The News Sorority Page 52
And, finally, Diane, Katie, and Christiane: For four and a half years, your lives and your work have inspired this humble biographer. As a fellow story-chasing news grunt, workaholic, worrier, perfectionist, pushy dame (and, Katie, as a fellow former high school cheerleader), I have had the unique experience of writing about massively—deservedly—successful women in a field close enough to my own for me to understand it on an involuntary, granular level, but also different enough and on such an (envy-tempting) exalted plane that I had to do a couple of tonic, instructive head pivots to get just the right perspective. I hope you ladies like this book. Even if you don’t like every single bit of it—it would be bad if you liked every single bit of it—I hope you secretly admire my reporting and wonder how the hell I got some of the stories. But, mainly, I thank you for what studying your lives and careers has taught me about craft, resilience, character, the ethical and effective way of using ambition—and the moral value of remaining a real-deal female human being despite constant, ungodly pressure.
—SHEILA WELLER
April 2014
SOURCE NOTES
As much as I could, without impeding the narrative, I have quoted my named sources, and indicated where statements and ideas came from the blind sources, within the pages of the book itself. The use of the present verb form—“he says,” “she says”—indicates that I interviewed the speaker. The present perfect tense form—“he/she has said”—indicates that the quote came from another media source.
Because I did not interview Diane, Katie, or Christiane, I am listing, and giving the references for, the quotes I used of these women that came from their interviews to members of the media or in speeches or books. These are listed under the heading “Quotes from the Principal Subject [or Subjects] Obtained from Media Sources.” (The slightly shorthandeded sourcing here—writer, magazine, Web site, or book—will point the reader to the more extensively identified source that is listed in the Bibliography.)
I am also listing and indicating the media source of quoted remarks in the text made by others (colleagues of the women, friends of the women, TV critics, writers, and so forth) that came from other media as opposed to secondhand references in my interviews with attributed or anonymous sources. They are listed under “Quotes from Other Speakers Obtained from Media Sources.” Here, I indicate the speaker’s name in front of the quote.
Where used in the text, Diane’s, Katie’s, and Christiane’s words in their many major televised interviews with public figures, political figures, celebrities, victims of crimes and natural disasters, and so forth (garnered from transcripts and/or YouTube) are generally indicated in the Source Notes, but, in many cases where their actual words are not quoted and the mention of the interview in the text is minor, I am sparing the reader endless citations of these women’s incredibly substantial body of work. A more comprehensive account is in the Bibliography. (And, truth be told, the most comprehensive bibliography in this regard is Google.)
Similarly, in a book about reporters who are engaged with the news of the world—and who have been on television for hours a day for decades—a multitude of (largely Web-searchable) sources were consulted for the factual details of the minor and major news events and the biographies (and, in some cases, obituaries) of the people they reported on and interviewed and the colleagues they interacted with professionally. This pro forma research and fact-checking, usually conducted through Web searches, is not included in the Source Notes and is shorthandedly referred to in the Bibliography. In most cases, this research filled in accounts I obtained from interviews I conducted with the people (producers, bureau chiefs, directors, news camera operators, assistants, colleagues, friends, bystanders) who were party to Diane’s, Katie’s, or Christiane’s reporting of, or connection with, these news stories.
I owe a debt to a number of journalists who have long specialized in the media and especially television. Their work, much of it cited in the Bibliography and sometimes called out in the Source Notes, greatly informed my understanding of TV news as an art, craft, public service, business—and horse race. Thank you: Ken Auletta, Alessandra Stanley, Bill Carter, Joe Hagan, Meryl Gordon, Brian Stelter, Jon Friedman, Kurt Andersen, David Carr, David Bauder, Mary McNamara, Tom Shales, Jack Shafer, Howard Kurtz, and Rebecca Dana.
TWENTY-SECOND TEASERS: AN ARC OF A STORY IN EIGHT SOUND BITES
Author Interviews:
Sandy Socolow, Av Westin, Connie Chung, Don Browne, Susan Zirinsky, and an anonymous source.
Quotes from the Principal Subject (and Other Speakers) Obtained from Media Sources:
“Audiences are less . . . woman’s voice”: Reuven Frank, speaking in 1970. Quoted in David H. Hosley and Gayle K. Yamada. Hard News: Women in Broadcast Journalism.
“Martha Gelhorn . . . ‘was the effort.’”: Christiane Amanpour, “2000 Murrow Awards Ceremony Acceptance Speech.”
INTRODUCTION: The News You Give Begins with the News You’ve Lived
I. Pushing Past Grief
Among the People the Author Interviewed Are:
Greg Haynes, David Cosby, Alice Chumbley Lora, Bob McDonald, Celia McDonald, Ken Rowland, Ed Shadburne, Jim Smith, the late George Unseld, Mark Robertson, Anna Robertson, Phyllis McGrady, Jon Banner, and various anonymous sources.
Quotes from the Principal Subject Obtained from Media Sources:
“There were sometimes only pennies . . . real bruises in that life”: Judith Newman, “Diane Sawyer,” Ladies’ Home Journal.
“Growing up, I didn’t . . . I had proximate ones.”: Ibid.
II. Pushing Past Danger
Among the People the Author Interviewed Are:
Mark Phillips (profound thanks for describing the siege in detail), Emma Daly, Sparkle Hayter, Pierre Bairin, Liza McGuirk, Lizzy Amanpour, Bella Pollen, and various anonymous sources.
Quotes from the Principal Subject Obtained from Media Sources:
“I have spent . . . most military units”: Christiane Amanpour, “2000 Murrow Awards Ceremony Acceptance Speech.”
“Never be afraid. . . . Use it”: “Christiane Amanpour’s Address to University of Michigan Commencement,” University of Michigan News Service.
Quotes from Other Speakers Obtained from Media Sources:
Emma Bonino: “No one was in charge. . . . situation of random terror”: “Taliban Briefly Detains EU Commissioner,” CNN Interactive World News.
Richard Cohen: “If you walk . . . zoning violation”: Macon Morehouse, “Foreign Affair,” People.
III. Pushing Past Tragedy
Among the People the Author Interviewed Are:
Lisa Paulsen, Kathleen Lobb, Lane Duncan, Diana Greene, Gail Evans, Pat Shifke, and various anonymous sources.
Quotes from the Principal Subjects Obtained from Media Sources:
“my first four decades . . . psychic payback”: Katie Couric, The Best Advice I Ever Got.
“I feel like a human piñata . . . successful and female”: George Rush and Joanna Molloy, “Profile in Couric: Bashed but Unbowed,” New York Daily News.
“Before you gag . . . other side”: Katie Couric, The Best Advice.
Quotes from Other Speakers Obtained from Media Sources:
Katie’s NBC colleague, Barbara Harrison: “smiles on their faces . . . each other”: Jill Smolowe, “Gone Too Soon,” People.
CHAPTER ONE : Louisville Idealist Becomes Nixon Loyalist
Among the People the Author Interviewed Are:
Stewart Robensen, Marc Fleischaker, Jon Fleischaker, Tom Hampton, Bruce Dalrymple, Mark Robertson, Harry Jacobson-Breyer, Sherry Jacobson-Breyer, David Cosby, the late George Unseld, Lee Goldstein, Alice Chumbley Lora, Sallie Schulten Haynes, Greg Haynes, Jerry Abramson, Chet LeSourd, Aviva Bobb, Judi Lempert Green, Beth Johnson, Leesa Campbell, Marie Fox, Sandy Socolow, Joe Peyronnin, Martin Snapp, Ed Shadburne, Ken Rowland, Bob Taylor, Milton Metz, the late
Frances Buss Buch, Marlene Sanders, Beryl Pfizer, Richard Wald, John Dean, Gerry Warren, Bruce Whelihan, and various anonymous sources.
Quotes from the Principal Subject Obtained from Media Sources:
“Every place you would look there would be . . . not for a minute thinking there was anything they couldn’t do”: Judith Newman, “Diane Sawyer,” Ladies’ Home Journal.
“Linda [was] a saint . . . time I was tiny”: Ibid. “We had this little group . . . so, so earnest”: Ibid.
“seismic wake-up call . . . her faith like that”: “Still Dreaming Big,” Guideposts.com.
“When the other girls were getting . . .”: Margo Howard, “60 Minutes’ Newest Correspondent,” People.
“I went to my first . . . or five times in college”: “Diane Sawyer: Beauty in Coke-Bottle,” ABCNews.com.
“I felt that the journalist’s . . . about taking responsibility”: Robert Sam Anson, Exile: The Unquiet Oblivion of Richard M. Nixon.
“I was able to listen . . . was such an education”: Kevin Sessums, “Diane Sawyer on President Nixon,” Parade.com.
“get up in the morning when . . . cataclysm”: Ibid.
“Bruising, nerve-deadening torment . . . because I seemed to have everything on file”: Ibid.
“What a considerable presidency . . . without Watergate”: Howard, “60 Minutes’ Newest Correspondent.”
“thought it was so strange . . . It was about pain” And “He also had a courtly feeling. . . . of a certain kind”: Ibid.
“I went away by myself . . . I didn’t know what was next”: Lee Woodruff, “The Latest News on Diane Sawyer,” LHJ.com.
“His world had collapsed . . . couldn’t live with myself”: Newman, “Diane Sawyer.”
“I had a sense of duty . . . and then get to walk away when someone is living in defeat”: Sessums, “Diane Sawyer on President Nixon.”
“No matter how they got [to that defeat] . . . I just don’t think that’s the person I can be: Newman, “Diane Sawyer.”
“Everybody talks about his awkwardness with social talk . . . And it happened over and over again”: Frederick Exley, “If Nixon Could Possess . . .” Esquire.
Quotes from Other Speakers Obtained from Media Sources:
Nora Ephron: “was a dress rehearsal . . .”: Nora Ephron, “Nora Ephron’s Commencement Address,” Wellesley University, 1996.
Nancy Hanschman Dickerson: “because it seemed . . . shopping and food columns”: Anthony Fellow, American Media History. Cengage Learning, 2009.
Marya McLaughlin: “Oh, now I understand. If a 707 crashed this afternoon, you want me to take my camera crew to the pilot’s house and . . . ask [his widow] what she would have cooked for dinner”: Judith Marlane, Women in Television News Revisited.
Richard Nixon: “Those chambers are small . . . a space capsule with men”: John Dean, Blind Ambition.
Barbara Walters: “The fact that I was there . . . experienced superstars . . . a lot of feathers”: Barbara Walters, Audition.
“in the president’s entourage . . . a nodding acquaintance but no real contact”: Ibid.
Sources Particularly Helpful to the Author:
On the history of women in TV news:
Judith Marlane, Women in Television News Revisited.
On the Nixon White House during Watergate and Nixon at San Clemente:
Robert Sam Anson, Exile. John Dean, Blind Ambition.
CHAPTER TWO : The Secret Princess Becomes the Exile in Atlanta
Among the People the Author Interviewed Are:
Lizzy Amanpour, Leila Amanpour, Diana Bellew, Gig Moses, Shaul Bakhash, Haleh Esfandiari, Jim Taricani, David Bernknopf, Lynne Russell, Marcia Ladendorff, Flip Spiceland, Don Farmer, Reese Schonfeld, Dave Walker, Ted Kavanau, Sparkle Hayter, Maria Fleet, and various anonymous sources.
Quotes from the Principal Subject Obtained from Media Sources:
“very shy . . . what they were saying”: Oprah Winfrey, ”Oprah Talks to Christiane Amanpour,” O, The Oprah Magazine.
“falling off . . . gave me no choice”: Ibid.
“My father was standing . . . consciousness began”: Christian Amanpour, “Revolutionary Journey,” Amanpour.Blogs.CNN.com.
“My first ‘big break’ . . . upside down”: Christiane Amanpour, “My First Big Break,” Mediabistro.
“We lost home . . . everything”: Ibid.
“I quickly decided . . . my driving force”: Ibid.
“I loved every . . . values and culture”: “Christiane Amanpour’s Address to University of Michigan Commencement,” University of Michigan News Service.
“all the things . . . philosophy, political science”: Ibid.
“slightly miffed . . . ‘bomb Iran’”: Ibid.
“I have no brilliant . . . I could muster”: Laurence Leamer, Sons of Camelot.
“We had the most intense dinner table . . . also an effective devil’s advocate”: Laurence Leamer, Sons of Camelot.
“I was always . . . little humiliating”: Christiane Amanpour, “My First Big Break.”
“They miked me . . . didn’t get close”: Ibid.
“All of a sudden . . . ‘spectrum of news’”: Christiane Amanpour, “2000 Murrow Awards Ceremony Acceptance Speech.”
“They asked me ten questions . . . flying colors”: Ibid.
Quotes from Other Speakers Obtained from Media Sources:
John Kennedy Jr.: “wasn’t hard. She was just sort of British and determined . . .” and “there was not one iota . . . what she’d gone through”: Leslie Bennetts, “Woman o’ War.”
John Kennedy Jr.: “was sort of the mother of the house . . . to clean the toilets”: Leslie Bennetts, “Woman o’ War,” Vanity Fair.
Robert Littell: “sometimes surprisingly conservative . . . practical”: Laurence Leamer, Sons of Camelot. Robert T. Littell, The Men We Became: My Friendship with John F. Kennedy, Jr.
Robert Littell: “Like a den mother . . . the de facto mediator between us”: Robert T. Littell, The Men We Became.
Sources Particularly Helpful to the Author:
On Iran before and after the Revolution, my interviews with:
Shaul Bakhash, Clarence Robinson Professor of History at George Mason University, author of The Politics of Oil and Revolution in Iran and Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution.
Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and author of Reconstructed Lives: Women and Iran’s Islamic Revolution. (In May 2007, the Iranian-born and -raised Esfandiari, then sixty-seven and by then an American, was detained and interrogated in the country while visiting her ailing mother, was falsely declared a U.S. spy by the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was threatened with death, and was imprisoned in solitary confinement for three and a half months. She was released after intense American and international diplomatic pressure.)
On Christiane’s life in the Benefit Street house:
Christina Haag, Come to the Edge. Laurence Leamer, Sons of Camelot. Robert T. Littell, The Men We Became.
CHAPTER THREE: Little Sister Cheerleader to Pentagon Correspondent
Among the People the Author Interviewed Are:
Janie McMullen Florea, Barbara Cherney Andrukonis, Betsy Yowell Howell, Lane Duncan, Michael Vitez, Kathleen Lobb, Richard Wald, Susan Zirinsky, Don Farmer, Reese Schonfeld, Marcia Ladendorff, Ted Kavanau, Av Westin, Jane Pauley, Lois Hart, Dave Walker, Diana Greene, Gail Evans, Sam Zelman, Chris Curle, Judy Milestone, Nancy Battaglia, Al Buch, Brian Gadinsky, Alan Perris, Arch Campbell, Don Browne, David Bernknopf, Mandy Locke, and various anonymous sources.
Quotes from the Principal Subject Obtained from Media Sources:
“When our minister . . . member”: Tom Junod, “Katie Couric: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire.
“would probably . . . safe-sex early eighties”: Katie Couric, quoted in Life with Mother.
“cerebral, gentle . . . excellence from his children”: Ibid.
“Let them know you’re there ”: Katie Couric, The Best Advice.
“Please, Elinor, don’t encourage her . . . “‘Yes, sir’”: Ibid.
“I used to memorize . . . ‘my sister’s yearbook’”: Ibid.
“her station wagon over to . . . smooching in the basement”: Katie Couric, Life with Mother.
“I wrestled with bulimia all through college . . . this rigidity . . . I would sometimes beat myself up for that”: Luchina Fisher, “Katie Couric: ‘I Wrestled with Bulimia.’” ABCnews.com., and Lesley Kennedy, “Katie Couric Admits to Bulimia Struggles,” More.com.
“I was one of those . . . ‘I don’t need a man’”: Judith Marlane, Women in Television News.
“best dress-for-success outfit . . . ‘Sure, come up’” and “I told him . . . asset to the organization”: Katie Couric, The Best Advice.
“sat around drinking Scotch after the newscast”: Lisa DePaulo, “Killer Katie,” George.
“I used to see her . . . proud of her role”: Judith Marlane, Women in Television News.
“‘We’re gonna give you a break, kid’ . . . real confidence builder”: Lisa DePaulo, “Killer Katie,” George.
“I’m pretty convinced . . . inherit the earth”: Katie Couric, The Best Advice.
“I remember being so saddened . . . the most important thing in life”: Judith Marlane, Women in Television News.
Quotes from Other Speakers Obtained from Media Sources:
Sam Donaldson: “K-K-K-Katie, beautiful Katie . . .”: Lisa DePaulo, “Killer Katie,” George.
Walter Cronkite: “sickening sensation that . . . show business had failed”: Nichola D. Gutgold, Seen and Heard.
Dana Rudman: “She was down and dirty . . .”: Jennet Conant, “Don’t Call Me Perky,” Redbook.
Dana Rudman: “She looked young . . . pushed”: Ibid.