Ah, memories …

A former colleague from my days at CBS has penned this little reminiscence of life at the Eye Web.

A snip:

What had been the finest broadcast news organization has devolved into what employess there describe as the most disorganized and least motivated place to work in any of the network news operations. Dozens of cherished journalists fled or were fired. Yet the supposed cure was worse than what ailed CBS News. Not surprisingly, the amiable Katie Couric continues as the face of the CBS News brand’s tailspin. As (CBS President Les) Moonves should have observed, it is far easier to blow something up than to return it to its former glory.

When I started working in Special Events at CBS News, getting on the air first… before our competition…with the most accurate and insightful reporting about a breaking news event was our clear mission and shared passion. But I watched as about a decade ago the news division began to play something called “Network Chicken”: a “game” of indecision to see if we really “needed” to interrupt prime time programming (and particularly the commercials) with whatever news event had occurred. If half the world blew up during “The Price is Right”, the other half wouldn’t know about it until after “the Showcase,” whatever that is.

Instead of basing our decision to break-in on-air on the editorial merit and news value of an event, the decision whether to contemporaneously inform the public would be made by waiting to see what OTHER networks would do first. Sometimes CBS would play “Single Chicken”: deciding to hold off interrupting programming until one of our competitors (either ABC News or NBC News… but certainly not Fox) went on the air first. Sometimes, we would play “Double Chicken,” deciding that we would not go on the air until BOTH NBC and ABC News chose to go on the air first. Coverage was not determined by the nature of the event but by the decision- or indecision- of executives at other news networks!

Yep. That’s about the way I remember it. If anyone wonders what has happened to the news business, this post helps to explain it.