I found this pilot that I made for ABC News Now–what at the time was billed to be a mobile phone concentrated news network, which was to be the future. With the layoffs at ABC News this past month, mentioned in this blog, I thought it interesting to revisit this moment in time–late 2004. John Kerry had just lost the election and George W. Bush had a lot of political capital. Of the THREE Anchors of a generation, only one had walked off into the sunset, another was in the process of being disgraced and yet another, didn’t know his fate. Here are some interesting points when watching this:
1) Distribution. Youtube had not been invented, or made widely available yet–so I had very few legitimate options if I wanted to get this out on my own some other way.
For instance, Sam Rieff-Pasarew finds a place in all my very first pilot projects–but I’ve learned a few things since:
3) 2004. Peter Jennings was still in the building when I showed this around. As was, Ted Koppel down at his perch in DC. I showed this to everyone I could find–unbased–but it had to be distributed by DVD(and that was modern–”DIGITAL”). They were an all tape house. I remember 40 year old producers futzing with the dvd tray to try on their DESKTOPS trying to get this to play, and the speakers were often not set up.
4) Its true. I hijacked a studio–edited late at night in stairwells and now with my 30 year old mind, I appreciate the cover and support I got for doing this renegade from my bosses there at the time, I could imagine it was uncomfortable for them to have me showing it around. Its sad that on the one hand I’m embarrassed wondering wtf I was thinking– I certainly look less dorkier right now–on the other, looking at the tape pieces, I’m pretty certain something like this WOULD have gotten picked up today somewhere. I couldn’t get it on a mobile phone network at 2AM on a Thursday in 2004.
5) Instant Message thing. With the Current, HACK THE DEBATE--I would say that it was realized there, EXCEPT–look at how LONG the AIMs were? I’m not sure if that’s why twitter still struggles to find its place on OLD TEE VEE. 140 is too short for complicated thoughts and ideas.
Its not the one you’re thinking–yes, often times when I was walking by some room with blinking monitors and lights, I could catch a glimpse of Urkel and Full House– but that’s not what I’m talking about here.
I’m talking about the ABC News family–and essentially my early 20s there. The best shrine to the ABC News family can be found, in what still may be the ABC News barbor shop. There you find smiling old face shots of Hugh Downs. Despite who’s face you may walk by on the way in to work–they always changed, you could always visit Hugh in the barborshop.
“And so… finally tonight”– like our esteemed leader who had to announce the news of his own cancer, the ABC News family was told they too have cancer as well. Some may call it late stage, there’s arguments over who knew what when, but if they don’t amputate, they could loose the entire body–some argue they still might.
So this Friday, the voluntary period will end for those who will accept buyouts for their careers at ABC. For those who are left, if there’s not enough hands raised–more will be forced to leave involuntarily. If you consider an average family of four, the numbers are staggering–you would lose 1/4.
I’m not sure, and I don’t think many people within the alphabet net really understand what this means and what it will look like–losing what in any other families is the equivalent to a brother–or in this case a mentor, a fixture, or an incompetent crabby person that yelled at you on the phone and made so many moments of your life at ABC a living hell.
That’s right–like any other family, the ABC News Family was highly dysfunctional at almost every level and everyone knows it. But we always got together when it counted–for the holidays, for the elections, for the Michael Jackson stories–and to be most honest, for the unseemly amount of deaths that have struck that place over the last 10 years.
I count at least a dozen(its probably more I’ve lost count), who died seemingly before their day since I first joined the family in 2003. I’ve never been in a family who has seen more death, hardship and drama–I frankly never want to again, but you don’t choose your family.
The thing that’s most bizarre is when the News becomes the News for a moment how would you cover your own funeral? At ABC, as well as others, there are obituaries ready to go in the event that an unspoken, but mystical list of famous people were to die at any moment. Who is going to speak on Friday for all the careers who are now probably ending?
I gave my early 20s to ABC News. I know many have given their entire lives. What it means is, you don’t make it home for your own family’s holidays–and you sacrifice part of your humanity towards that news family. I worked 21 hours a day at times there–hearing the clickity clack of the basement tunnel that sits underneath building 47 on the way to ‘beta land’ as I would sometimes run with pride tapes down for air at 5AM. That is literally the ‘anals’ of ABC News.
There’s the smell in the stairs. There’s the good deal at the cafeteria. There’s the sickness in building 147 that hasn’t yet been figured out that gives everyone headaches. There’s the free starbucks I would steal from the 5th floor. There’s the security guy at Columbus Ave. that I never understood what he was rambling about all day till I once stopped to listen and realized the guy was actually interesting.
There were the stare’s I got in the hallways when I decided to go with the mustache or shave my beard.
And always the constant bleeping of this or that in the distance– the people jockeying for attention on the ABC 320 hotline system. The CURSE of the World News Tonight anchor chair (cleansed when they dropped TONIGHT so future ones would be safe).
All this crap made up my early 20s. Those days when I didn’t need sleep for some reason and all I cared about was ABC News DLs. I’m still trying to unpack all of it. It was so intense. What does it all mean–will it help my career–was it bad, was it good? I don’t really know.
What I do know is.. for this kid from a family of four who grew up in Ohio–who was living in New York City, alone, for the first time–ABC News was my family. I felt an intimacy towards it in the hours I spent there, and the people I shared those times with.
This week is hard on so many people–and I want everyone to know that I honestly feel crappy about the whole thing. I know we weren’t the most loving family–I often watched as you all as you ate your young or CONSTANTLY enjoyed each others demises.. I never really understood that part–but I guess its the family business.
So now that this week has come and next week won’t be the same. For those of you who are going out in the world–its amazing place and you’ll be ok. I don’t know how I can help you–but no matter who you are–you’re family–and I’ll always be there for you.
For those who are going to stay, despite this loss, we are still family and things change. We’ll be there to help you deal with this too.
It seems strange coming up with 800 words on a corporate news division type-place owned by the Walt Disney Company–but there are too many ghosts in that building for it to ever really just be accounting. Its a family, I mean sometimes its more than that, people did take bullets for each other there at some points–and within that family, we’re known for making cheesy statements, echoing such people like Ted Koppel who used to end the ABC NEWS day with a good nite from all of us. This week, I offer, for all of THEM at ABC News, good luck.
If you’ve been following the news NEWS this week—you may have heard something about Charlie Gibson retiring and Diane Sawyer taking over for him on the news program, ABC’s World News. In some ways there’s been a refreshing lack of gestation over this job announcement and I don’t intend to cause any more blotation. However, I do think there’s a component missing here that needs to be addressed.
Lets see what we’ve got so far on the check list:
1) Woman – is she the first woman to host the news? No—check, moving on.
2) Scandal – is there some sort of scandal we can sniff out of this, obvious or made up? We’re trying—but so far nada. Ok.
End of story–right? Well.. not so fast. There is an incredible opportunity here. In most job announcements–in the real world, they don’t so much time on the political components of an appointment, they speak about the person and what they bring to the job.
To keep things brief. Diane Sawyer is special and she’s done some special things before. But to sum up in two words what she’s done all the way through–she TRIES. Sometimes she makes history for the books or for the blogs, other times you may never here about it at all–in every single case she tries and tries again and then after that, she tries some more.
What does this mean, especially when the OBITS for the evening news shows have long been written? Well, the ink is dry, but yet, these shows still keep being produced every single day. These networks, while leaking audience, still control the largest chucks of the largest group of audience left. They also still have the largest budget and amount of resource to bring to originating news–albiet less and less each quarter.
Schmooru sees opportunity in these ‘problems’ all across the ‘legacy medias’ since we don’t do things the way they’ve always done them and we generally lead happy, healthy, productive, but more than anything creative lives. And so we congratulate Diane Sawyer in this new job. One things for sure, trying never hurt anyone that’s any good at what they do–in fact, trying is the only way you can ever do anything with Potential… and Potential for anything is all we ever have.
