Jessica Savitch breakdown
Charles Herold
Jessica Savitch. It says she had a breakdown on the air, but doesn't
describe what happened, and as I don't get cable, I'm not going to see
the film. Could someone who saw the breakdown describe what happened?
Charles Herold Citizen of the Whirl
charles...@tglbbs.com
---
* SPEED 2.00 [NR] * I don't eat snails. I prefer fast food.
Brian Kane
(Charles Herold) wrote:
I actually remember seeing Jessica's famous "News Update", though at the
time it only seemed that she was just having a very bad night. The
made-for-cable movie with Sela Ward (who, IMHO, looks more like Murphy
Brown than Jessica Savitch with that dye-job) is based on an excellent
biography, "Almost Golden", which describes the events of that evening in
excruciating detail. Basically, she could net get a word out of her
mouth, cascading into babble in the course of 30 agonizing seconds. She
looked haggard and strung out - I don't recall if she was reportedly high
on coke or trying to quit. This was pretty much the end of her career.
Jessica was a hot babe on screen, though they say she wasn't very
attractive in person. Those Russian eyes and that sideways smile were
intoxicating. She was an awful reporter. Jessica was probably the first
victim of the rush to turn TV news into entertainment in the 1980s; her
legacy is the endless parade of bimbo "reporters" on every local station
in the country -- 21-year-old j-school grads with zero brains and a 36C
bra size -- the characters of Murphy and Corky on "Murphy Brown" are
dead-on about the difference between the older female TV journalists who
made it because they could be as ruthless as the men and the younger women
who make it to the network because they look good.
BRIAN
(Michael de Leon) wrote:
>I have to disagree with you here. While not the best, she was a very good
>reporter. This was in evidence when she did work on the PBS documentary
>series Frontline (not necessarily known for it's bimbo journalists...).
Are you sure you're not confusing her with Judy Woodruff? (It's been many
years, so I might be mistaken about this...)
If so, in any event, all she did for FRONTLINE was act as a host, and
provide the introductions. That's not quite reporting...
BRIAN (br...@ritz.mordor.com)
Aaron Dickey
> Read in TV guide that there's some movie about some reporter named
> Jessica Savitch. It says she had a breakdown on the air, but doesn't
> describe what happened, and as I don't get cable, I'm not going to see
> the film. Could someone who saw the breakdown describe what happened?
The movie is going to be on Lifetime sometime this week; immediately
following the movie is an honest documentary that includes the actual
videotape of her breakdown. So, if you've got cable, you might as well
just watch it for yourself.
Anyway, here's what it was: Remember when the networks always ran little
news burps at 8:58 pm and 9:58 pm (until they got greedy and started using
that time for more commercials)? Savitch was scheduled to do the NBC News
Updates that night. Unfortunately, she showed up under the influence of
alcohol, tranquilizers, or both (there's some argument on just what she'd
been imbibing). She was obviously unable to anchor, but since it was
almost 9 pm, everyone who outranked her at NBC News has long since gone
home, and nobody stopped her from going on. (Note that Savitch was a
_major_ prima donna, and some men in the highest ranks of NBC News had the
hots for her and wouldn't stand for any criticism of her. As such, all the
people at NBC who theoretically had the power to tell her not to go on
knew that in reality, if they tried to stop her, they'd very likely get
fired themselves.)
So she went on at 8:58. Basically, it was just a slur-fest; she couldn't
keep up with the teleprompter, stumbled over words (note in particular her
total failure to pronounce the word "unconstitutional"), looking obviously
drunk and/or drugged...and after 45 seconds, the master control room
computer cut out to a commerical like it was supposed to, cutting her off
halfway through a sentence. It really has to be seen to be believed.
And, unfathomably, even after that fiasco, she was allowed to stay and do
the 9:58 update. (However, after an hour she'd sobered up greatly, and
that update went off pretty much normally.)
Some NBC goon ordered all tapes of that night's Updates to be erased; I
have no idea where they documentary makers got their copy. (Of course,
I'm sure half the video geeks at NBC were dubbing copies of it for friends
and co-workers within 30 seconds of her going off the air.)
Ironically, her death a short time later was completely unrelated to her
drinking and pill-popping; it was a car accident.
This is all related in much greater detail in the book "Almost Golden". I
forget the author, but any decent library should have a copy. It's a
fascinating read. (There's also the slightly sleazier bio called "Golden
Girl".) But definitely watch that documentary if you get the chance.
--
Aaron Dickey The Associated Press - New York
kie...@interport.net HotWired Net Soup
I work for the AP and Wired; I don't speak for them.
Michael de Leon
bri...@biddeford.com (Brian Kane) wrote:
> Jessica was a hot babe on screen, though they say she wasn't very
> attractive in person. Those Russian eyes and that sideways smile were
> intoxicating. She was an awful reporter. Jessica was probably the first
> victim of the rush to turn TV news into entertainment in the 1980s; her
> legacy is the endless parade of bimbo "reporters" on every local station
> in the country -- 21-year-old j-school grads with zero brains and a 36C
> bra size -- the characters of Murphy and Corky on "Murphy Brown" are
> dead-on about the difference between the older female TV journalists who
> made it because they could be as ruthless as the men and the younger women
> who make it to the network because they look good.
I have to disagree with you here. While not the best, she was a very good
reporter. This was in evidence when she did work on the PBS documentary
series Frontline (not necessarily known for it's bimbo journalists...).
However, I don't doubt that the networks may have tried to frame her
nicely as the bimbo type and that may have led to many perceptions,
but it certainly wasn't who she really was or wanted to be. Some of her
work can be seen at the New York Museum of Televison and Radio.
-michael
Renee Schwager
don't want to miss it.
Thanks.
--
Renee Schwager
rsch...@capcon.net
Bob Church
kie...@interport.net (Aaron Dickey) writes:
>
> Ironically, her death a short time later was completely unrelated to her
> drinking and pill-popping; it was a car accident.
Well, if you get too stoned to read a teleprompter,......
Bob Church
Trog22
(Aaron Dickey) writes:
>Anyway, here's what it was: Remember when the networks always ran little
>news burps at 8:58 pm and 9:58 pm (until they got greedy and started
using
>that time for more commercials)? Savitch was scheduled to do the NBC
News
>Updates that night. Unfortunately, she showed up under the influence of
>alcohol, tranquilizers, or both (there's some argument on just what she'd
>been imbibing). She was obviously unable to anchor, but since it was
>almost 9 pm, everyone who outranked her at NBC News has long since gone
>home, and nobody stopped her from going on.
After that incident, they started to tape the updates to prevent something
like this from happening.
The movie is based on the book 'Almost Golden'--there was another book
which dealt with her life and the role of women on TV News in general. I
forget the name.
Tripp Rogers
Colin Campbell
kie...@interport.net (Aaron Dickey) writes:
>
> Ironically, her death a short time later was completely unrelated to her
> drinking and pill-popping; it was a car accident.
wharf, and driving off the edge into the ocean...
John Shortess
>The movie is based on the book 'Almost Golden'--there was another book
>which dealt with her life and the role of women on TV News in general. I
>forget the name.
>
I know of two books that could be the one you're thinking of.
ANCHORWOMAN, Jessica Savitch's autobiography, and AND SO IT GOES:
ADVENTURES IN TELEVISION by Linda Ellerbee.
John R. Shortess -- Baton Rouge, LA, USA
shor...@premier.net / sch...@genie.com
Aaron Dickey
(John Shortess) wrote:
> tro...@aol.com (Trog22) wrote:
>
> >The movie is based on the book 'Almost Golden'--there was another book
> >which dealt with her life and the role of women on TV News in general. I
> >forget the name.
> >
>
> I know of two books that could be the one you're thinking of.
> ANCHORWOMAN, Jessica Savitch's autobiography, and AND SO IT GOES:
> ADVENTURES IN TELEVISION by Linda Ellerbee.
Ellerbee's book only deals with Savitch in passing; a few anecdotes mostly
(at least one of which you won't know is about Savitch until you read
ALMOST GOLDEN).
Aaron Dickey
Church) wrote:
> In article <kieran-0309...@kieran.port.net>
> kie...@interport.net (Aaron Dickey) writes:
> >
> > Ironically, her death a short time later was completely unrelated to her
> > drinking and pill-popping; it was a car accident.
>
> Well, if you get too stoned to read a teleprompter,......
No, her boyfriend was driving the car. They were leaving a restaurant,
and there was some major fog at the time. Said boyfriend basically pulled
out of the lot and drove almost instantly into a ditch.
Aaron Dickey
> I know of two books that could be the one you're thinking of.
> ANCHORWOMAN, Jessica Savitch's autobiography, and AND SO IT GOES:
> ADVENTURES IN TELEVISION by Linda Ellerbee.
> John R. Shortess -- Baton Rouge, LA, USA
> shor...@premier.net / sch...@genie.com
Forgot something I wanted to add: One should definitely read AND SO IT
GOES anyway, regardless of the Savitch parts; Ellerbee's a _wonderful_
writer. The book is hilarious.
ANCHORWOMAN is self-congratulatory pablum. If you can even find a copy
anywhere, it's only worth reading as a preface to ALMOST GOLDEN.
EYL...@ctrvx1.vanderbilt.edu
In a former article we saw...
---begin former article---
From: chu...@art.ohiou.edu (Bob Church)
Subject: Re: Jessica Savitch breakdown
Date: Mon, 4 Sep 1995 03:20:03 GMT
In article <kieran-0309...@kieran.port.net>
kie...@interport.net (Aaron Dickey) writes:
>
> Ironically, her death a short time later was completely unrelated to her
> drinking and pill-popping; it was a car accident.
Well, if you get too stoned to read a teleprompter,......
Bob Church
---end former article---
She wasn't driving. Some bozo friend of hers managed to back the
car he was driving into a narrow canal near a restaurant and the car
landed upside down with the doors blocked. They both drowned.
Joann Taylor
The Car that she was in with Martin Fischbein(sp?) (he was
VP of the New York Post at the time) was driven into the Delware
Canal in New Hope, Pa. They had finished eating dinner and there was a
rainstorm - while he was trying to find the road, he accidently drove
into the canal which appeared black and had no guard rail. The canal
usually has very little water in it but after heavy rains it was pretty
full. The car flipped unto its roof and got stuck in deep mud which made
escape impossible. Savitch's Akita was also with them and the three of
them drowned.
--
* Joann Taylor *
* Principal Consultant - Color Technology Solutions *
* Specializing in Color Science, Technology and Applications *
* joa...@teleport.com *
Clarke PXY
in the late Seventies/early Eighties, and we had a TV station upstairs.
The TV people were a pretty tight-knit group, and since Group W owned
Savitch's TV station in Philadelphia (KYW-TV) as well as owning one in
Pittsburgh, I heard most of the stories about her. So I felt like I knew
a little about her, at least more than the average guy on the street.
(This feeling has eerily continued at my current job, as the Executive VP
of my present company hired Savitch at WBBF many years ago, and has
memories of his own to share.)
There have been suggestions on this newsgroup that Savitch was a bimbo and
an awful reporter. I never heard any comments to this effect from the
people I talked to. There were certainly discussions of her being
difficult and sort of a prima donna behind the scenes, but I never heard
anyone question her competence, especially on camera.
Having finally seen the much-touted footage of her on-camera "breakdown",
it looks to me like, rather than a breakdown, she was simply under the
influence of some substance(s) that impaired her ability to deliver the
news. Maybe the problems were emotional, but I tend to believe otherwise.
Regardless, it was a rather disturbing piece of footage to watch.
From everything I know, Jessica Savitch was an extremely complex woman to
try to understand: strong yet vulnerable, competent yet afraid, very
demanding at times (probably a result of insecurity and frustrated
ambition than ego), and in the end, self-destructive. When I heard of her
passing, a dozen years ago, it was as though someone I knew, a friend, had
died.
I'm sure many of her viewers must have felt the same way. What a tragedy.
Clarke
=============================================================
Clarke Ingram, PD, WPXY-FM, Rochester NY (Clar...@aol.com)
=============================================================
Andrew Shore
On Sun, 3 Sep 1995, Aaron Dickey wrote:
> Ironically, her death a short time later was completely unrelated to her
> drinking and pill-popping; it was a car accident.
It was related tho drinking; her boyfriend (the one played by Ron
Silver?) accidentally backed his car over a parking lot retaining wall and
into the Schuykill River.
--
AS
BRIAN
PXY) wrote:
> Having finally seen the much-touted footage of her on-camera "breakdown",
> it looks to me like, rather than a breakdown, she was simply under the
> influence of some substance(s) that impaired her ability to deliver the
> news. Maybe the problems were emotional, but I tend to believe otherwise.
> Regardless, it was a rather disturbing piece of footage to watch.
Having seen this as part of the documentary (if you can accurately call it
that) on LIFETIME, I was amazed that it wasn't nearly as bad as I had been
led to believe. (But it was punctuated it with narration and comments from
her biographer, repeatedly telling you how terrible it was. Very
irritating...)
She does stumble a bit, and there's obviously something amiss...but I
can't help but wonder if it wouldn't have gone largely unnoticed if
attention hadn't been called to it...
BRIAN (br...@ritz.mordor.com)
dallas bucher
Thanks, Joanne. All of thew misinformation that I had seen about
her death nearly made my head explode. I was just getting ready to reply
to the guy that said she drowned in a drunken stupor in the Schuylkill
but decided to read a couple more replys first. You hit the nail right on
the head. A little more info: The restaurant was Odettes' in New Hope Pa.,
and people have been missing the little tow path bridge, and ending up with
their cars in the Delaware Canal for years(almost did it myself once ;-}).
I believe they were sued after this particular incident. However, on a dark,
rainy night, it's not impossible to do it again- drunk or sober. Great
food...lousy parking lot. You're better off parking on River Road, and
taking the very short, and very enjoyable walk along the tow path to
the restaurant.
Thanks for listening
DAl
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dallas Bucher | \ | /
dbu...@discg3.disc.dla.mil | cute saying still under construction
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Ken Gilbert (x3432)]
the *Delaware* River. The incident took place near New Hope in Bucks County.
Cheers, Ken Gilbert (ex-Bucks Countian)
kgil...@cas.org
standard disclaimer here
Clarke PXY
> Having seen this as part of the documentary (if you can accurately
> call it that) on LIFETIME, I was amazed that it wasn't nearly as bad
> as I had been led to believe. (But it was punctuated it with narration
> and comments from her biographer, repeatedly telling you how terrible
> it was. Very irritating...)
And on top of which, they didn't show the entire news update, so it's
difficult to tell if the master control computer cut away to a commercial
while Savitch was still stumbling through the news, as has been claimed.
> She does stumble a bit, and there's obviously something amiss...but I
> can't help but wonder if it wouldn't have gone largely unnoticed if
> attention hadn't been called to it...
I agree completely. One poster suggested it looks like she was just
"having a bad night," and that's about right, although it seems clear that
she's under the influence of SOMETHING. But since the drug/alcohol
rumours were rampant (and public) by this time, and since she had
apparently alienated many of her fellow workers by then, I'm sure she
didn't get the benefit of the doubt from many people.
The movie on Lifetime exaggerated both the "breakdown" and the behind the
scenes "tantrum" that were both shown as actual footage in the
documentary. So I think the movie was surely much more drama than "docu."
It was essentially the end of her career, though, if only because she died
so shortly thereafter.
Mark J. Rinehart
> In article <kieran-0309...@kieran.port.net>
> kie...@interport.net (Aaron Dickey) writes:
> > Ironically, her death a short time later was completely unrelated to her
> > drinking and pill-popping; it was a car accident.
> Yeah, your typical car accident: coming out of a restaurant on a
> wharf, and driving off the edge into the ocean...
The documentary never said anything about pill popping. Savitch had a
serious cocaine problem, which caused her on-air babble that night,
that got her fired and ruined her tv reporting career.
Shortly thereafter, she died in a freak car accident, where her
boyfriend drove down an undermarked tow path, and into a canal. The
car flipped over and Savitch and her boyfriend drowned.
Mark
Mark E. Mallett
> You're better off parking on River Road, and
>taking the very short, and very enjoyable walk along the tow path to
>the restaurant.
What an understatement..
-mm-
--
Mark E. Mallett | MV Communications, Inc.
Internet Access in New Hampshire | PO Box 4963
603-424-7428 (8N1), login as info | Manchester, NH 03108-4963
email in...@mv.mv.com for autoreply. | 603-429-2223/ fax: 424-0386
Locations in Litchfield, Nashua, Manchester, Concord, Dover, Peterborough.
Aaron
>She does stumble a bit, and there's obviously something amiss...but I
>can't help but wonder if it wouldn't have gone largely unnoticed if
>attention hadn't been called to it...
Oh, it definitely would have been noticed. Again, read ALMOST GOLDEN to
find out why. If nothing else, it would have been very obvious to everyone
in the TV news business. There's a nice long anecdote in the book about Ted
Koppel, sitting at the Nightline desk working on that night's script, when
he looked up at the monitors and saw Savitch. He knew immediately that
something was amiss, and punched up the sound to figure it all out.
Aaron
>And on top of which, they didn't show the entire news update, so it's
>difficult to tell if the master control computer cut away to a commercial
>while Savitch was still stumbling through the news, as has been claimed.
It's what I saw, and it's documented in both books.
>I agree completely. One poster suggested it looks like she was just
>"having a bad night," and that's about right, although it seems clear that
>she's under the influence of SOMETHING.
Which is, itself, enough to destroy your career. You do NOT go on the air
drunk and/or stoned, period. Thus, it should be obvious why those in the
business consider the tape so scary: they are literally seeing someone throw
away two decades' worth of hard work in about 45 seconds. Nobody ever said
she was throwing papers up in the air and giggling maniacally.
Those of you in/around NYC may remember an incident in the mid-70s when
WABC-TV's weatherman, Tex Antoine, pretty much did the same thing. WABC was
(and is) one of those "Happy Talk" stations, so after a deadly-serious report
on rape had just aired, the anchor and Tex had to somehow trade a bit of
perky chatter as a segue into the weather. Tex decided to segue with these
words: "Well, you know what they say: If it's going to happen anyway, you might
as well lay back and enjoy it."
Now, obviously, this was just a REAL dumb-assed throwaway line uttered by a
guy who just couldn't think of anything else to say. (It's also a good example
of why "Happy Talk" is such a pathetic local news tactic, but that's for
another thread.) Nevertheless, it ended his career instantly. And if you
show that tape to any news anchor/reporter, he/she will cringe. It's the
First Cardinal Sin of broadcast journalism, and journalists don't even want
to think about it.
Joann Taylor
No problem. I lived in Lansdale (Pa.) at the time, so it was local
news. Having spent time at the canal area it is very easy to see how
such an accident could occur. It has been awhile since I've been to New
Hope but I do know that her estate sued Bucks County for wrongful
death - and was awarded over 8 million bucks to account for future
earnings. I do not know if this encouraged erection of a guard rail.
<rag on> Knowing PennDOT, it probably didn't...<rag off>
Her downward spiral towards the end of her career was very unfortunate,
however, the people in the Philadelphia area still considered her in a
very positive light. She was enormously popular when she was at KYW.
(If you saw the Intimate Portrait on Lifetime, one of her co-anchors -
Mort Crim was on - another very popular anchor (currently in Detroit).
They did not mention Vince Leonard, her other co-anchor who was also
popular but a bit more fatherly. (sort of a younger John Facenda for
anyone from Philly...for those of you not from Philly, Facenda was the
voice of NFL this Week for YEARS...)
I recall that Leonard went to the Southwest after KYW but am
unsure if he is still in the business. Anyone know for sure?
Joann Taylor
Brian Kane
=7F
>Somehow I got the impression that copies surfaced from a home viewer. According to the Lifetime "Intimate Portrait" biography, all=
=3D
>internal copies were destroyed but "years later" a tape showed up. They didn't run the complete unedited clip, but it was mesmeriz=
i=3D
>ng all the same.
>
There are several university media studies departments which have been recodring network news broadcasts for years..it may have come=
from one of them, possibly. The quality of the video looked too good to be a 12-year-old home video copy. I also suspect that the=
re are *plenty* of bootleg copies from the network as Alan suggests.
| Brian M. Kane
| bri...@biddeford.com
| bk...@hague.com
| bmk...@aol.com
cele...@scsud.ctstateu.edu
that a few scenes in the movie were exaggerated. I wondered if that was
the case here. She embarasses herself while covering Humphrey's funeral
because she can't recognize many of the people in the audience. Most
were members of Congress. Among the ones shown in the scene were Sens.
Ed Muskie and Robert Byrd. Byrd is still there, and Muskie of course ran
for VP in '68. If she did not know major figures like these guys then she
did not belong in DC as a national reporter. Did she really fill time by
saying "The last person to lie in state at the capitol was Lyndon Johnson"
three times?
From the documentary it was obvious her 'breakdown' and tantrum scenes were
not as bad as they were portrayed in the film. I've read that after the
first news break where she slurred and stumbled, she actually stayed
around and did another one an hour later. By that time she had sobered
up and did much better.
Tom
Clarke PXY
> Which is, itself, enough to destroy your career. You do NOT go on the
air
> drunk and/or stoned, period. Thus, it should be obvious why those in
the
> business consider the tape so scary: they are literally seeing someone
> throw away two decades' worth of hard work in about 45 seconds.
On 8 Sep 1995, ma...@netcom.com (Maya Keshavan) wrote:
> I wonder, had she lived, if her career would have been destroyed.
> After all, she had just gone through the suicide of her husband, she
> could have "explained" to the public all the pain she was going through.
> The viewers liked her (I admit, I was one of those viewers who was
> impressed by her, I still am, I think she was a very good anchorperson).
> I would wager that this incident would have been forgiven by the public.
But perhaps not forgiven by the network. I haven't read the biographies,
but it seems clear that Savitch had personal problems, and someone should
have told her to take some serious time off and get her life in order (as
Linda Ellerbee suggested to NBC, according to the Lifetime documentary).
Savitch apparently went through personal crises that would melt down
almost anybody. I think the public might have understood, and I think her
career might have been saved. But of course, we'll never know, now.
What's starting to bother me is the perception that someone like Savitch
can throw 20 years of hard work away in 45 seconds because her problems
were starting to affect her work. It's one thing if you're Tex Antoine
and make a clearly insensitive remark about rape (through stupidity or
whatever). But IMHO, I think it's quite another thing if you have major
personal problems and need help coping with them. I think that needs
sympathy and assistance and rehabilitation, not immediate career
termination.
I'm in the radio business (not television), but I've been through this a
couple of times with several employees at different stations. If they
have talent and are worth keeping otherwise, you try to salvage them (for
lack of a better word). It seems to me that someone should have done the
same with Jessica Savitch.
Clarke
========================================================
Clarke Ingram, Program Director, 98 PXY, 207 Midtown Plaza,
Rochester, NY 14604 (716-454-2600) (Clar...@aol.com)
========================================================
Marlene Eilers
> Yeah, your typical car accident: coming out of a restaurant on a
>wharf, and driving off the edge into the ocean...
martin fischbein was driving and the weather was horrid -
no visibility - drove off a road into a canal -
nothing to do wtih the restaurant -
neither drugs nor alcohol were found in either person
Marlene Eilers
>It was related tho drinking; her boyfriend (the one played by Ron
>Silver?) accidentally backed his car over a parking lot retaining wall and
>into the Schuykill River.
off the road into a canal - very bad storm no visibility
at all total accident - no drugs nor alcohol were found in
either person - not Ron Kersaw (ron silver)
as...@imap2.asu.edu
documentary did not show the whole newsbreak....
Does anyone know if there is a way to see the whole NBC news digest, that
Savitch supposedly messed up on royally?
Thanks....
Chaz
Andrew Shore
On 8 Sep 1995, Aaron wrote:
> Those of you in/around NYC may remember an incident in the mid-70s when
> WABC-TV's weatherman, Tex Antoine, pretty much did the same thing.
> ...after a deadly-serious report on rape had just aired, the anchor and
> Tex had to somehow trade a bit of perky chatter as a segue into the weather.
> Tex decided to segue with these words: "Well, you know what they say: If
> it's going to happen anyway, you might as well lay back and enjoy it."
Groan... I could see Ted Baxter doing that. What did his anchor do?
--
AS
user
had she lived! I'm afraid I don't share your optimism ,though.
While everyone calls the '45-second' clip her downfall, I think it was
much earlier. As the TV bio showed, when she had to ad-lib the Hubert
Humphrey funeral coverage , she repeated the fact that he was only the
5th statesman to be given a funeral in the Rotundra three times! While,
it is true that she had no script ( I remember when this happened and
wondered why she repaeted it) a truly professional journalist is supposed
to be well-versed on the subject at hand ( e.g. she could have talked
about his long and illustrious career ).unfortunatley, when she flubbed
the Humphrey funeral, she made it very clear that she knew how to REPEAT
the news but NOT to ad-lib the coverage when necessary! This was a major
drawback to her career. Oprah Winfrey had a nearly identical thing
happen to her when she was an anchor at WLAC in Nashville back in 1970.
She was supposed to have a live interview with someone at the airport but
it became clear to her that he couldn't speak any English but she was
able to improvise on the spot and it wasn't until years later that she
told what had realy happened but those of us who saw the interview could
see how professionally she was able to handle this seemingly impossible
bottleneck. She was only 17 but she showed that she had what it would
take to make her a phenomenom!
It also seems that Ms. Savitch was a news-chameleon in that she could
adapt to whatever window -dressing was required ( e.g. a cowgirl reporter
in Houston depite having been from New York,then lowering her voice and
chngeing her appearance in Philadelphia and New York) . She was also
willing to sacrifice whatever ( or whoever such as her 1st husband who
she dumped as soon as he could no longer help her career) to climb up..
Unfortunately she kept the abusive boyfriend almost to the end - the only
good thing he did was give her the dog. The problem was that after the
45-seconds, viewers could no longer trust her and without trust a news
anchor cannot function. Perhaps she could have earned that trust again (
especially if she stayed clean )
. All that I'm saying does NOT detract from the fact that she was a
much-needed ground-breaker for women television journalists! She
definitely deserves to be remembered for that and praised for it as well.
Still, we must see her as human and accept the bad with the good if we
are to be fair to her memory. Leon
e-mail:tri...@isdn.net
Aaron
>Aaron (kie...@interport.net) wrote:
>I wonder, had she lived, if her career would have been destroyed. After
>all, she had just gone through the suicide of her husband, she could
>have "explained" to the public all the pain she was going through. The
>viewers liked her (I admit, I was one of those viewers who was impressed
>by her, I still am, I think she was a very good anchorperson). I would wager
>that this incident would have been forgiven by the public.
The following is, of course, pure conjecture on my part...
If I recall the chronology correctly, a bunch of female anchors and reporters
at NBC gathered in private not long after her Update incident, and planned
to hold an intervention with Savitch early the next week. Unfortunately, the
fatal car accident occurred that weekend, so the intervention never took place.
My guess is that, if not for the car accident, the intervention would have
taken place on schedule, and would have been ultimately successful. IMHO,
Savitch's drug and alcohol problems were not so out of control that she would
have flunked out of rehab or anything like that, particularly if the female
NBC staffers were there for her during the process. (It seems her underlying
problem was deep-seated loneliness and an inferiority complex.) Then she'd
get the requisite _People_ cover story and get to work on rebuilding her
career.
Now, regardless of anything else, it appears pretty obvious that Savitch
simply did not have the overall knowledge of world affairs or politics to be a
good network reporter. (When given enough notice, she could cram like a
college student before the big exam and ultimately pull off a very decent
job. However, that's just not enough in general.) So my guess is that, in
the end, she would have left NBC for a full-time anchor position at either a
syndicated show or a Top 10 local market, where she would most likely remain
a well-respected anchor to this day.
[regarding Tex Antoine:]
>Maybe its me, but this seems like a totally different type
>of infraction. This man made light of a very important topic, while
>Savitch made no inappropriate comments, she did stumble and was obviously
>drunk. However she was nowhere as offensive as Antoine.
>IMHO of course.
Oh, I agree that Tex's was a wholly different kind of screwup. I was just
using the anecdote to point out that no matter HOW popular you are, you can
still blow it all in just a few seconds if you majorly lose it on air. And
the fact that Tex's brain let that line come out of Tex's mouth at that
moment qualifies as "majorly losing it", IMHO.
>I am always reminded by Dan Rather when I hear how Savitch's career would
>have been ruined. (She died to soon for anyone to be sure this would have
>been the case) Rather has *walked* off the set, he has picked a
>fight with an interviewee (Bush), his career has remained intact.(why?)
Well, in the first case the reason is clear: he didn't do anything ON
THE AIR. Going black is the First Cardinal Sin of a TV network, but a
network can't punish itself. Also, given the major internal political
struggle going on at CBS at that time, any attempt to punish Rather could
easily have led to at least half of CBS News quitting en masse. It's just
not quite the same thing. (Also note that Rather had already done a
runthrough of that night's Evening News on tape, for use just in case any
technical problems were to occur [he was broadcasting from Miami that night,
not the usual NYC studio]. The fact that nobody ran that tape when this
happened wasn't Rather's fault, and that screwup pretty much let him off the
hook no matter what.)
As for the Bush thing, Rather was set up, period. Rather could have ended up
hurling expletives at Bush and would have been cheered for it by as many
journalists as would have condemned him.
Aaron
>What's starting to bother me is the perception that someone like Savitch
>can throw 20 years of hard work away in 45 seconds because her problems
>were starting to affect her work. It's one thing if you're Tex Antoine
>and make a clearly insensitive remark about rape (through stupidity or
>whatever). But IMHO, I think it's quite another thing if you have major
>personal problems and need help coping with them. I think that needs
>sympathy and assistance and rehabilitation, not immediate career
>termination.
I agree completely. I didn't say it was FAIR; it's just the way it is.
(As Ellerbee herself said in this very newsgroup just last week on an
entirely unrelated matter, "There is no justice in this world. Nope,
absolutely none.")
But then, see my other post in this thread I just send a few minutes ago,
where I hypothesize that she'd probably be a well-respected anchor today if
she had lived. Savitch's career is a rather complicated case here anyway: a
large part of the reason she was hired by NBC in the first place is that
certain key NBC executives were majorly horny for her. (Yes, I know it's
a disgusting thing to say. It's also true, according to the bios.) After
her on-air meltdown, it's anybody's guess whether those same executives
would have still stood behind her or tried to toss her overboard like so
much spoiled meat. God knows that if she'd never had a single problem in
her entire life, she'd still have risked being dumped one day if she didn't
"age gracefully".
In any case, NBC had, maybe still has, a first-class rehab program for its
employees, with guaranteed time off, job protection, etc. So she _probably_
would have kept her job. Whether or not the producers of any given NBC News
program would want to use her afterwards, is, of course, another matter
entirely.
Aaron
>Does anyone know if there is a way to see the whole NBC news digest, that
>Savitch supposedly messed up on royally?
My friend, if you can kiss up to a friend that works for any major TV news
operation, he/she can give you bootlegged VHS blooper tapes that will make
anything you see on "TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes" look like
"Schindler's List". Control room techies collect and trade them like
little kids with baseball cards.
Of course, getting a specific request fulfilled would be a much larger
favor, but if said friend has enough networking
contacts, he/she can get it eventually.
No, I don't personally work for a TV news operation. :)
Aaron
>> Those of you in/around NYC may remember an incident in the mid-70s when
>> WABC-TV's weatherman, Tex Antoine, pretty much did the same thing...
>Groan... I could see Ted Baxter doing that. What did his anchor do?
If I recall correctly, the anchor didn't have to do anything. As soon as
Tex said it, he immediately launched into the weather. It wasn't WABC itself
which reacted with revulsion (WABC is known here as "Eyewitless News" for a
number of reasons, most dating back a good two decades or more), but the
hordes of angry women complaining afterward.
(I was only around 6 or 7 when this happened. It's just a long-standing
TV anecdote.)
Sashi Alexandra German
coverage of this movie done here, in the local Philly area.
Sela Ward said in an interview that before shooting the KYW tantrum scene
(later put to music) the producers had tried and tried to get a copy of
actual incident. She said they contacted people, trying to get a copy and
finally were forced to shoot the scene WITHOUT having seen the actual
incident in question.
Needless to say, once the scene was shot, the tape appeared and was too late
to go back and correct. Ward seemed to imply that she and others were
painfully aware of the fact that they had overdone the KYW scene... but that
there was nothing they could do about it.
Regarding the Lifetime special after the movie, it was just waaaay too
dramatic for me. They could have done it a lot more 'straight' and factual,
instead of being so overdramatic with it. A shame. They ruined what could
have been a very good bio. Does anyone know if A&E has ever done anything on
Savitch?
--
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Trek The Internet
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user
user
Amanpour's attractiveness?! If she looked like three miles of bad road
she's STILL be an outstanding journalist and I'd appreciate her
integrity and capability ( the same with ANY journalist , male or female)
but her looks are icing on the cake( which , as any baker knows, is the
LEAST important part of the cake but the first thing everyone notices
:-) !
I think it is a sad symptom of the p.c. police that we can't admit
to enjoying seeing an attractive person without having to defend
ourselves. I think anyone who can't admit that they like seeing people
who they think are attractive is being dishonest with the world ( and
especially ) themselves! If that wasn't what you were saying, I
apologize in advance! Leon
e-mail:tri...@isdn.net
John Taber
On Wed, 13 Sep 1995, Bob Church wrote:
> In article <434ipp$1...@rex.isdn.net>
> user <be...@isdn.net> writes:
>
> > Bob,
> > I see there is a bit of truth in what you say but I think you are
> > oversimplifying the circumstances! You neglect to mention the great
> > anchors on CNN and Headline News like Lynn Vaughn and can anyone forget
> > the Sarejevo reporting of Cristiane Amanpour?
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>
> >She ranks right up there
> > with Murrow's London Blitz reports! So , instead of going through tabloid
> > shows, I think the best path is local news then cable news! Leon
> >
>
> I agree 100%. The problem is, would the networks use Amanpour, or
> someone they consider more "photogenic"? They seem to prefer a name
> and image, like Connie Chung, and then wonder why it doesn't work out.
>
> Bob Church
Or Deborah Norville, or Mary Hart, or Joan Lunden, or Paula Zahn, or
Kathleen Sullivan. HOWEVER, even CNN has been guilty of this - remember
Catherine Crier? She had NO journalism experience when she got her own
show on CNN!
John Taber
On 14 Sep 1995, Scott Barvian wrote:
> user <be...@isdn.net> writes:
>
> Speaking for myself ( and, I'd like to think, millions of other
> people), I think Amanpour to be very photogenic as well as one of the
> most outstanding television jounalists of our era .
>
> I think one of the foremost symptoms of society's problems
> today is the "respect" and admiration given to pretty talking
> heads whose job function consists of sitting (or standing) before
> a camera and reading what others have written for them to say.
>
And even then they can't handle it. Corky Sherwood, in the early days of
Murphy Brown was known for having copy rewritten to say "big guns"
instead of "AK-47s and Uzis", or reading the card as "... here at Phil's
Flipcard."