Tom Brokaw — Harassment was Part of his World.
Dan Rather used to end his newscasts, “and that’s part of our world.” — well Sexual Harassment was part of Tom Brokaw’s world, it was everywhere and he’s smart enough to know it.
There’s just something about these anchor people. You know we all have stories. When I was working for the CBS Affiliate in St. Louis, a legendary African American anchor walked into the newsroom in his boxer shorts. The movie Anchorman, was based on a mixture of Detroit’s Mort Crim and the absolutely legendary alcoholic Bill Bonds. The power, the hair, the libido in front of the camera and behind will hopefully never be rivaled again.
In 2003, I began work at ABC News in New York. At that time, not really that long ago, there were essentially 5 ways to distribute video to the outside world, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and CNN. Now, there’s this illusion that we all can do it from our phones — there are still arbiters of how our video gets out to mass audiences — but they are less obvious — they have no face.
At that time, Tom, Dan & Peter, all white protestant men with the largest audiences, in any order you want to pick, commanded a lot of power in what got put out to the rest of the country. The people behind them and the other programs made decisions about who would get to cover which stories. Those people would get airtime and dependent on that exposure, and some of them were maybe more talented than others, their careers would be successful or not.
With the limited amount of airtime, and the tremendous amount of people who had the ability to talk on television, sounding and looking interesting, and in some cases, had some extra reporting talent, there was a bottleneck at the door. Print reporting was then, and still is, the place of real journalism. Television is a powerful medium, there is talent required to run a breaking news story or to ask questions in a way to best utilize the time you have with a person during an interview — but for the most part, breaking real news really falls to print publications — and while there still is more talent than opportunities there as well, it’s a little better about giving chances to people based on their quantifiable work beyond their presence. Nepotism still pervades all.
There was a double standard — CLEARLY — when it came to men vs. women during Tom Brokaw’s time. Charles Kuralt was unattractive — he also was a brilliant writer who had a secret family in Montana that he got away with because that’s what anchors were allowed to do.
At NBC’s shop, Irving R. Levine, one of my favorite financial reporters of the time, was a short white bald guy with a bowtie. Consider for a moment Tim Russert, an overweight bear of a figure who was permitted on network television and rightfully so — he did great work. There are some examples of women that did get on the air who were less attractive — but another question should be asked — of all women that are in television news, how many get to stay on TV as long as Andy Rooney, Morley Safer and Bob Schieffer? How many old stately anchor men, nationally and locally walked off the set as the women sitting next to them got traded in for a younger model during Tom Brokaw’s time of dominant influence?
I used to say that the way the three network anchors left their programs reflect the three ways you can end anything: Disgrace/Time of Public Outrage Choosing (Dan Rather), Death/Time of Eternal Choice (Peter Jennings) & Honor/Time of your own choosing (Tom Brokaw).
Since Tom Brokaw left on his own accord, and also because of his frankly, Midwestern style of things, his stature has weathered a lot better than the other MEN of his time. Keep in mind, though, the guy who replaced him BriWi was revealed for basically being a serial liar — Brokaw’s reputation outlasted his replacement.
Tom Brokaw, is 78 years old. He has cancer. Whether he was a good person in his personal life — and I believe that he tried to be given his perspective, its sad that basically, (and now I’ve heard Ted Koppel was only guilty of being greedy and lazy), Brokaw was the last honorable guy to fall in broadcast media, there is a tendency to cling to him and not let this one destroy him, or even attach itself to him. We need someone who actually was who they said they were?
Lets look a little deeper though.
Does Tom Brokaw deserve credit for covering OJ Simpson hard core, which placed him in the #1 spot from that point forward until he retired?
Does Tom Brokaw get credit for running a story on famine in Ethiopia because Michael Jackson called one of his producers and told him it was a story and that lead to We Are the World?
Does Tom Brokaw deserve credit for the hiring and firing practices — the careers he made and the ones he didn’t based on his decisions at the time?
Where was Tom Brokaw the night of the 2000 election when networks called it too early — does he deserve credit for that?
What role did Tom Brokaw play in sending our sons and daughters to the War in Iraq?
Does Tom Brokaw deserve credit for the 113 people who signed a letter in support of him who really liked him who clearly are successful and likely due to what Tom Brokaw may have done for them?
Could Tom Brokaw have done a better job in his position to cover more stories? Ask tougher questions, report on things like Police brutality, Sexual Harassment in the workplace, Osama Bin Laden & the financial crisis of 2008?
Could Tom Brokaw have directed his company to not give away the entire store to charlatans like Google and Facebook who destroyed their business models and also his platform where he could make decisions willy nilly on the lives of those who work for him and those who watched his program?
You want to know the truth?
When you’re the face of the network, fairly or not, you deserve credit for it all. In exchange, as Tom Brokaw will admit, he has lead an incredibly lucky life. Too young for Korea, too old for Vietnam- he grew up in Rockwell’s America. As I share his appreciation for Montana, he may have lead of one of the best lives anyone has ever had, with modern features, being awarded and given access at every turn — he’s done it all — including now he has some stunk on his legacy.
Assume for a moment — they all did bad things and it’s really a matter of time before we find out all of it. Here Tom Brokaw is lucky too with his timing. Just ask fellow NBCer Al Franken.
Tom Brokaw is responsible for all of the things he did, good or bad. This is the controversial one -> Intended or not intended. The effect he had on the world is part of his story and its part of his legacy. If times have changed and he was a product of those good ol’ times, I’m sorry, it wasn’t right to treat women poorly ever?
For instance, IN post Anita Hill, times, which is where Tom Brokaw was operating at the time of these accusations, he went alone to the hotel room of someone who was inferior to him, wanting ‘career advice’. He was the face of a company, no matter what actually happened there, yes the power dynamic in and of itself means something without having to say anything else about it at all. He may have thought it was ok — maybe he didn’t think he did anything wrong — maybe he did — “we don’t know what we don’t know” — but at the same time, yes, Tom Brokaw is responsible — and so are all the other people who were in power at that time.
Society is going to continue to tear down these people because that entire paternal system and world they controlled, left a lot more to be desired for those who were not one of the BIG 3 or basically in positions of power. I think that’s why some call it Progress, while others call it Making America Great Again.
Tom Brokaw held people to task as a journalist. He seems really upset about the claims being made against him — that’s fine too. But I don’t even have to know what actually happened to say, that the world in which he held a tremendous amount of power was incredibly fucked up — and he was in a position to do more about it — even if he was better than the worst. I don’t think he would even question that if he thought about it for a couple of minutes. It’s the truth.
In our fragmented media landscape, there will be no other Tom Brokaw, or even Diane Sawyer. The time upon which there was scarcity of access to news, information and ideas, where there were 3 networks and you basically couldn’t avoid knowing these people is over. Did you know Jeff Glor is anchoring the CBS Evening News? Could you pick him out at an airport? How about David Muir? Lester Holt? Can you name me one weekend anchor? I’m weird enough to even know the names of the people I just mentioned (I worked with two of them though).
Harassment still occurs, but thankfully the power these people have has been diminished. The access to getting help hopefully has improved. It’s still really hard. I hope our love for Brokaw doesn’t pour water on the progress towards what we all hope will be a more equitable society-one that I think Tom Brokaw truly wants for his daughters. We have to ask ourselves what kind of world we want to live in. Places of work need to be places where we all feel like we can do the best work possible — and addressing these issues, whether they were intended or not, whether the world has changed or not, is how we get to a point where we all realize the right way to lead our lives together.
