In Black America; Blacks In The Broadcast News Management

to I'm John Hansen, join me this week on in Black America. We focus on blacks and broadcast news management. Laying the groundwork doesn't work for everyone. I know that there are people out there who are qualified to be news directors. Music McNeil, news director for WVIT-TV this week on in Black America. This is in Black America. Reflections of the black experience in American society.

Laying the groundwork doesn't work for everyone. I know that there are people out there who are qualified to be news directors, but maybe we're in a situation where they don't promote from within. I was fortunate that they promote from within where I work, so that I happen to be in the right place at the right time. What's going to happen next I don't really know, because even though I wanted to be a news director, I didn't expect it to come so soon, so therefore my goal right now has just been to make my news operation the best that it could be. Music McNeil, news director for WVIT-TV in West Hartford, Connecticut. Recently at the 12th Annual Conference of the National Black Media Coalition,

a firm was held to discuss how to get more blacks in news management. Members of the panel agree that aspiring professionals should see careers as managers of news agencies because they're not enough of the glamour positions for everyone. I'm John Hanson, and this week our focus is on blacks in news management with Music McNeil, news director for WVIT-TV in Black America. I'm a journalist or black, a strong black involvement in broadcasting, other than say maybe in community affairs, which is where they have always tended to throw us, and say that they have done their commitment to the minority community.

So the need is for someone to, number one, be there to prod the owners, to be aware that they are not fulfilling their responsibility in terms of a large segment of the viewing or listening population, and also to provide some support for those of us who are in there, and encountering the fact that we don't have anybody else to talk to, that the people who are on the same level as we are not from the same background, therefore they don't understand all of the ramifications of what we're going through. Munchik McNeil is news director for WVIT-TV in West Hartford, Connecticut. She has been in that position since July of 1982. Ms. McNeil directs a newsroom stamp of 19, including news anchors, reporters, and producers, 10 follow journalists, and several news engineers. Ms. McNeil has had several news positions at WGN in Chicago and KYW in Philadelphia.

Under her leadership, WVIT-TV-30 News won the 1983 UPI Best Newscast and New England Award, and in 1981, she received an Emmy for her coverage of the KKK in Connecticut. I recently spoke with Munchik McNeil at the 12th Annual Conference of the National Black Media Coalition in Washington, D.C. and what was going on in World Affairs and that type of thing. So, I decided to do more in news, so I did more newscasts at the campus radio station,

and that's why I did the internships with newspaper. I can't remember anything specific that made me want to go into broadcast, but I do remember what made me decide to go behind the scenes, instead of in front of the microphone or the camera. While I was an intern at KYW, I was actually a production assistant for the noon, news, and for the 6 o'clock news, and I remember standing there one day as the producer was laying out the show, and if you understand the way a television newsroom operates, the reporters and photographers come in, they're assigned by the assignment editor, a story, go out and do it. They come back, tell the producer what they have, and then the producer decides where it's going to run in the show, or even if it's going to run in what form. I was watching this man kill people's stories. He was just like marking them off the paper,

or saying, I want this to only be 20 seconds when they have been out there all day, and I said to myself, this is such power. This is the control. This is what I want to do. So I went to graduate school at Syracuse University when I graduated from Middlebury. I went and got my master's in television radio broadcasting because I felt that I needed more exposure to the business, and Syracuse has a very good hands-on program. They have a television station on campus, and I have always pursued production. I left Syracuse and moved to Chicago, and became a newswriter at WGN radio. I started writing radio and started doing some television. They had combined news operation, but I have never since that day that I saw this man killing these people's stories, decided that I wanted to go out there and have my story killed.

What was it like that first day on that first professional job? Was that a WGN in Chicago? The first professional job would actually pay you. Well, as I was more fortunate than most in terms of my internships because they were paid, but my first professional day, I would have to say that I was put on the 4am to noon shift, which is unusual when you're writing radio for you to be the new person and be put on that shift, because that's morning drive, and that's a very important shift. Therefore, the newscaster I was writing for thought very well of himself because he did have this good shift, and he was very specific about how he wanted his stories written, which stories he wanted in there, and how many stories he wanted you to cram into the five minutes that he had on every half hour. I remember the first day when I didn't have his script ready at 10 minutes to the hour,

which is what he wanted. He came and he stood on my desk, literally stood on my desk. He's six foot five, and he was just standing there looking down on me. Here I am on my first day. I'm already nervous, and he's looking down on me, and I said, this is the day that I learned to be calm. I said, if I sit here and just freeze, he'll never get it. So I just ignored him, gave him his script, and he stood on my desk a lot after that, but we survived the relationship, I guess you can say. Having participated in both worlds of this particular industry, the internship, plus attending graduate school, which two components, in your opinion, prepared you better for the job you have now as a news director? I believe in terms of the practical experience that the internships were better preparation for what I do, because I actually got to go out with crews, and I was actually working within a news gathering operation and knowing how things actually fall together. In the academic

arena sometimes, what you're being taught or the equipment or the process is not the same as it is when you actually get out and work at a station. But the good thing about graduate school was that it taught me how the people are. In Syracuse, most of the people did not come straight from college. They had had a couple of years of being production assistants at a networker, or having done some other lower-level job at a station. And therefore they felt that they knew a lot about the business. And most of what they had learned was how to be cutthroat and how to ruin people's projects and that type of thing. And this was my exposure to how the business was going to be in terms of like learning to keep my eyes open and to protect myself.

Were there particular role models that you particularly looked up to or tried to emulate or try to carry yourself in becoming a reporter and now a news director? I really can't say that that's true. When I was an intern at KYW in Philadelphia, their consumer reporter was Ori and Reed. She's with a different station now. But I worked closely with her when I was an intern. And I came to respect her very highly. But her public, like her exposure in the public was one of the other reasons that I really didn't want to go in front of the camera. I remember we were at Roy Rogers once and she couldn't eat her lunch because these people kept coming up and saying, oh, Ori and I saw last night you know and I had bought one of those things and I'm so happy that you told me about it. And you know,

she has to be nice because this is her public. And she's just said that there was never any time that she was free of that type of thing. And I just wasn't interested in doing that. In terms of a black role model, there wasn't one unfortunately. I always had great respect for people that I considered to be great journalists such as at the time it was Walter Cronkite. I've also always had an aspiration that if I continue to be a producer that I wanted to be a producer on CBS Sunday morning because I think that they take the time to do the story as well and really pursue all the angles and it's just a kind of slow laid back. We're going to give you time to understand this type of program. You're yourself a now role model. It's my understanding that you're the only black woman news director here in the country. Your duty is in responsibility and the staff you oversee. I manage the department of 34 people. We do a 611 o'clock newscast Sunday

through Saturday. I don't have co-anchors as of March of this past year. I bucked the system. I got my male anchors contract expired. He decided not to resign. I did not replace him. So in addition to being the only black female television news director in the country, I also have a prime time newscast that is anchored solely by a woman. My responsibility is to set the policy for my news operation, what types of stories I want covered, what types of things I want emphasized. I think people need to understand the importance of a news director in terms of setting the philosophy for a news operation. We had the national black mayor's conference in Hartford this past summer and we were the only television station

that felt that this conference was important enough to make it the lead on the 6 o'clock news. Now we're talking about the middle of July. There was nothing else going on in Hartford, but when the sheriff's convention came to Hartford, the other stations thought that it was important enough to make the lead. But when national black mayor's conference came to Hartford, somehow that didn't rate. Jesse Jackson was one of the keynote speakers there. Even the day he spoke, the story didn't rate as the lead story. And I think that it's the tone that I set for my people the things that I expect them to be aware of beyond just their own limited lives that allows them to make those broader decisions about what is important. And that's why it's really important to have more people in black, more black people in management positions and news.

I was going to answer that question being a manager myself of having a little bit more perspective of what's happening in the world. You know what's going on in the black community, but because we live in an inclusive society, we must know what goes on else around us. And that brings a better insight into what should be covered totally. Do you concur with that? I definitely concur with that. And the thing that I have found is that it is possible to get those white co-workers to also be aware of what is going on in the minority communities if you're always priding them to do that. You walk in and you say, are you aware of what they did last night at the community renewal team or those types of things? If they're not, and you're the boss, they're going to go find out. And then eventually they get to the point

where they just automatically check those things that maybe under other circumstances they wouldn't. Do you find your black co-workers, the people that work under you trying to get away with something a little bit more because the system is the boss or is that totally professional across the board attitude? My situation was a little unique in that I came to WVIT in 1979 as their 6 and 11 o'clock news producer, so that I was a producer for three years before I became news director, and I was there peer before I was there boss. And that's a very difficult transition to make. Because in all situations you have the need to cut yourself off from those people that you have been acquaintances with because now you're their boss. So it wasn't only the black people who

thought that now that she's the boss, you know, we can get away with things. It was basically everybody in the department. So that was quite a management transition for me to deal with. The fact that these people felt that because I used to be a nice, easy-going person that now they can get away with these things and I wasn't going to say anything about it despite the fact that I was the boss. But have you changed that much? The basic way you take care of your business as a producer now as news director is more or less pretty much the same. I mean your attitude and style hasn't changed. My attitude and style haven't changed, but my understanding of television news gathering as a business as well as having journalistic intent has changed. I have become more of a believer in the fact that people fire themselves, that you can no

matter how many times you tell people not to do something again, that for some reason if they are just prone to making those types of mistakes, there's nothing you can do. It's a very difficult transition to making, to managing people and coming to the understanding that management and the term humanitarian don't always go together. One of the qualities you look for when someone walks into your new newsroom, wanting to become a reporter, a fraudal journalist or a producer, besides the academic credentials they bring, what do you look for in that person? I look for someone, I ask people what they're interested in outside of television or outside of news. Do they have any broad interest hobbies, things that they like to do, whether or not they're

well-rounded person, because I think it's important, especially in news, to have an interest in a lot of different things. Otherwise, the fact that your shallow will come across on the air, because you're just spouting words, whereas if you're a true reporter, you're going to be taking in information from the person that you're talking to or from the situation that you're observing, and you're really going to be able to understand it and therefore report. I mean, report with an understanding and ability to convey to the viewer what it is that happened or what it is that was said, in a way that they will truly understand and not just a blase description of what happened and the fact that you're not, and it will come across that you're not really clear on what happened there. A lot of talk have been said and I use the answers question when I attend black media

organization conferences, the distinction from being a journalist versus being a black journalist, is there a distinction between the two in your opinion? I think if we're going to be concerned about it, we should be concerned that we are aware that at all times we keep up with what's going on in the black community and make sure that what is going on or what is affecting the black community is being reported. It is, you should not be concerned because people call you a black journalist as opposed to just a journalist, because right now I think it's important that we continue to have black journalists. There was a lot of controversy over the recent TWA, airline, high stress crisis where the networks, correspondence got involved in actually the negotiation with the hostages between them and the United States. What is your particular feelings when news reporters become news makers and covering their jobs? A going, stepping out

from their boundaries. I think that it can set a dangerous precedent in that we can become a part of the story as opposed to reporters of the story. We have had some situations where in Hartford I have a Hartford bureau chief who has been in the, I mean he was born and raised in Hartford. He knows just about every person in Hartford. And therefore when we've had major stories, he has been contacted, given tips, that type of thing. And also there have been a couple of hostage situations in which he's been asked to come in and negotiate. This is a very difficult thing to decide what you should do because you want the situation to end but you don't want necessarily your person to be a part of what is going on. You see this a lot too in coverage of local trials when more and more attorneys now are subpoenaing reporters and assignment editors

and our station tapes and that type of thing to try to show how we influenced their clients case and that type of thing. So we have to walk a very thin line I think between actual coverage and becoming involved in the story. And I think that we should leave that job to the people whose job it is. Has there been a detrimental effect on the Danny Cook incident, the Milton Coleman, Jesse Jackson story, during the 84 presidential campaign? How we as black journalists look at ourselves and how other journalists look at us? Six of the 34 people who worked for me are black and I do know that a lot of time I remember in the Jesse Jackson incident when we looked up and saw the picture of the guy who had released the story that we all moaned at once. It's not a

thing that we would then get together and discuss but I think everybody has a feeling about you know the fact that this type of thing could happen and that you know a brother would do it. But in terms of overall impact on how we feel about ourselves or our self-esteem, I don't think there's had a detrimental effect. Not an ongoing detrimental effect. It did have one at the time. You've written to Berksley the top of your profession. Is there any secrets and road to becoming a news director in your opinion? I think that most people who look at the broadcast industry today have to realize that the industry is very saturated. I would encourage people who are looking to get into the business to really keep their eyes open and to realize that there

are not a lot of positions out there. I think in the last three years I have hired eight people. Some because people resign, some because I fired some people and some for addition to staff. But the fact of the matter is that I get at least 20 resumes a day from people and these are not people who are you know coming straight out of school. These are people who are looking to move from another place. There are just so many people out there looking for jobs. Number one, everybody wants to be on the air. I think that more and more people especially black and Hispanic young people should be looking at those in-house positions that will put them in line to move up in management. This is a very critical area for minorities. I feel and with broadcasts and being such a dominant medium in this country, it's very important that we get more people in line to move

into those positions, especially people who want, who have any type of interest in being an assignment editor. I would encourage them to come out and apply because an assignment editor is the most critical person in a newsroom other than the newsrector. This is the person who assigns the crew to the story. This is the person who decides which story is important and which story isn't. This is the person who talks to the people on the phone and asks the questions and makes the decisions. This is the person whose stories are actually the ones you see on the air. I don't know when I first came to WVIT we had a Cuban man who was on the assignment desk but right now I don't know of any minorities who are on the assignment desk in the Hartford market and you could probably do a survey across the country and find that it's a very sparse population of minorities in that type of position because I felt it was important that the true

story get out of what the Ku Klux Klan was trying to do as opposed to just say oh isn't this wonderful that we have this nice new civic organization coming to town. That we then went to their cross burning. I could not go because they were not going to allow any blacks on the premises so we sent white crews in. We also had to take the the logos off our camera because by that time they were so angry with us. There had been a fire bombing in our in our parking lot a couple of weeks before the thing because of the type of they call it publicity that we call it coverage that we have been given them and we had in our half hour documentary that we ended up putting together a sound bite with one of the Klan members walking up to Bill Wilkinson and saying that's our do you saw he was our anchor from Channel 30 over there you want us to kick him out you know they haven't been given us good publicity and Wilkinson said no

just leave him in us but by that time we had we had given so much I would say negative exposure or I would I prefer to call it maybe balanced exposure to the Klan that and we continue to do it they continue to try to organize we continue to give balanced coverage and actually they have moved on to New Hampshire. Is there life after WVIT for me what do you like to do when you're not working? Well actually I don't really know what I like to do anymore I am the mother of a four to half year old son and an 18 month old daughter and and my husband is an attorney and so I try to strike whatever balance I can between my work which I work at least a 10 hour day every day and of course you're always on call and and my home life you know try to have some time to spend

with my children what I like to do I like to go to antique shows and and you know play out in the yard with the kids and that type of thing life after WVIT I don't really know this is going to sound really I don't I don't mean to sound coy or anything but in a lot of ways I have been lucky I have laid the groundwork for what it is I wanted to do. Military McNeill news director for WVIT TV in West Harford, Connecticut if you have a comment or would like to post your saker set copy of this program write us the dressiest in black america longhorn radio network UT Austin Austin Texas 787-12 for in black america's technical producer Cliff Hardgrove I'm John Hanson join us next week you've been listening to in black america reflections of the black experience

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