| . . |
 Innovation was
the theme of my two years as Assistant News Director of Eyewitness News, at that time a
national local news phenomenon. And the ratings story! For the only time in the history of
New York local news, we held consistent 40 shares during much of this period (the
time of the Son of Sam story--1977). |
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 The
original "circle 7" Eyewitness News lapel pin. |
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| I reported to the late Ron Tindiglia, and my central role was to be in charge of all day-to-day news operations (meaning complete editorial oversight). Ron, an Eyewitness News veteran, and just done a stint as WCBS-TV 11:00 PM news executive producer, where we met. I had been with Channel 2 News since graduating from NYU. Ron charged me with "CBS-ing up the place" at ABC. The mission was to upgrade the journalism, without sacrificing the "personality" emphasis Eyewitness News pioneered. | ||
| How to hold the Eyewitness News blue-collar audience, while drawing more upscale viewers away from WNBC and WCBS? My solution was to cover breaking stories in depth, sometimes as long as 20 minutes on an hour-long 6:00 PM newscast. I would put one of the anchors out at the location of the story, and have him co-anchor the show live from the location of the story (the first time this had ever been done--"minicams" and live trucks were new then). I would assign several reporters to the story, each one covering a different angle (until this innovation, at every news organization, one reporter would cover all angles of a story. I would "sidebar a story to death," as I put it then. For the first months, we called this "Total Coverage," my moniker. But then it was changed to "Team Coverage." I was the person who created the concept of "team coverage" as we know it today. | ||
 Members of the Eyewitness News team circa 1977. Click on the picture to see
enlargement and who's who. |
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| I did much more at WABC-TV. I supervised creation of my first set and graphics redesign. I changed story structure from a mandated stand-up open, followed by voice-over, followed by sound bite, followed by stand-up close, to producing the kind of sophisticated "triple-chain" (A, B and C-roll) film pieces being produced at WCBS. I held seminars and issued a manual to reporters. | ||
| It was a wild time...my first management experience. And it led to my job at "20/20". |