J.D.'s Power

He looks so confident, reporting for Fox News, with the world watching and listening to his every word. But that’s not the John Roberts that I knew. In fact, the guy I used to work with at WCIX wasn’t “John Roberts” at all. He was J.D. Roberts, formerly of Canada’s version of MTV. When CBS brought him in to anchor the news in Miami in April 1989, he was in a position of having to prove himself. Of having to show that the once long-haired Rick Springfield look-a-like could write, deliver, and understand hard news. It would not be easy.






(J.D. Roberts, rock 'n roller, in a video from 1987)



Critics liked to point out his youthful appearance. One even stated that Barbara Sloan looked more like his mother than his co-anchor, a statement that was both cruel and unfair. CBS had high hopes for the new hire, who was promoted incessantly on-air in a way that his predecessor, Jim Dyer, never was. It was clear this was a new age, and behind the scenes there was some kind of master plan for the young, upstart anchor. He just needed to get some experience, and learn what it takes to convince the public that behind the looks was someone who could be trusted to deliver important information. To deliver the truth. And to deliver good Arbitron numbers, of course.

Roberts had two huge things going for him: he both looked and sounded good. There were times he’d slip into Canada-speak, a la Peter Jennings. (It was Roberts’ misfortune that a turret explosion onboard the Navy battleship U.S.S. Iowa happened right after his arrival. His pronunciation – “Iowaww” – would have surely gained the approval of SCTV’s fictitious Canadian Corner hosts Bob and Doug McKenzie.) But if Jennings could say “shed-jule” instead of “schedule” and the public didn’t care, why should we humble 6’ers mind? Take off, eh.

We found out immediately that Roberts was smart, and not afraid to work. He was also a very fast learner. Hey, maybe this is going to pay off, after all! Unfortunately, he and his wife fell into a trap that awaits many newbies in Miami. The couple bought a house in Southwest Miami-Dade County, either in or very close to Richmond Heights. It was an area that looked real good, especially for the money, from the route that the realtor chose to take. What the couple didn’t see were the pockets of poverty very close to that enticing neighborhood. They did not see the blight and the street crime that most would feel was way too close for comfort. After falling victim to Miami’s mean streets, Roberts’ wife quickly soured on South Florida, putting a strain on the couple’s marriage. By the end of 1989, Roberts was seeing another woman – a Channel 6 employee – and the pair emerged from the shadows for that year’s Emmy Awards ceremony. To say it was a tough time in the young anchorman’s life would be putting it mildly.

I don’t remember the exact circumstances, but I have a vague recollection of Roberts having to visit the emergency room of a local hospital, while we were working on the news series Heart Disease: Beating The Odds (which also featured reports by Healthwatch reporter Dr. Steve Greenberg). At one point I had the choice of postponing some interviews for the series, or going out and doing them myself – which is what I wound up doing (considering our time constraints). Roberts felt bad that his involvement in the series was less than what he had hoped. After the final installment of the series aired on Channel 6 Action News, Roberts read his on-camera tag, without thanking his hard-working producer (me), which was standard operating procedure at the conclusion of a news series. He later realized the oversight, and wrote me a note, which I’m about to share. It was a classy gesture. I let him know that I wasn’t angry. I got all the thanks I needed when the series won a Suncoast Regional Emmy Award, one year later, in December 1990.

A personal note from John "J.D." Roberts. Click image to view it full size.

Emmy award for the news series "Heart Disease: Beating The Odds". Roberts was not there to collect his award, having left the station a few months earlier. Click image to view it full size.

J.D. announces that he's leaving. Click image to view it full size.




Having reconciled with his wife, and understanding her concerns, J.D. Roberts put in his notice in July 1990. By September he was back in Toronto, and it seemed the network’s master plan had been foiled – or had it? After anchoring CTV’s morning newscast for a couple of years, it was off to CBS’ crown jewel – WCBS – and then on to the network’s evening newscast, serving as a medical reporter, chief White House correspondent, and—it was believed—the heir apparent to Dan Rather. OK, so that never happened, but Roberts was the back-up anchor of choice for several years, heading up the network’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina, the death of Pope John Paul II, and many other historic moments. Interviews with three presidents and live reports from all over the globe highlighted his time with the network. He’d come a long way from our little series about heart attacks that had caused so much trepidation nearly two decades earlier.

Roberts exited CBS, and joined CNN in February 2006, before finally landing at Fox News in 2011 as the network's senior national correspondent.  Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of network news knows the name John Roberts. But for those of us who lived and worked in Miami, there will always be a soft spot for the guy we came to know as J.D. I’ll always remember his reports from Hurricane Hugo, especially the “here I am blowing in the wind” shot that must have aired 100 or more times. Roberts is a bona fide Channel 6 success story, and I’d like to think that the experience and knowledge he gained while working in Miami has played a role in that success. If I helped him get there, even a little, then the hard work was definitely worth it.






November 1989: Roberts introduces a segment from our town hall meeting, “Abortion: The Bitter Controversy”, live from the auditorium at FIU. Click the button to play.

CBS To The Rescue

We were incredulous. Sure, we’d heard the rumors that big bad CBS was going to buy our low-rated, signal-challenged independent TV station, but get real! They’d backed a winner in WTVJ Channel 4 for the past four decades, but now NBC was buying Channel 4, changing everything. We’d all speculated on what could happen if we were actually taken over by the Columbia Broadcasting System, but few of us really believed it would happen. But it did! The announcement came down on 8-8-88. It may have appeared 8’s were wild that day, but for us, everything was coming up 6’s. The takeover would become official come the new year. The ant that thought he could move a rubber tree plant finally had more than just high hopes, as the new owners planned to spend money, make improvements, and do anything they could to justify their investment. Bring it on, we said. Make us a contender!

Who at Channel 6 wasn’t affected by the change? For some, it was time to move up. For others it meant moving out, as the network boys brought in lots of new blood. For me it meant a move to the new special projects unit, and a chance to produce specials, series, and what have you. Anything besides the newscast grind (although I still had to produce the Saturday and Sunday newscasts.) I had the “pleasure” of producing the first Saturday 6PM show in Channel 6’s history. Unfortunately it followed basketball, and the game ran long, which meant… Channel 6’s first accordion show! That’s when the show has to be sliced, diced, then sliced-and-diced some more (depending on how little time was left between the end of the game and the start of network news at 6:30 sharp). Just one of the fun new things we had to get used to. The change meant more newscasts, expanded coverage, and much higher expectations – all good things, especially when you consider what a busy first month it was: Overtown civil disturbances. Miami’s first Super Bowl in ten years. Ted Bundy’s execution. An influx of Nicaraguan refugees, enough to fill Bobby Maduro Stadium to capacity. The first George Bush’s inauguration. Whew, we were busy. But help was on the way. We had already stolen Al Sunshine away from WTVJ, and soon some shiny new anchors would join the team. By April, J.D. Roberts (now Fox’s John Roberts) was brought in from Canada to anchor the news with Barbara Sloan (sending Jim Dyer to the weekends). Giselle Fernandez joined the team the following month, followed a little while later by John Hambrick, who had been WTVJ’s star anchorman. The new anchors raised the bar even higher, and so did the new management team.

CBS brought in Jay Newman, who presented a blueprint that would be hard to follow – but we sure tried. Newman mandated that anchor tags follow every reporter package. Producers were not allowed to change anchors between stories, without an on-camera tag as a transition. Every block of news had to have a light “ender”, to set the mood before the tease that followed. And all teases had to have at least two pieces of video in them. Lofty goals. By March the station had hired Ron Tindiglia as our consultant, to further refine our newscasts and make more mandates. Some of us called Tindiglia “The Guru”, because of the way he would hold middle management spellbound through the years. Tindiglia’s word was like the word of God around that newsroom. Thou shalt write to video at all times!

That first year under CBS brought rapid changes to our humble newsroom. I spent part of January training our two newest producers, Brian Jones and Zahir Sachedina. I was supposed to be part of the special projects unit, but didn’t get a sniff of a news series until April. Sachedina’s ulcer, and Jones being thrown into an in-depth series about the Overtown disturbances (“A Search For Answers”) kept me tied to the producer’s desk for several extra weeks. During this time I became close friends with one of our new associate producers, Marty Hames. It was then that I learned that when it came to our new owners, there was way more than meets the eye.

Hames, it turns out, wasn’t just an A.P., and she wasn’t hired by our Miami management team like the rest of us writer/producer types. She was personally placed at our station by CBS honcho Eric Ober. By the time she was introduced to us, her ticket to stardom had already been punched. Unbeknownst to us, she was here to learn the ropes of writing, and the ins and outs of news, before being placed in an anchor’s position somewhere in the CBS empire. (There was even talk about renaming her Rosario Velasco, to capitalize on her mother’s Latin heritage.) It turns out there were other secret apprentices. Our new anchor hires were all seen as future stars, and Miami was pretty much just a stop along the way. Hey South Florida, don’t get too used to these folks! The anchor-as-celebrity was already germinating on our airwaves, and the old guard – the Jim Dyers – was being pushed aside. That’s show biz, as they say. And show biz, it was. J.D. Roberts and Giselle Fernandez were terrific anchors and personalities, but I doubt if WCIX ranks high on their resumes. But they would give us the visibility we needed to make the transition from afterthought in the Miami market, to a future player.

Just the way the network planned it.

A Little Jive In '85

1967 (Channel 6 signs on).
1988 (CBS agrees to purchase WCIX).
1995 (WCIX switches to WFOR and Channel 4).

Those might be the three most important years in the history of WCIX, but right behind them would be 1985, the year of our move from Brickell Avenue to what is now Doral. It was a year of hopeful new beginnings, but for many, there was also sadness at leaving that silly round building behind. That feeling was reflected in our 1985 skit reel, which included the following news blooper piece that I co-produced with R.J. Heim (with assistance from Bill Retherford).

The hopefulness of a new beginning shines though on this piece, despite the sometimes stupid and sometimes strange moments that we captured for posterity. I always enjoy watching this one. Look for the following blasts from the past (in order of appearance): Barbara Sloan, Solon Gray, Rod Meloni, John Turchin, Joyce Evans, Andy “Hey Andy” Leopold, R.J. Heim, Mike Bradley, Glenn (what city is this?) Hutton, Gail “Gayle” Anderson, Steve Zager, Bill Retherford, and the late Nelson Milton. If you enjoyed this, hated this, or whatever, be sure to leave a comment and let me know.

Note: All news blooper reels contain profanity. If the boss or kids are watching, you might want to bookmark this page and watch the video later.

Sloan Alone

She didn’t even apply for the job! A few on-air lines on someone else’s audition tape were all the brain trust at Channel 6 news needed to see. When Dick Descutner phoned WFBC news anchor Barbara Sloan and asked her if she’d be interested in a job--solo anchor on the station’s prime time newscast—it was quite a surprise! But not so fast. If she were to say yes, certain assurances on the station’s part would need to be met. If she were to say yes, it would also mean anchor Larry Klaas would be told his services were no longer needed.

Location was a big plus. Sloan had already served time at WPTV in West Palm Beach, so she had some understanding of the area. The chance to move from Greenville, South Carolina to a top 15 market was certainly another plus. With the station agreeing to a 3-year contract (a rarity at WCIX) and agreeing to let Sloan pursue human interest stories, it became official. Klaas was dismissed; Sloan was in.

After three weeks of working the streets, and familiarizing herself with the station and its philosophies, Barbara Sloan made her solo anchor debut on the night of October 18, 1982. In a Miami Herald review, critic Sandra Earley wrote “Sloan delivered the news straight and clearly, and with a measure of authority. Sloan can go the distance.” It was a very good start.






(Click images to view them full screen)



Sloan and I immediately became good friends, and even dated a few times. She accompanied me to the station Christmas party that year, where it was clear that many at the station—particularly those who worked in other departments—still did not know what to make of the new anchorwoman. A silly mock news promo that I produced for the occasion helped show those in attendance that the new hire, so serious on the air, had a very good sense of humor. (Sloan at first was apprehensive about us showing this piece, at one point asking, mockingly, “Why is that woman shouting?”) But it worked.






Sometime during the party, Lee Bookman pulled me aside, concerned about the news blooper (and commentary) piece he had produced. It was set to the tune of Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry”, and Bookman had used video of Sloan for the line about the “bubble-headed bleach-blonde”. He was concerned that she’d get angry, or feel disrespected. Sloan just laughed along with the joke. After just two months at the station, people were now getting a sense that the new hire wasn’t just a quality anchor, but a quality person as well, with a warm and funny side.






Sloan would be tested time after time. She was thrown into the center of our Overtown riot coverage, in just her third month at the station. She had to give up a share of the anchor’s desk when Solon Gray came aboard in 1984. Gray would come and go, as would his replacement, and his replacement, and his replacement. And his replacement.* Through several ownership changes, a switch from independent to CBS ownership, and challenges galore, one thing remained constant at Channel 6 news. The woman who insisted on a 3-year-contract because she wanted job security, wound up spending more than thirteen years at the WCIX anchor desk. Such longevity should have made her a Miami legend, spoken of in the revered tones of an Ann Bishop or a Tony Segreto. But this is WCIX we’re talking about! With our tower located way down in the Redlands, away from heavily-populated areas, our ratings were always poor. If the people can’t watch, then the people can’t care!


Still, you would think with so much going for her that Sloan would have felt secure… or at least a little serene. But like everyone, she had her moments. Like everyone, she had her demons. Viewers didn’t know that this pretty young woman had her face reconstructed, after a terrible car crash during her college years. Sloan’s car hit a tree, while driving to Memphis on a rain-slicked road, and in her words, her “face caved in”. Months of pain and surgery followed. Sloan also suffered from anxiety, and at times could be a little tough to deal with. One time I went out to get interviews for a series we were working on and she scolded me afterwards because my “hairy arms” could be seen holding the microphone. Times like that are what help a young producer grow, and learn. Our first series together (the clumsily-titled “Speeding to Danger”) resulted in a Suncoast Regional Emmy award, but that wasn’t the real prize for me. My series-producing skills improved by leaps and bounds, thanks in part to Sloan’s high expectations, and yes, even her occasional insecurities.





For a time, Sloan lost her spot on the A-team. CBS brought in some of its own hires, including upcoming stars Giselle Fernandez, J.D. Roberts (now CNN’s John Roberts), and former WTVJ superstar anchor John Hambrick. When we produced a town hall meeting on the issue of abortion, Sloan was left off the main anchoring team, instead being relegated to off-site, peripheral reporting. But to be fair, she was a damn good reporter, and it could be argued those decisions were based on strengths, not weaknesses. Whatever.

Barbara Sloan’s time at the station finally came to an end, when her contract wasn't renewed just before Christmas 1995. Up until then she’d survived challenges from younger, more glamorous reporters, but… I hate to say this… most TV news honchos think a female anchor is over the hill, as she approaches her mid-40s. Ann Bishop was clearly an exception, but this market has certainly changed a lot since her heyday. No one ever came close to anchoring the news on WCIX/WFOR for as long a period of time as Barbara Sloan Cox. I’d be willing to bet nobody ever will.



* For those keeping score: Jim Dyer, J.D. Roberts, Ken Matz, Stan Miller.

ANCHOR’S AWAY: THE PARTY (9/27/82)

Here’s a side of Larry Klaas we rarely got to see around the station. With his contract not renewed, and his career (at the time) hanging in the balance, he found himself able to just let go and enjoy himself at his going-away party, planned and hosted by his close friend, producer Arlene Ross. Here we see Larry and his wife, sharing a quiet moment. It’s the only time I’d ever seen him with his hair messed up.

Larry, opening one of his presents, with producer Jerry Fisher looking on. Jerry was a wonderful person, who a decade later would put up a valiant, but ultimately losing battle against cancer.

Dig the caricature of Larry on the piano, next to then-lovebirds Gary Slawitschka and Wendy Weisbrod. I don’t recall if it was Ron Laffin or Jim Hayek who created the portrait, but it’s a real beauty. To my eyes, it looks like Ron’s handiwork. Gary was a fellow Chryon operator at the time, before venturing into videotape editing. He was my best friend at the station, and is somebody that I think about from time to time. Gary, if you see this, please get in touch!

That’s Arlene Ross with her arm around Larry. These two had a lot of history, and were always very close. The big guy to the left and rear of Arlene is Tom Sedley, our ace (and under-appreciated) sports producer. Richard Chee-A-Tow from the engineering department is to the right rear of Larry.

John Loesing and his wife enjoy a piece of cake, while watching the frivolity unfold around them. John was very nice, but at times he might have been a little too low-key on the air.

I put down the camera for this group shot. That’s me on the far left, next to Arlene Ross, Gary Slawitschka, and Henry Rosenberg (videotape editor). Arlene’s future husband, director Dan Roujansky, is in the front. Can you guess which people in this picture are stoned?

Yeah, stoned. In those days, nearly everybody smoked pot, and the ones that didn’t, tolerated it. It was a generational thing that could never happen in this day and age. It was amazingly open, not just at parties such as this one, but all around the station as well. I think that’s going to be the subject of my next post.

Klaas Dismissed

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Was it Larry Klaas’ ego that got him fired? Was it an alleged demand for more money? Or was it that Dick Descutner (our news director) simply wanted to make a change, and Barbara Sloan gave him just that opportunity? It all depends on whom you ask.

There were mixed feelings around the station when we learned Klaas was being ousted. He had his supporters, led by producer Arlene Ross. There were also people who felt a sense of liberation when word filtered down. Klaas was stunned by the dismissal, and told The Miami News’ Tom Jicha he was considering retiring from broadcasting. Obviously he reconsidered, and made a new start (albeit a little rocky) at KGUN in Tucson

Everyone in the newsroom had a Larry Klaas story to tell. If he was having a bad day, you knew it. In 1981, when my father was dying, I told producer Jerry Fisher that I might need to take a few days off. Klaas sat me down the next day, and in a stern voice, asked me why I told Jerry and not him. (This was before I became a producer. I was still a lowly Chyron operator/film archivist). Well, Larry, it was late and Jerry was still at the station, working on her nightly discrepancy report. You were gone for the night. Sorry I stepped on your toes, big guy. Show a little compassion for a guy whose dad is dying, will ya?

Yet I liked Larry. He was quick to criticize, but unlike a lot of managers, he would also tell you when you did a good job. I wished him well, and I meant it.

You’ll notice in Tom Jicha’s article that Descutner “found” Larry’s replacement, Barbara Sloan, through a five-second lead-in on another reporter’s audition tape. That was sort of how it went down, but it wasn’t Descutner who found her. The reporter on that tape was a former colleague of mine at WNWS, prior to my coming to Channel 6. He and I had something in common: both of our lives changed on March 17, 1980. Someday soon I’ll tell you that story.