Category: CBS News

A Chat with Susan Zirinsky

8/27/2014

If you don't know Susan Zirinsky, the Executive Producer of CBS' 48 Hours, you might know Holly Hunter as Jane Craig in Broadcast News. The latter character was inspired by the former.

Susan Zirinsky, Executive Producer CBS' 48 Hours

Holly Hunter as Jane Craig, Broadcast News

In the film, Jane Craig is a news producer for the Washington D.C bureau of a television network. She is slightly neurotic and tightly-wound. For example, in one of the most memorable scenes in the film, Jane sits down in her hotel room and cries for a few minutes seeming to be so overwhelmed with stress but stops almost as quickly as she began.

In a rehearsal room in the CBS Broadcast Center, Susan Zirinsky is a firecracker, with a personality and presence almost too large for her small frame. Choosing not to sit in the directors chair offered to her, she opts for the folding table and remarks that she hopes it doesn't collapse. In the first few minutes she is in the room, you are aware of an energy that was not there before.

Susan Zirisnky chose to open her session with the CBS News interns by having the room of interns, myself included, stand up.

"Repeat after me," she said.

Susan: I will get.

Interns: I will get.

Susan: A pretty good job.

Interns: A pretty good job.

Susan: When I get the hell out of college.

Interns: When I get the hell out of college.

Susan Zirinsky knows this to be true, having spent almost her entire career at CBS News in some capacity after graduating from American University. Around CBS and in the industry, she is affectionately known as 'Z'.

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The World at 3:30 AM

8/24/2014

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As part of my intern duties with CBS This Morning: Saturday this summer, my alarm went off Saturday mornings at 3:30 a.m. Well, the first one did and usually I got out of bed, but just in case, the second alarm rang ten minutes later.

When I accepted my internship with CBS News, I was really hoping to gain a spot working with CBS This Morning. A relatively new show, CBS This Morning launched in January of 2012 and has since gained a reputation as the morning show most focused on hard news, analysis and discussion. As they like to say, the News is Back in Morning News. You might remember from this blog post just how much I love morning television and its role in American society and I was hoping to spend my mornings that way in some capacity this summer.

My wish was granted and I was placed as an intern with CBS This Morning: Saturday, the Saturday counterpart to weekday CTM. CTM: Saturday (SATMO) has a greater focus on human-interest stories, even including a musical performance and food segment each week. NBC and ABC both have weekend editions of their morning shows but CBS airs CBS Sunday Morning on, you guessed it, Sunday Mornings, so our weekend morning show only airs Saturday.

So for ten Saturdays this summer, the alarm did go off earlier than ever, and I went to work.

Once I was out of bed, I was really happy to be exactly where I was.

For those of you wondering just exactly how that went, I explain it below:

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Empathy & The Anchorman

8/23/2014

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Scott Pelley, anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley, opened the floor to questions after speaking with CBS News interns on a summer day in New York about his journey in television.

Surely he had a newscast to prepare for, but if he was going to ask for our questions, I was going to ask one I've wanted to know since December 14th, 2012.

In December of 2012, unimaginable tragedy struck locally in Newtown, CT and nationally in this country when a gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School and opened fire, killing 20 elementary school students and 6 faculty and staff in the second-deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. The day shocked the nation and started a movement of activism in regards to gun accessibility and violence in America. How do you report on this? I wondered. How do you get through it? I thought, as I sat watching the CBS News special report coverage and crying tears that I wasn't sure would end.

Scott Pelley knew the answers to the questions I had, having reported on Newtown many times. First in the special report coverage on December 14th, and next, for the evening news and 60 Minutes on December 17th, and in the most memorable report on April 7th, in which he spoke with Sandy Hook parents and relatives.

After that report, I started to ask follow up questions. How do you sit across from these parents who lost their children at age 6? I needed to know if Scott was removing Scott Pelley the person from Scott Pelley the reporter in that interview. If he did it, I needed to know how. It takes only a few seconds of watching Scott Pelley speak with the family members affected so closely by this tragedy before chills take over your body. It doesn't take long to notice the heaviness in their hearts and the sadness in their eyes - all politics aside. There is always a huge responsibility as a reporter, I think, but it's taken to a new level in a piece such as this.

So this summer at CBS, I asked Scott Pelley, "You don't want covering tragedy to make you cold, hard and desensitized but you have to let that happen to an extent to protect yourself and the integrity of the story. When talking to the parents, how did you do that?"

It is more than worth mentioning that CBS News received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award for their breaking news coverage of the horrific event, which I've often cited as a motivating factor for my choice in pursuing journalism.

Scott Pelley answered my question by citing empathy, which is the ability to understand and share in the feelings of others. Though we are taught in journalism classes about being a reporter first and putting our own biases aside, Scott let us know it is healthy to let the human being inside of you feel every bit of the magnitude of the stories you cover. The importance and necessity of understanding and sharing those feelings. On stories like Newtown he said, "does it hurt you, does it change you, are you haunted?" and he answered his own question with a simple yes. But he said he wouldn't change that for the empathy that informs the writing.

Scott says getting hurt all of the time is an occupational hazard in this field, that you must be willing to have your heart broken, and that he worries for the writers that don't cry.

By that I think he meant that the more empathetic you allow yourself to be in the interview, in the editing and writing process and in the reporting, the more informed and responsible the piece will be. For more reasons than one, shutting off the human feelings is not the solution.

Scott Pelley believes in real, true journalism. It's clear as he speaks to the interns that he treats his work as a deep responsibility, which I think is one of the reasons he allows himself to empathize so easily. He actually says the quality of America is directly tied to the quality of American journalism -- that there is simply no democracy without journalism. Just to give you an idea of how strongly the man truly believes in what he's made his life's work.

Of course, our conversation shifted where every conversation today shifts: to the changing landscape of media. Scott acknowledges the revolution in the distribution of journalism but is quick to follow up with the fact that the rules of journalism are not changing.

"Whether it's a stone tablet or a glass tablet, the rules of storytelling haven't changed in 2000 years," he said. Well, what he really said after that was, "Don’t let anyone bullshit you into thinking the revolution changes the rules of journalism.” So there's that.

Then we talked about those rules, which beyond the fundamentals of journalism manage to be the pillars of CBS News as well: is the reporting right, fair and honest? I guess it's one rule with three parts. But it really really matters, says Scott, since "people's lives will be changed by what you write." Just look at Newtown, CT.

Some tips for sticking to the rule(s):
-don't believe anything… fact check and fact check again!
-represent all relevant viewpoints & drive down the middle
-let the audience decide what they think ("We don't want to close minds, we want to open them.")
-recognize your own bias, rise above it, keep it out of reporting
-do enough work to know the facts are straight and represent every viewpoint

Scott calls journalism the "antidote of gossip" and says in the age of the 24-hour news cycle, ethics and principle are more important than ever. To me, this raises another question about privacy and journalism. Recently, Marin County Sheriff's office came under fire for making public as many details as they did about Robin Williams' tragic suicide. I've always struggled and will always struggle with the thin line of privacy in a tragedy. Yes, Robin's family is grieving and requests privacy in this awful time, but Americans need the information for their own healing process, and simply because Robin Williams was a celebrity of an unimaginable level, and curiosity rarely slows in a time like this.

I am certain this is something Scott Pelley has experienced and probably did experience with the parents in a room in Newtown, CT.

In all reporting situations, there is a fine line between being invasive and doing your job. And according to Scott Pelley, in those of extreme tragedy, there seems to be no line between feeling it all as if it were your pain, and just doing your democratic duty.

You heard it here first,

Jordan

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Lessons New York Reminded Me

6/6/2014

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This Sunday marks three weeks since I moved into New York City for the summer to be an intern for CBS News. I haven't written much about my experience with CBS, but I did realize I've learned and been reminded of things in the past three weeks that are probably worth noting about my overall and general experience.

Without further ado... in no particular order:

Always leave extra time to get anywhere.
You'd always rather be early anywhere than late. At least I would. So leave early and get to work 15 minutes early. That's what I do. You just don't know when the subway is going to be delayed or too crowded to fit in the car, or how many crosswalks you'll have to wait at. Just be early. Even if no one notices you're early, they'll definitely notice if you're late.

Nobody really cares about you.
I don't mean this in a bad way. I mean in New York City you can walk down a street and pass a multimillion dollar couple, an interracial father and son, someone who might be homeless and someone who might be crazy. And nobody ever turns their head or thinks twice. That's why weird things happen on street corners and weird things happen on the subway but most of the time people keep their heads down in their books. New York is the media center, the fashion capital, the financial pulse, the theater district and more of the country. Everyone has better things to do than care. It's kind of like high school. Those things you think people care about, they definitely don't.

Days off are for you only!
Working on a Saturday morning show, my days off are Sunday and Monday. So last Monday, I woke up with a really bad cold and I took a hot shower, made an English muffin with peanut butter, moved myself to the couch and fell asleep. I napped on and off all day and I believe after that I went into my bedroom and watched TV. Your days off are only for you and if you need to spend it napping a cold away, you should do so.

The best thing about anywhere you work is always going to be the people.
From the Tonys to NBC to CBS to wherever I'm off to next, this proves to be true. Further than that, you're never too old to make new friends. I've been so happy to see what a nice group we've formed of the CBS This Morning interns. We plan to do things together, we ask questions about each others homes and schools and we are becoming friends. No matter that there might not always be enough to do, there might be too much for anyone to do, or any range of situations in between, the truth is that the thing that is going to keep you getting up in the morning and on the Subway to Columbus Circle is that you like making television with really good people who also like making television. Okay, that may be my thing that keeps me getting up but yours can be different.

Blisters are awful.
But wearing cute shoes is awesome for more than one reason. That's where this one ends.

"When people show you who they are the first time, believe them." - Maya Angelou
One of my friends at CBS told me this quote and it took some thinking about to actually find a way to apply it. But now that I've read it over and thought about it, it really is true. If someone says they are going to call you and they don't do it, they're showing you something. I'm not saying things don't come up. This is life and we get busy and our phones die and we forget to call. But don't make those excuses for too long. It's quite possible that the person is the type of person who says they're going to call and doesn't. It's also quite possible they aren't that type of person but there is another thing that I know to be true which is that people make time for those they deem important. If it's important to someone to call you when they say they will, they will call. One more truth in this category: anything that you can imagine being really nice and romantic with a certain person will be 10 times as nice and romantic with a person who genuinely wants to be there with you. I promise. Anything you can imagine being wonderful to share with a significant other will really be 10 times more wonderful if you can share it with someone who wants nothing but to share it exactly with you. Remember here that people make time for those they truly want to make time for and they don't for those who they don't. It's human. Don't try to deny that. It's true.

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Choosing a Life in Television (Starting with Internships)

6/4/2014

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Though I always loved a camera :)

I've been involved in performing in some way my whole life. I started like many little girls do, in a pink tutu and ballet shoes. I moved on to tap, jazz, lyrical, competitive dance, the whole thing. I took voice lessons through middle school and high school, and I was involved in theater from the age of 10. By the time I was leaving high school I actually think I was pretty good.

So when it came time to decide on a University and a major, it was hard to tell the theater no. But I knew it is a life of auditioning and rejection and call backs and moving on and waitressing and you truly have to have a heart full of a special kind of love to do it. That love has to be your purpose for living. It has to drive you every single day to wake up, to audition, to understand you might not get this one and to say you'll try again tomorrow. And more than saying you'll try again, it has to drive you to actually do it. About a profession in theater, I was once told if I could picture myself doing anything else, I should.

And I could.

It was television.

Today at CBS, someone asked me how I ended up in television and I was glad they asked. I really had to think about it. I was always interested in a lot of things and for a while it's why I struggled to settle on a career. I love travel and thought I wanted to work on cruise ships. I love English and thought I wanted to teach it. I love weddings and thought I wanted to plan them. But television is a career where you are allowed to be interested in so many things. Each time you meet someone or do a story, you become a bit of an expert in that subject. When I was at NBC, we did a story on citrus greening and I became a bit of an expert on a tiny part of that world. That intrigues me in so many ways about television. You can learn forever. You can know so much.

For a girl who naturally needs to know and needs to understand, news is everything to me.

I also ended up here because of the type of person I am. I am to the point. I do not waste time. I need something to be right the very first time. So when I learned broadcast writing is about saying what you have to say in as few words as possible and saying it in a way the listener would understand the first very time, I was hooked.

I wish everyone was so succinct and forthcoming.

At the CBS News Internship Program Orientation two days ago, Jeff Fager came to speak to the interns. Jeff Fager has been at CBS for 32 years and is the current Chairman of CBS News and Executive Producer of 60 Minutes. I love that he did that because it proved to me what I already know, which is that CBS does an amazing job placing value on their interns and trust in what the program is designed to do. Jeff gave us a lot of advice as we began the internship: stay in touch with the people you meet, be assertive and take advantage of the opportunities you're given.

I appreciated hearing all of those things, but what I loved best of all was the extremely candid conversation Jeff engaged us in about television. He said the best reporters are the best of people in terms of building relationships. He said CBS aims to help people better understand what's happening in the world we live in. He said CBS covers what's interesting and what's important.

He said, "I've seen the world at CBS News."

That.

I've seen the world at CBS News.

What a way to spend your life.

He went on to clarify that at the same time, the craft is a calling and a real responsibility to help the audience. It's just not a burden to take lightly. But if you can take it, you can see the world at CBS News.

It was in that moment listening to Jeff Fager that I reached an intense clarity about my reasons for choosing news. Every single thing you could watch on the news takes place in a moment of unity. Between the anchors and the audience, between the anchors and the reporters, between the reporters and the audience. There is this innate sense of togetherness. Together with an anchor, a reporter, a producer, a cameraman and a sound guy, you can go anywhere and see anything for the story, for the responsibility, or just for the adventure.

Later on at Orientation, we heard from a group of 17 CBS employees who were all once interns. Again, another example of how CBS truly values the process and the ability to turn these 10 weeks as an intern into a career at CBS News. This one particular employee told us he started his internship with 48 Hours on September 10th, 2001, also known as the day before 9/11. On being an intern on that day, he said "it was intense but it taught me I was in the right place."

It was in that specific moment I learned I want to be in the right place for the rest of my life.

Being where I'm at now, having covered Hilary Clinton, Lisa Ling, Arianna Huffington and more, the advice I was given about becoming an actress is as true as it's ever been. Back then, I could picture myself doing something else. And now that I've found that something else, I cannot picture myself doing any other thing.

I don't know what network it will be at and I don't know where I'll begin, but I do know television is the absolute only way I could spend my life.

Who knows, someday I, too, might see the world at CBS News.

You heard it here first,
Jordan

P.S I do happen to have a full scale plan of how I will one day return to the theater and make my Broadway debut. But that is another blog post for another day :)

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What to Expect When You're Reflecting

6/1/2014

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They say an experience only has meaning when you take the time to purposefully lay out your expectations for it beforehand and reflect on your journey afterward. That's why when you go to a leadership retreat, you speak in metaphor about how the exercises relate to your work and your day probably isn't over until you've gotten in a circle and talked about it some more. I did it in this blog post when I left NBC News in May, and here, I'm going to do it before I begin 10 weeks with CBS News.

I'm really excited to start with CBS. I'm really truly excited. Actually, I cannot wait to get started. I want to stand in the halls where Walter Cronkite walked, I want to sit in the studio where Norah O'Donnell works. I want to be right there. I've always been that way. The wanting to be right there type.

Because this past semester was so insane with remaining a full-time student at the University of Miami, working 3 full days at NBC, and being a Resident Assistant in a freshman dorm on campus, I didn't really let myself get excited about CBS News until I got home from school. I almost couldn't think about it. On my to-do list that brought me from Point A to the end of school, it was too far down to think about. Clearly, it was one of the most important things on the list but I had to clear a lot of little stuff before I let my eyes read that far down on the paper.

That said, when I got home from this exhausting but exhilarating year at school, I made it my mission to unapologetically lay in my bed for as much time as possible, and when I was done doing that, I decided to change things up on the couch. I left once for a massage and a manicure and pedicure. It was everything to me and more.

But now as I type this, I'm in a different bed in a summer sublet in New York City because I have to report to the CBS News Broadcast Center tomorrow for Orientation.

I'm really looking forward to working at CBS and only working. I reached a special type of burn out while I was at NBC because I was filling so many roles while I was at school. For a moment, I couldn't understand how people worked full time. It was at that point my parents reminded me that most people who work don't do it while taking a full course load and managing 38 freshmen residents. I'm excited to get a taste of the real world of working, one I crave so often and so voraciously while I'm still in school. Back to reflecting, you might recall I really fell in love with working when I watched my boss leave NBC and I learned how the marriage of a career and a life is a treasured thing. I want that to start for me. I think it did at NBC.

But I have a feeling I can only compare to the way I felt when I sat on the school bus that took us to summer camp and looked out the window to my right to see my mom still staying home. Am I going to like camp? I guess letting go of her hand and getting on the bus was the hardest part so it should all be ok from here, right? What if something goes wrong and they lose my lunchbox?

But I know I'm going to like CBS. And I bring my own lunch so that's that. As I wrote on my last day at NBC, I look at this Summer with CBS differently than ever before. You go through your educational life always knowing an internship is something you need to have. You need it, you need it, you need it. But being at NBC put a face to the necessity. I got to put it on my resume, sure, but it taught me pretty much what I know now about working professionally, how enriching work is and how personal it becomes when you are doing something you truly love.

Being able to put it on my resume was really the smallest gift I got from my time there.

So going into CBS, I see the people as ones I'll hopefully grow really fond of and attached to. I see the projects as something I'll take a lot of pride in. And I know the ever-so-coveted internship is something much deeper than a job title and dates you can put down on paper.

I'm also excited to see how things work at CBS. Each network, ABC, NBC and CBS, does it it's own way. They may be doing substantially the same thing, but they each do it differently, with different mission statements and different programming.

As always, you can read about everything I learn and do at CBS here on my blog.

And you'll always hear it here first.
Jordan

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"Top of the Morning" To You

10/9/2013

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"Viewers want to smell the coffee and feel the warmth and hear the happy banter," writes Brian Stelter in Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV.

And he's right; they do. At least I do.

I love morning television. I love that fans wait in Times Square and Rockefeller Plaza for the faces of American mornings. It's a rare day when the first thing I do after shutting off my alarm isn't turning on Today or GMA. There is history in the TelePrompTers, and at the boardroom tables the overnight staff tries not to fall asleep at. This book is an extremely-insider look into the world of morning television. You read e-mails between producers, you are sitting at the dinner table with Matt Lauer's agent. You can feel the tension between Ann Curry and Matt Lauer on the anchor couch. You know almost before Savannah Guthrie knows that she's next. And you know the exact moment Operation Bambi begins. I never wanted this book to end.

NBC is the network that invented morning television. Quite literally, the Today Show was the first show of its kind. Today premiered in 1952, ABC's imitation came in 1975, and CBS was last in 1987. The book makes it very clear, though, that CBS does not try to be in the same category as the former two- it takes place in an isolated studio without fans who line the street and it would not even dream of having wild animals in the studio, or drinking wine on Wednesday in the 4th hour. It does not try to compete or identify with Today or GMA.

The morning television relationship is a complicated one. If you think about it, your relationship with an anchor family might be the most intimate relationship you have. You share the very first (and valuable) moments of your day with them. Before you brush your teeth, put on a bra or pour a cup of coffee, you've spent time with them. At least I have. The anchors need to be an extension of your own family-- not just an exclusive V.I.P club. They have to want you there, so you want to come back.

They have to satisfy your needs before you leave the door, or hop in the shower. They need to let you know what happened overnight, provide you with necessary information before you head to work or school, and make it fun and intriguing all the while.

They cannot be too self-serving or self-indulging or the viewer will decide the show has nothing to do with them, and their presence will not make a difference. That's the tricky thing: letting each viewer know their presence does matter, even though those on one side of the lens don't even know who they are.

Zev Shalev, the EP of CBS's The Early Show describes it this way: "Morning needs patience. You're building an intimate relationship with the audience asking them to tune in and give you two hours of their life each morning. They are looking for a long term relationship."

I've had a long term relationship with Today for a really long time. I love NBC. I feel a strong and fierce loyalty to NBC. I think it does the best job of tying local news with national news and I enjoy the way NBC values and stays true to its tradition. I appreciate the integrity of the network. But recently, I've been turning on GMA. It's good to know a little about a lot.

This book makes sure you do. While you're reading a rundown of Today at NBC, you're hearing a phone call between producer and talent at GMA. You see the most direct juxtaposition between the networks that has ever been offered, and there is no way you will think of any "exclusive" without wondering how a network got it.

The book only focuses on mornings though, so some of what Stelter writes cannot be generalized. Stelter describes morning television as "a feast for people with curiosity about a lot of different things. Everything fits under the morning television tent." It is a very worthy subject of the expository book.

David Rhodes, current President of CBS News says there's a morning orthodoxy that says, "it's 8:19 a.m. and we're sautéing onions." And when anyone asks why we're doing that, we say, "because it's 8:19... that's what you do."

And as trite and corny as it is, I love that about morning television. In 35 minutes on Today or GMA, you'll learn how to organize your closet, make a healthier omelet, how to know when your pet needs to go to the vet, and how to sauté onions.

I love evening news too, though. The history? Unparalleled. The original CBS Evening News world map still sits in CBS's NY Headquarters, and if you smell closely, you cough from Walter Cronkite's tobacco leftovers. Peter Jennings. Dan Rather. David Brinkley. Edward R. Murrow. Are these men not the John Hancocks of television?

Meredith Viera tells a story of attending a Virginia Tech vigil and students came up to her and asked for a hug because their own parents couldn't be there. She says this is something humbling about Today... that she became an extension of the viewer's home life and family, and in times of extreme discomfort and pain, she can heal hearts.

Her story is not unique though, and anchors on morning and evening shows alike agree that television is a powerful medium for connections.

But it's ratings, not connections, that steals the spotlight and most of the ink on these pages. As interesting and different it is to have the lens into 30 Rock, the book is about how Today fell to number two, and Ann Curry had to go. Stelter uses a metaphor of a horse carousel, and describes the day GMA won as the day "one of the carousel steeds turned into Secretariat and galloped right off the ride."

And morning television has not been the same since.

You heard it here first,
Jordan

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A Chat with Susan Zirinsky

The World at 3:30 AM

Empathy & The Anchorman

Lessons New York Reminded Me

Choosing a Life in Television (Starting with Internships)

What to Expect When You're Reflecting

"Top of the Morning" To You

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