Remembering a Key Figure of the Big 3 Era

From Wikimedia Commons, an image of Barbara Walters at the Metropolitan Opera in 2008, posted on flickr by Rubenstein, link to image.

“Every female broadcast journalist working today owes a debt of gratitude to the O.G., Barbara Walters, who died Friday at age 93.” Katie Couric, writing in The New York Times.

There was Walter Cronkite. There were Chet Huntly and David Brinkley. And there was a woman, a fiercely talented, competitive person named Barbara Walters. No, I don’t mean she was a TV giant of the stature of a Cronkite, but she was an important TV personality who brought needed change to a male-dominated medium.

I first became aware of her in the late 1960s as my family sometimes had the Today show tuned in on our 19-inch black-and-white TV.

I don’t recall her much from that time, but I was young. I became more aware of her as the first female network co-anchor starting in 1976 on ABC, a gig that honestly didn’t go all the well. But as she had done many times in her long career, Barbara Walters had the courage to try something new, and after she was an anchor, she reigned as the queen of celebrity and news maker interviews, first at 20/20 on ABC, and then in a series of prime-time specials.

An image of Barbara Walters speaking with President Barack Obama on Jan. 20, 2013. Image posted on flickr by Ester Vargas, link.

At an age when many people have returned, Walters in her late 60s helped create The View, a daily talk show, in 1997.

The news today, of course, is that Barbara is no longer with us. She has died at age 93. An important female figure of the Big 3 TV era is gone. Her passing is a reminder of that bygone era, and her long career a testament to her tenacity and talent.

A Visit to Morning TV Land

Rachael Faust, promotion coordinator for KGAN/KFXA speaks to Mount Mercy students April 26.

I unfortunately didn’t take her photograph or write down her name (since I didn’t write down anything), but for me a highlight of a tour of KGAN CBS2/KFXA Fox28 in Cedar Rapids was a chat with a news producer.

She explained that her job is mostly to write—and it  highlighted a message I often tell students. In any media work—journalism, PR, web, etc.—there are always writers.

In TV, there are many people behind the scenes who make the programs happen.

MMU CO 120 class tours TV studio. Can you spot the news anchor?

KGAN/KFXA kindly hosted a tour by my Introduction to Journalism class from Mount Mercy on April 26. Rachael Faust, the stations’ promotion coordinator, was our guide. Along the way, morning anchor Kelly D’Ambrosio and morning reporter Stephanie Johnson also chatted with the class.

News Anchor Kelly D'Ambrosio talks in TV studio.

It was, I hope, an eye opening visit for students. For one thing, even a small market TV station is a pretty substantial operation, and that spells opportunity for the motivated student. For another thing, if they listened as I did, they heard many pieces of advice that echo messages Joe has said before: For instance, learn all the media basic skills you can. Know InDesign, PhotoShop and basic video editing. In any communication career, flexible, basic skills are important. That was one message Rachael spoke about.

It was also interesting to speak to all several people whose days begin at 3:30 a.m. New Anchor Kelly was just back from lunch at 10 a.m. when she spoke with my class.

A TV studio looks a little like your crazy Uncle Ed's attic.

It was an interesting tour, and I’m glad that local media companies are willing to allow my students to poke around a bit.

And in a recycling bin in the news studio, I had to show several students the discarded scrips. They were done in split format, video on the left, audio on the right, what is meant to be spoken in ALL CAPS.

It looked just like the format students are using for their current video stories.

Fun with the green wall--Logan, above, and Connor, below, at TV studio.

Adventures In Free Rabbit Ears TV

TV in bedroom, with antenna.

I recall rabbit ears. Years ago, it was the way that my family got TV. That was back in the 1960s.

They were tall, maybe 3-feet long, and sensitive. To watch a particular TV station required rotating the antenna and then playing with the angle of the “ears” until everything more or less settled on a grainy black-and-white image with so-so audio.

And that’s the way it was for many years. At some point, maybe when we moved to Muscatine or maybe in our later years in Clinton, we upgraded to a rooftop antenna and earned better reception.

But for many years, it was just the rabbit ears. I recall that it was a rare day—maybe when the atmospheric conditions were just right—that we got an IPTV signal in Clinton. We mostly subsisted on the Big 3 network affiliates from the Quad Cities. I watched the moon landing, mankind’s greatest technological adventure to date, on grainy black-and-white images courtesy of rabbit ears in our living room in Clinton.

Can you say “Capt’n Ernies Cartoon Showboat?” How about “Acri Creature Feature?”

The first antenna was OK, but no channel 9.

Anyway, those antenna days have suddenly returned. The local cable system in Cedar Rapids finally wised up and digitally scrambled their signal, so you can’t get the first 13 channels for free just by plugging in your cable. I don’t really blame them. But I had just purchased a small digital TV to replace a failing TV in our bedroom, so I was interested in getting some TV signal—without paying a cable TV bill.

At Menards while buying some fall flower bulbs, I saw a display of a cheap digital antenna for $8 or so, and I purchased it. We plugged into our new $99 digital TV, and voila, we did indeed get several stations: Channel 2, Channel 2.2, IPTV (3 channels) and an ION family of channels, as well as Home Shopping Network.

However, that left out Channel 9, and I am interested in that station. Better local news and “Modern Family” both come from that source. A quick check of the KCRG web site revealed the truth: You need rabbit ears. The $8 antenna is more like a plastic tray. So, we’re going to party like it’s 1969.

My wife and I were shopping in Target tonight, and I ended up over in electronics. And for $10, there it was, a GE rabbit-ear antenna.

Innovative TV technology of the new century.

So we bought it, and I plugged in. The stations that we got with the $8 antenna seem to come in slightly better. ION breaks up now and then, but who watches ION? We get duplicate IPTV channels with the new antenna, so there is no doubt Dowtown Abbey will be available in January (honestly, that was a large part of the motivation for the whole project for both my wife and I—we need the comfort, months in advance, that we won’t miss what the Dowager Countess will say).

I noticed that if I “play” with the modern rabbit ears, it tends to mess up whatever station it’s on. With the digital channels, most of them are best left alone—no rotating or adjusting or fiddling with the antenna. They come in crystal clear or pretty much not at all.

So we’re back in business—we can have our morning news and our shot of IPTV when we want it.

Still, it does feel a bit weird. Honestly, rabbit ears?