Chain Chain Chain

Just ten days after being named “news managing editor”, Larry Klaas decided to show us all who’s boss. Presenting: the infamous “chain of command” memo.

I know what Larry was trying to do. He was sending a message to the producer, assignment editor, and director that what he said GOES. He urged all members of the news staff to keep a copy of this chain of command on file for reference. Disagree with Larry? Unless you happened to be the news director, you didn’t stand a prayer. It’s right there, on an 8 ½” by 11” piece of paper.

The producers hated this! Not because of having to answer to Larry, but because in the Klaas command chain, they had no more authority than the assignment editor, and the nebulous “other”. The directors hated this, because under Larry’s law, they were equal to the assistant directors… the assistant producers… and, ahem… INTERNS!

None of that mattered to Larry. The moral of the story was “I am above all of you, and you will listen to me!” But in a newsroom where the producer had to have SOME authority over the assignment desk, and the directors had to call the technical shots during the show, this demonstrated a lack of understanding on several levels. After just ten days, hard feelings were already starting to form. It didn’t mean people didn’t like or respect Larry. They just wanted a little respect in return. By stating they wielded the same power as interns, the implication was the assistant producers, assistant directors, and even the directors were just bit players in the news operation. Of course Larry didn’t really feel that way, but this sure made it look that way, and did nothing for unity, morale, or inspiration in a news operation that needed it badly.

Where There's Smoke...

Life in a newsroom has changed in so many ways, and I'm not just talking about news content. In those days, people smoked pot out in the open, even in front of “adults”. Those that didn’t partake, usually looked the other way. Such was the way it was in the late 70s and early 80s.

I was ushered into the WCIX world of weed on my very first day at the station. Before I’d even known my way around that crazy round building, I was shown the ledge on the fourth floor, behind some of the big equipment in the engineering department. People visited that ledge at all hours of the day and night. I tended to wait until after the newscast to partake, but many people did it from the moment they arrived for their shifts. It truly was a different world then!

(Look carefully at the fourth floor. You never know who you’ll see!)

Another favorite spot was out on the dirt road along Biscayne Bay. Cars would park there every night after the newscast was through. It was a favorite way to unwind in those days, but there was always the fear of getting caught by the police. For a long time they turned a blind eye to our activities, but after the Luis Alvarez police shooting gave the department a black eye (and we reported it aggressively), they weren’t quite as accommodating, and we had to be a lot more careful.

Then there was the art room, on the second floor. One night in 1980, a bunch of us went there after the newscast, thinking our illustrious assistant news director had left for the night. You can imagine our trepidation when he walked into the art room, at the same time many of us were passing the pipe around. We thought we were all in big, big trouble! The boss man walked over to us, and without missing a beat, asked (to our surprise), “hey, would any of you like to buy some sinsimilla?” Whew! The “Newser” was a User! I guess that would describe so many people that I worked with. Not Bob Rossicone, though.

Rossicone, the tough associate director with a pronounced New York accent, walked in on security guard Lazaro C. and me one time after hours. Lazaro was paid to watch the building, but spent lots of his time socializing and getting high. With the smell of pot permeating the room, Lazaro was afraid Rossicone would blow the whistle and cost him his job. When asked if he was bothered by what we were doing, we were greeted by one of the funniest lines I’d ever heard. Rossicone just looked at us and said, quote…


“I don’t care if you burn the f*cking place down!”

And so it went in those days. Times changed, the station grew more competitive, and soon drug testing was the norm. Eventually I stopped smoking, and I’m sure so did most of the other Boys From Brickell. But for quite a number of years, lighting up was a big part of my Channel 6 experience. It helped me cope with the pressure and frustrations, and being a shy person by nature, helped greatly in social situations.

And no, we never burned the place down.

A Producer's Nightmare: The Critique!

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One week after taking on the responsibility of Managing Editor, Larry Klaas started a new Channel 6 tradition: critiquing (or was it nitpicking?) the previous night’s newscast. Klaas (who was Larry #1 in a succession of three Larry’s that would be in charge of the news in the ‘80s) usually made an effort to be fair, but everyone who’s ever been around a live program knows that things can, and do, go wrong. All the Monday Morning Quarterbacking in the world won’t change that fact. I would take Larry #1’s critiques over Larry #2’s any day. (Larry #2 was a real piece of work, and even though he’s no longer alive to defend himself, I’m going to have to tell his story eventually.)

It’s nice to see the names of my old friends Nick Bogert (Mr. Cubs fan), Natalie Segal, Marianne Murciano, Dave Levine (who taught me a lot about conversational writing), Frank Lasko, Bill Lobean, and others. I was fortunate to run into both Bogert and Segal in the past few years.

While The Ten O’Clock News may have been a joke on some fronts, we had some talented folks who gave their all day in and day out. That’s why critiques can be so demoralizing. It’s great to get feedback, but you’ll notice there’s no criticism of the anchorman in here. I do agree with a lot that Larry #1 said (and not just his praise of my crafty Chyron work). We did need to pay more attention to things such as half track and match cuts. The best critiques are the ones that offer solutions and not just criticism. Little did we know it at the time, but things would get a whole lot worse, before they’d get any better.

Larry #1

This memo signaled a much-needed change in philosophy, when it came to management of The Ten O’Clock News. With our only newscast being at night, and with News Director Dick Descutner working only daylight hours, something had to be done to strengthen our nighttime management situation. Harlan Levy (the assistant news director) was simply too ineffectual to get the job done, and after yet another Larry Klaas memo complaining about him, Descutner decided to make Klaas the managing editor, and “reassign” Levy.

This, as you’d expect, presented problems. Klaas was both the anchor and the managing editor. When news would break, or when the producer would make any kind of in-show call, it was Klaas who had veto power over those decisions… while the show was on the air! Klaas was smart and quite competent, but he also had a gigantic ego, and many times there was just no reasoning with him. Still, it was a big step-up, news-wise, from what Harlan Levy offered in the evenings.

A year and a half later, Klaas was let go, replaced on the air by Barbara Sloan. Descutner would soon be out the door as well, but that’s a different story for a different day.