Departures and Deaths: It's Been a Lousy Week for Journalism

What a lousy week this has been for journalism.

A fall from grace. Brian Williams. A graceful though painful abdication. Jon Stewart. A senseless, too early death of an eloquent brave voice. Bob Simon. A died-with-his boots-on moment for a muse of the grey lady of journalism. David Carr.

I hardly ever watched Brian Williams deliver the news. Marketing experts will tell you brand allegiance often can be bequeathed by one’s parents. In our house in Brooklyn we watched Walter Cronkite on CBS. So I’ve stayed loyal to the Tiffany network through Dan Rather, Katie Couric and Scott Pelley, with the occasional Bob Schieffer, Roger Mudd and assorted others thrown into the media mix.

Brian Williams just seemed a little too plastic for me. A little too glib. Too perfect. I’m not happy he has been upended by Iraq war story illusions of his own making. I’ve read analyses of how the mind can trick one into believing events transpired different from reality. Often my brother but usually my sister will contradict my telling of a family story. If you want it told your way, I retort, write your own blog or post a comment on mine. Until then, my version will be passed down to the next generation as Forseter lore.

NBC placed Williams on six-month suspension without pay, but it is hard to believe his truthiness will allow him to be seated again in the network’s anchor chair. He is not the only media casualty of the ill-conceived and duplicitously reasoned invasion of Iraq. We went to war under false pretenses. Too many journalists failed to reveal the truth obscured by politicians. 

Williams created his own combat legend. No one died because of his creative yarn. But his obfuscation tarnished NBC and all media outlets. As Jon Stewart, a Williams fan/friend wryly noted, “Finally, someone is being held to account for misleading America about the Iraq war.”

Tuesday afternoon I had mentioned to Gilda how much I missed Stephen Colbert’s nightly skewering of the powerful and righteous on The Colbert Report. Naturally I was stunned by Stewart’s sudden abdication of a platform that during his 17 year tenure as host of The Daily Show redefined the focus of TV journalism. 

Virtually alone in the practice, he showcased the shifting, contradictory positions of politicians and media to suit immediate needs and circumstances. His revelations left the viewer wondering why a comedy show and not their local and national newscasts or newspapers detailed the mendacity and dishonesty of elected officials and pundits.

How could Stewart leave us right before the 2016 election? Has he no civic responsibility to shepherd us through all the lying and deceit scheduled to come our way? 

Have I no faith in his replacement, whomever that might be? After all, John Oliver, a Daily Show alumnus, is producing stellar commentary on his new show, Last Week Tonight. But that’s a new franchise. 

I am not sanguine about The Daily Show’s future. Consider Fashion Police, a decadent indulgence Gilda and I enjoy. After Joan Rivers died tragically, I correctly predicted Kathy Griffin would succeed her as leader of the panel. But she has not succeeded in being as over-the-top funny as Rivers. What’s saving the show for us is the contributions of Brad Goreski, who replaced George Kotsiopoulos, and more liberated commentary from Giuliana Rancic.

I suspect the first time I became aware of Bob Simon was during his stint covering the Yom Kippur War in 1973 for CBS. Battlefields seemingly drew him into expanding spheres of combat worldwide. He delivered stories of human suffering amid the turmoil. But he also spotlighted human achievements, especially during his 60 Minutes years. The 60 Minutes Simon piece Scott Pelley re-aired Thursday on the Congo Kimbanquist Symphony Orchestra was among my favorites.  

After more than 40 years covering conflicts and catastrophes around the world, Simon perished in Manhattan, in a car crash of the town car he was riding in on the West Side Highway. He wasn’t wearing a seat belt. We’ll never know if he would have survived the wreckage had he been belted in. We do know hours before he had finished working on his latest 60 Minutes segment. It will be broadcast Sunday.

David Carr of The New York Times was a media insider, probably known to few outside the New York-Los Angeles-Washington industry axis. He died shortly after moderating a panel discussion of CitizenFour. That’s the Oscar-nominated documentary about Edward Snowden who leaked National Security Agency secrets. On the panel were Snowden, via live video feed from his perch in Russia; Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who published Snowden’s material; and Laura Poitras, the director of CitizenFour. 

Carr was not handsome like Williams, or Stewart, or the young and even old Simon. In his last years he appeared gaunt, sickly, several sizes too small for his clothing. A life that overcame drug addiction, alcoholism, cancer, ended Thursday night in a place he revered more than almost any other—the newsroom of The New York Times.

Weekend to Remember

It was a loooong weekend of remembrances. 

For those of you who didn’t bother to catch Jay Leno’s final stint as host of The Tonight Show last Thursday, it was a mostly maudlin affair. The best comment (joke) of the night was Leno saying “the saddest part of it all (his 22 years as host)” was “OJ never found the real killers.” 

I find myself choking up more frequently these days when talking about family or anything sentimental, so I empathized with Leno during his final words of thanking fans and staff. I particularly associated with the thoughts he expressed when explaining why he did not jump to another network. 

“When people say to me, 'why don’t you go to ABC, why don’t you go to Fox, why don’t you go …,' I didn’t know anybody over there. These are the only people I’ve ever known.” 

It struck home. I worked for Chain Store Age for 32 years. I was a young 60 when I retired, like Leno, more a decision initiated from above but not resisted. I could have jumped to another publishing company. But I just couldn’t see myself carrying any other press card. Fortunately, it hasn’t been a decision I’ve regretted. 

Thanks Mom: With the Olympics set to begin Friday night, a real estate colleague sent along a YouTube clip meant to pull the heartstrings. See for yourself: http://youtu.be/57e4t-fhXDs 

Now, I ask you, did no fathers get up at 4 am to drive a son or daughter to practice? Did no dad sacrifice anything on the road of hope to Olympic gold? Why do athletes from all sports always thank or say hi to their moms and not recognize their fathers? Are they all from broken homes? 

Joan Ranger: Saturday night I missed an opportunity to sign in as a Joan Ranger to Joan Rivers herself (to those not familiar with Joan Rangers, they are loyal fans of Fashion Police, an often hilarious, outrageous commentary on celebrities and their fashion choices, presided over by Joan Rivers. It’s one of Gilda’s and my favorite shows).   

Joan, Gilda and I, along with our friends Ken and Jane, attended the Playwrights Horizons preview performance of a new play, Stage Kiss, by Sarah Ruhl (we highly recommend it).  Rivers was very accessible, talking with audience members during the intermission and after the final curtain. I told Rivers I liked her show but failed, in the moment, to say I was a Joan Ranger. 

For those who may not know, Rivers is 80 years old, but as spine specialist Gilda noted, she stands very erect. This was the second time we met Rivers. The first was back in 1998 at the 50th anniversary performance of the New York City Ballet. Gilda and I, along with our then 16-year-old daughter Ellie, were invited by an executive of Talbots to attend the performance. We sat in the second row. After the ballet, the audience retired to the forecourt of Lincoln Center for a sumptuous meal during which Ellie and Gilda talked with Rivers and with designer Vera Wang. 

British Invasion: Sunday night, of course, marked the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show and the beginning of the British Invasion by music groups. Though not a regular fan of Ed Sullivan, I remember watching the telecast that night. But I had already experienced the Beatles some five weeks earlier.

I was a regular viewer of the Friday night Jack Paar Show. On January 3, five weeks before February 9, Paar broadcast footage of the Fab Four singing several songs. He purposely chose to pre-empt Sullivan’s scoop. But his tactic might well have had unintended consequences.

While Paar increased his normal audience of 17 million to 30 million, mostly by attracting younger viewers, he primed the pump for Sullivan to achieve astronomical numbers. Sullivan’s audience reached nearly 74 million, up from its usual 35 million. And it was Sullivan, not Paar, who was credited, for better or worse, with bringing the Beatles into the living rooms of America.