they said, “Well, we’ll send a high 8 video camera out there and you can mess around with that.” Then it was, “do you have friends at a tv station in Portland who can make a demo video for you?”

Yeah, I did.

I knew a guy. He was a perfectly solid tv news journalist who later became an AM talk show right-wing asshole. We don’t speak anymore. However, he was a good guy at the time before he became a fascist shill, so we got some studio time.

I had an idea about controlling the weather, as in, “everyone talks about the weather but no one ever does anything about it”.

Maybe not the strongest theme, but we gamely threw this video together from scratch. I had literally never made a video before. My friend and Portland news legend Kathy Smith was the main anchor at the station, and we made what I thought was fun news team segment.

I dutifully sent the video back to New York, knowing full well I was dead before I hit the ground.

The EP of the Gumbel CBS show eventually returned my phone call and tartly informed me I didn’t “pop” through the screen. That’s the way New York television people speak, I guess. I had no help. My next Andy Rooneyness was officially gone.

OK. That was that. I moved on.

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In retrospect, it was probably for the best that I never became the next Andy Rooney. I seem to recall that some comedian named Jim Gaffigan (huge fan here) got it, and it didn’t last very long. My former wife was right: this would have probably destroyed my life and hers, and that of my kids. Move to New York? How’s the fly fishing there? Fly all over? Great for any marriage with kids.

But, at the time, I could smell the ozone for a moment. Narcissistic heroin.

I have met so many unhappy network television people. They work like slaves. Their family life is tested constantly. They hit the bars and the drugs to cope. The only drug they want is to see themselves on tv, an elusive high that doesn’t last very long, mostly.

Watch The Larry Sanders Show, and that, I think, is probably as good an illustration of what this kind of career can do to you. It’s never enough.

In the words of Andy Rooney, have you ever noticed how ambition can consume you?

I am now mostly post-ambition. The Pulitzer does that to you. I got to do this kind of honorable work, and mostly didn’t have to travel or make too many personal sacrifices. Don’t get me wrong, I have made sacrifices. Lots of them.

But I didn’t have to spend Christmas Eve at O’Hare.

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Hey, YBs! : Hope you had a nice day, and that you din’t have to become the next someone or the other. Catch you tomorrow! —j.