In Black America; CBS News Correspondent Harold Dow

below and back another 1 4 5 4 4 4 5 4 4 And now for the final prediction Making it as a network news correspondent is no easy task. I'm John Hansen, join me this week on in Black America. Had those riots not occurred and unfortunately had people not died and had people not fought with the system, I wouldn't be where I'm at today and I don't think there are a lot of black people who are employed right now in broadcast and in print, they wouldn't be there either. CBS News Correspondent How-Dow this week on in Black America. This is In Black America, Reflections of the Black Experience in American Society.

Well, Hackensack is a very small town, it's three square mile, we call them I Blank or Towns in New Jersey because you can drive right through them very quickly without ever knowing you've been there. It wasn't easy, the opportunities certainly weren't there, but one good thing about growing up in Hackensack is it's a located very close proximity to New York, six miles from the city and while I was growing up I had a chance to go to New York and look at the big city, bite lights and you saw it as a place of opportunity but since New York is the number one city particularly for broadcast journalism, it's not easy to come from a place like Hackensack and go six miles across the bridge and expect to get a job. I had to go through Omaha, I had to go through Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington DC, California before I finally got back to New York and I'm working there. Harold Dow, CBS Television News correspondent, making it as a network news correspondent is no easy task.

Harold Dow has overcome the many pitfalls that faced a black news reporter. Mr. Dow was the first reporter to receive an interview with Patty Hearst. So it all, Mr. Dow has not forgotten where he came from. Recently Harold Dow spoke to a group of black journalists attending the National Association of Black Journalists, Region 7 Newsmakers Conference. I'm John Hanson. This week CBS Television News correspondent Harold Dow in Black America. Many of you may not realize this but I'm not supposed to be here today. I'm serious, I am not supposed to be here. You see when I was growing up in Hackensack, New Jersey, my elementary school teachers and junior high school teachers told me that I would never be successful.

They told me I couldn't read. They put me in a slow reading class. They told me I couldn't write and that I would never amount to anything. So I would like to take this opportunity right now to thank all of those non-believers and doubters for giving me the anger, the determination and the energy to be here where I am at today. Harold Dow is a tough journalist. As a network correspondent with CBS News, he has covered the world. He is the former anchor for the CBS News program Nightwatch. Born and raised in Hackensack, New Jersey, he attended public schools in that city. Harold Dow began his broadcast journalism career in Omaha, Nebraska. From there, he went to San Diego, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and then to Philadelphia. Today, Harold Dow is enjoying his 15th year with CBS News. I recently spoke with Harold Dow following his address before journalists attending the Regent's Seven Conference of the National Association of Black Journalists. I had no intentions of actually going into journalism, it's just one of those things

that happened. And it's been said too that you can go to journalism school, but most of the stations when they get you, they want to retrain you because trying to apply what you learn in a book to real life, there's a transition there and there's no experience like being there. Was it an adjustment that you had to make going from Hackensack, New Jersey to Omaha, Nebraska? No, not really, because New York being that it was so close, if you can make it in New York, if you can go to New York and survive on any given day, go in and come out, you can make it anywhere, because New York's a tough city. What was it like that first day at KET in Omaha? Well the first day there, first day I went on the air, I came back to the studio in the switchboards and the phones were ringing off the hook, people were calling up complaining. This is the nation's corn belt in Omaha, Nebraska and they had not seen a black person on television on a local newscast ever and it must have come as quite a shock to them because they had no warning and the next thing they knew, I was there giving a story and a lot of people

resented it and that's why I promised myself that I never want to be first to do anything again. I'd rather wait and let somebody else carry that burden but it was a growing experience for me and after I of course had worked there for a couple of months, the whole city grew and I grew with them and they stopped judging me on the color of my skin and they paid more attention to the work that I was trying to accomplish. Were you and I moving from the local level to a network position? I wanted it, I wanted the job very bad. I always had a lot of confidence in myself but I have to admit to you, of course it was a learning experience going to the network, you go in thinking you know it all but you really don't and I had to sit back and watch some of the pros work and what I did was I learned from them, I used the time, I wanted to go on the air myself but it was relegated to using that time to learn from them, I mean they've had some good techniques I watched and I listened and I absorbed. 1968 was more or less the height of the civil rights movement, how did that have an effect

on you personally and as a journalist? It was a tough time, it was a tough time for black people all across this country of course they had the riots in Omaha, Nebraska and Watson, Los Angeles and New York, New Jersey. It was a tough time in the 60s for black people, we were trying to make a stand saying we wanted to be incorporated and included in the system of government in the United States and it took that to get their attention, had those riots not occurred and unfortunately had people not died and had people not fought with the system, I wouldn't be where I'm at today and I don't think there are a lot of black people who are employed right now in broadcast and in print, they wouldn't be there either, so it's an important time, you can never forget your past and we all owe a lot of thanks and gratitude for those people who put their lives on the line so that we will be where we are today. How much preparation you would like to have in doing a particular piece, you say you are going to go back to New York, more or less the Bernard Gets case will be your first assignment in returning, how much preparation do you go into in doing a particular piece for however long a documentary or a short news story?

Well on those things that you know are coming you can prepare for, I've worked on a Gets story before so I know it's there and I know it's coming, the things you can't prepare for are those things that break spontaneously, those things that happen, the airplane crash that goes down and I know that I'm going out there and I'm going to be competing against the best that NBC or ABC can send and believe me it is fierce competition, I mean we're all friendly, we shake hands but we're trying to get the best story on the air, my executives are going to be looking at what ABC did and what NBC did and if we're not as good or better than they are they're going to start coming down on us so that adrenaline gets flowing and I think it's healthy competition and I think it brings out the best in everybody because just because someone may be the most renowned correspondent going I don't hesitate to go competing against them because I think it's all fun, I just know that for a minority to get the true recognition they deserve you have to do the work ten times, you've got to work ten times as hard just to stay there and one day down the road maybe they'll give you the recognition maybe they won't, I don't need the recognition from them because

I've got it from my own people so that's more important to me than to have them say I'm good, I know I'm good and that's fine. Being based out of New York which is the hub of communication for the Western civilization, do you like living in New York, do you like working out in New York or do you prefer the West Coast or would you like to go back to Omaha? Given the choice I'd like to live in the sun, you know it's the weather is kind of tough in New York, it's a city that has a lot of people in it and everybody's competing for everything, you can't go shopping in New York unless you're standing in line and elbowing people to get in and out, it's a tough way to live but it's a wonderful city, it has a lot of good points about it but it's the only place, the new stories you know develop in New York like in no other city in the world, where else could you find a story about some guy stealing a truck with taggers in the back of it in New York City, those kinds of things happen, I mean it just makes it exciting and there are a lot of positive things that happen as well and that story by the way did have a happy ending to it, the owners of the taggers got their taggers back and they left town but they left knowing that they're not the only ones who can make things disappear because they were illusionist.

I began my career in broadcast journalism 19 years ago and every time I say that it seems like it was only yesterday, it's kind of hard to believe because time moves so fast. It happened in Omaha, Nebraska, 1968, that was the year I had the dubious honor of being the first black reporter to hit the airways in all places, the nation's corn belt. My first news director, his name was Lee Terry, he was offering me a challenge and I quickly accepted it but it wasn't that easy, I would be lying to you if I told you this road was easy. Something that I was the first black on the air, the instant I went on, large numbers of white folks must have gotten up out of their seats, their comfortable seats and tried to adjust their sets. I was surprised when I came back to the newsroom, not only was every available telephone ringing but newsroom personnel were only others trying to explain to irate viewers what it just happened on this very historic occasion. It didn't help at all because I was called everything but a child of God, I had my life threatened, they also threatened Lee Terry's life too for hiring me.

It was at that point that I realized that broadcast journalism was definitely not for me. I turned to Lee Terry and I said, Lee, can we talk for a moment? I told him you can have this job because I do not need all of this attention if you know what I mean. Now, there was one thing that I always admired about Lee Terry, my news director, no matter what happened, he was always prepared. As he was tucking a white pearl handle pistol into his belt, he said something to me that I'll never forget. He said, if I'm willing to go through this, why shouldn't you be willing? For the next two months, I had to earn my place in broadcast journalism in the process, the people of Omaha grew and I grew right along with them. It wasn't long before they started judging me on my work as a reporter and not on the color of my skin. When I was attending high school, my dreams were limited. There were very few positive black images on television. There were no black reporters or anchor man that I could point to and say I would like to be like that person when I grow up. I couldn't dream of being a network correspondent because at the time, it seemed too impossible to imagine.

But things are different today. There are positive black images all around us, some right here in this room. But there are others who are not here, people like Brian Gumball, anchor for today's show, Jonathan Rogers, the newly appointed Vice President and General Manager for CBS has owned an operated station in Chicago, WBBM, Gerald Boyd, White House correspondent for the New York Times, Ed Bradley, 60 minutes, and the women who have advanced journalism. Let's not forget the women. Young people today can dream. They can dream of being a network correspondent. They can dream of being an anchor on a local television station. They can also dream of becoming a Vice President and General Manager of an owned and operated station. And yesterday our young people can even dream thanks to people like Shirley Chisholm and Jesse Jackson. They can even dream of running for the presidency of the United States. In 1971, I resigned from my job as a television reporter in Omaha. I felt that I needed a greater challenge. As it turned out, I picked perhaps the worst possible time to go looking for work. Television stations across this country for the first time were laying people off in

the industry. We know today that they're doing it again. But I had managed to save up a little bit of money while working in Omaha, a very little bit of money. So I set out looking for work. I went to Chicago. I went to Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., New York. I applied for jobs at every television station I could find, but nothing happened. At that point in my career, it would have been very easy for me to give up, but I just would not allow myself to be discouraged. I made a commitment that I would fight to the end. I went home to Hackensack, New Jersey, the place where I was born. I went home feeling depressed, but not defeated. For the next seven months, I lived with my parents. I found a part-time job working at Sears Robot. I worked at Sears Robot at the time as a telephone solicitor selling maintenance agreements for television sets, refrigerators, washing machines, and other home appliances. I was a long way from broadcast journalism. When I got off work, I would spend the rest of my time reading and writing on weekends. I would read and write for as much as 12 hours a day. My parents thought something was wrong because I really went out with my homeboys, you know,

a short contrast to the lifestyle of living on the mean streets and going into the bars in the pool halls, Mark, as I was growing up. It seemed that no one could understand that burning desire I had to get back into broadcast journalism. Finally, I came to the conclusion that it was time to take some action. I had to make a move. In the back of my mind, I knew that there was one other city that I just had to try before giving up on broadcast journalism. I saved up enough money to purchase a one-way ticket to Los Angeles and with just $30 in my pocket, and I grabbed my resumes and tapes and I went west. I was in such a hurry to go that I never really thought about it until I got on the plane, but I didn't know anybody in Los Angeles and I didn't have any place to stay. That's what you get when you're playing ahead. When the plane landed, I quickly ran to a telephone booth at the Los Angeles International Airport, and as I sat in the phone booth, dialing the number of my eyes spotted a wallet. Not my wallet, somebody else's.

In this wallet, there was lots of credit cards and $50 in cash, so what I did was I sent the wallet back to the owner, and I sent the credit cards, of course, with their two. I wrote a little note and it went like this. I found your wallet and credit cards exactly where you left them. You'll notice that the $50 is missing. Consider it alone. I'll gladly repay you when I get on my feet, signed a friend. About a month later, about a month later, I landed a job in television, a television station in Santa Monica, California, cable television station, and by the way, I did repay that $50 loan in full, and to this day, my creditor had no idea who it was. When I had accomplished my goal, I was back in television, and when I look back, I keep thinking maybe I never would have made it if I had not found that wallet in that phone booth.

I started working with CBS on July 3rd, 1972. That's when my education and broadcast journalism really began. Of course, I came in thinking that I knew it all, was I ever wrong. The first few years I ran around screaming and ain't fair. It ain't fair. I wasn't getting good assignments. Most importantly, I wasn't getting on the air with any regularity. I just kept screaming and ain't fair, and finally, my bureau chief came to me, and he said Harold, whoever told you, was going to be fair. At first, I thought he was trying to be smart, and then I realized that he was just telling the truth. No one ever told me that it was going to be fair and an ain't. Being a network correspondent means you have to travel. During the more than 15 years that I've been with CBS News, I've been to virtually every city in this country. I've traveled more than a million air miles and slept in some of the best and worst hotels around. And this is a pretty good hotel, by the way. Now one would think that all that traveling is exciting. Well, it is, but living out of a suitcase does have its drawbacks. It's a weird feeling to be in a strange town, in a strange hotel late at night and have

the phone ring. First you knock over the nightstand, and then you stub a few toes just trying to find the damn phone. And when you finally answer it, it's New York Radio, wanting another piece at three o'clock in the morning. In 1980, CBS News sent me to Beirut Lebanon. It was a frightening experience. There were so many different factions fighting there. It was hard to tell who was who. They all had different uniforms. They all had guns. They shot bullets. We shot videotape. I hardly call it fair. Once I was stopped at a checkpoint, I'd decide Beirut by a kid who couldn't have been more than 15 years old. He had an AK-47, a Russian-made rifle in one hand, hang grenades hanging from his chest in the other, and he wanted to know who I was. He had his gun pointing at me with one hand, and my passport upside down in the other. He couldn't read English, of course. I prayed a lot. Today, the world of broadcast journalism is changing rapidly. A new breed of owners have taken over the networks. They are cross-conscious, and there's nothing wrong with that. But their number one concern is the bottom line.

How much is it going to cost? And will it interfere with profits? Of course, you've heard the words before, cutbacks, layoffs, mass firings, downsizing. The fact is that there will be fewer jobs in television news. Not only for blacks, but for whites as well. That means if you are a minority, you will have to be very, very good to get and to keep your job. The competition for those positions in broadcast journalism will intensify in the years ahead. No one's going to lower the standards just because you happen to be a minority. It's not going to happen. If anything, the standards are going to be raised. What kind of impact will all these changes have to be honest with you? I don't know. But I do know this. Some of the most respected people in broadcast journalism are worried. In the June 15th edition of Newsweek Magazine, ABC's Ted Coppel has let it be known that he is seriously considering leaving the industry. He told Newsweek that he was annoyed about some of the cutbacks made by ABC's new management. For example, he says when Nightline began searching last week for a videotape of Paul Voker

being sworn in as Federal Reserve Board Chairman in 1979, his staff found that the tape they were looking for was about to be destroyed. Coppel says he heard there was a plan of foot to erase thousands of tapes at ABC because it became too expensive to keep them all. Coppel is also upset because his network is closing foreign bureaus. And he spoke about the correspondence who were being paid, I guess, $100,000 a year. And because they're in a foreign bureau, they're not on the air with a lot of regularity. And management looks at that. Well, we're paying $10,000 a story if you file five stories yearly. And they thought that was too expensive. Coppel concluded he did not want to work for a network who felt that way. And there are a lot of people who feel that way. Of course, the cutbacks have occurred at CBS News and NBC News as well, and I'm sure you're experiencing some of these problems at the local stations, they're following the lead of the networks. And I might point out that Ted Coppel is not the only one who is giving serious thought to quitting.

There are others, and there will be others. Well, this high drama at the network continues to unfold. We'll just have to wait and see what the final conclusion will be. Those of you who aspire to work for network news one day, I urge you to stay inspired. Keep the faith and keep pushing. Be prepared for battle because it's going to be a war. And while we are communicating today, the real challenge, it seems to me, will be communicating tomorrow and communicating beyond. How did you happen to scoop the other networks and gain a Patty Hearst interview? Worked on it for about a year. It took about a year to get the interview. I became very good friends with Lee-Effley Bailey, the attorney for Patty Hearst. And I never dawned on me to ask for that interview. The trial was about two and a half to three months long, and I guess about two months in, I woke up in the middle of the night, and I said, you know, I've got to be stupid. I mean, the lead tarry is a good friend of mine. I'm sorry. Lee-Effley is a good friend of mine, and, you know, we do have, obviously, had dinner together on many occasions.

But that wasn't a number one priority for me to say, hey, let's have dinner. Not going to have the interview with Patty. It was really truly in the back of my mind, and when I asked him, he said he already made up his mind that if she did give an interview, I'd be the one that would do it. How did you happen to get a shot on CBS's Night Watch program? Well, that was more or less an order from New York. They wanted me to come back to be involved, and usually when management in the networks, they want you to do something. It's like, yeah, you will do this. So, you know, you just got to go. The hours were horrendous, but I enjoyed the experience and the exposure. And we had fun. It was tough staying awake, but, you know, we made it through, and I'm kind of glad Night Watch is behind me. Having done so many jobs, you mentioned that there were any black role models for you to look up to to consider a career in journalism, being a part of the 60s in the Civil Rights Movement, how did the actions of Dr. Martin Luther King have on you and other Civil Rights leaders at the time? Well, it was, you know, I mean, you could just watch that whole movement develop. It was something, I think, that captured the imagination of minorities all across this country, not only black people, because Martin Luther King obviously was leading a movement

for all oppressed people, and it was just something that they couldn't kill. And it still lives on, and I think it's made this country better, and maybe a lot of people wouldn't admit that, but this country is a better place for minorities to live now that he came through this way. In 1971, you resigned. What was going through your mind at that time? Did you contemplate giving up of career in journalism and trying to do something else? No, Omaha is a small community, I mean, you know, I lived there for six years. I just wanted to go out and meet a greater challenge. You know, when you have to take a chance sometimes, and I don't know if I was totally prepared, but I just kept pushing myself, so you got to go do it. You got to take a look. I mean, you could get into a place like Omaha and stay there the rest of your life, and never really know if you could have made it in a big time. And if I would have fell down, I would have got back up again, and I knew that that would be the key to it all, and I did fall down, and I did get back up, and I think I'll continue doing it.

Were you somewhat nervous or apprehensive when CBS was going through the cutbacks of laying correspondence off, taking correspondence off television, putting them back in radio, or you were more or less secure in your position in New York? Well, you know, I sleep good at nights. That's one thing I always think when I'm covering a story, when I'm through with it, I've done the very best that I could do, so I go home and I sleep well. Now, if somebody doesn't like that, they've got a problem. And I felt that I've given CBS 15 years of service. You know, I've been to Beirut, Lebanon, I've been to some trouble spots, I've covered some very difficult assignments, and if they've felt in their hearts, they want to let me go, that was fine with me, because I wasn't going to worry, because I think I'll land on my feet no matter what happens. And in this era we're in now with cutbacks and layoffs and the firings that have gone on, I don't think that they're geared up for that now. This system is changing, it's evolving into what I'm not sure, but it is evolving. And we're going to have to wait until it gets to where the owners see it, you know, that they feel comfortable. And then that's what we're going to have to work with, the end result of whatever they do.

And I don't think we're there yet, because I think they're still doing things. They're closing bureaus down, they're still laying people off, and they're reestablishing news budgets for news divisions. And I think there'll be less money there, and if there's less money, there'll be less jobs, if there's less jobs, there'll certainly be less jobs for black people. Speaking of what you mentioned about Ted Coppel, in your opinion, this is a good idea to erase tape you mentioned as a video history of what America was at that time and place. If you were in charge of that particular part, would you destroy tapes? There's no way you can do that. I mean, CBS maintains a very large archive, it's a library, with everything that CBS has had on the air, the outs, and everything is in those tapes in that library. And if they ever have to go back, history tends to repeat itself. And there are a lot of times an action that occurred 10 years ago, the ramifications and repercussions might not be felt 10 years later. And if you're trying to explain that story to the American viewers, you may have to go

back in that library and pull that tape out and say, remember, 10 years ago, when this act was made. And then you can make the connection and let them know what happened, and they'll have a better understanding of what's going on in the world they live in. And how anybody can destroy those tapes, I just, it's amazing to me, that they're trying to save money. There's got to be a better way to save money than destroying your lifeblood. You're on a few reporters have access to their product in the beginning to the end. How do you get to that position where you have editorial content over what is actually seen on the television? Well it comes from, you know, a working experience with the hierarchy, from, in my case, at CBS. You have to work with it. I've been working with them for 15 years. It didn't start out that way. When I first started out, I had other people who would say, no, we're going to do this. We should do this or that. Now I have a greater freedom to put what I want to put into a story. And I think it only comes out of growing with the network, growing with the company and having management have confidence in you. That's the most important thing. Any reporter or journalist can have is if their bosses have confidence in them, it takes a lot of weight off your back when you're going out trying to cover a story.

In your opinion, why is the National Association Black Journalist still a viable organization? It's viable because we're here and we're organized and we have someone or some watch group out there that can monitor the progress and the shortcomings of what happens to minorities by being involved in this industry. We're in a communication industry. A lot of times we don't communicate with ourselves and that's something we all have to work on. We have to communicate with each other in order to know what's going on and to see the storm coming, if you will. When Harold Dowell is not representing CVS television on many assignments, what are your other environments and interests? Being in touch with the people in my community, black people, I'm two different people and that's something I guess that every minority who works in this industry will make come to your realization. I'm not the guy you see on television. That's not me. I don't speak that way on the streets. I can't talk to my people that way, but I have to do that to keep my job. I always say to myself that the real me can't get on the air, but I can live with that.

I give them what they want, get the job done, then I can go home and be me. What does the future hold for Harold Dowell? Do you want to continue to be a CVS news correspondent? Do you want to move up in the management or possibly on the communication outlet? Well, I think I just want to kind of wait and see what happens, but jury's still out on whether or not I want to stay in this business another 10 years or whatever. I just want to wait and see where it's going. I got some signs now that don't look good, but I've seen things turn around overnight before. I better just wait and see what happens and I want to keep all my options open. Have any opportunity to travel around America and your opinion, what do you perceive the state of black America at the present time? Well, right now it is, I think, growing a bit. It's on the move, you know, four years ago, I guess, when Jesse Jackson was running for president, this might be a good bell weather. There are people who were counting him out even before he got in the race today. He has every appearance of being the front runner for the Democratic Party. He may not get the nod, but he's certainly in the running.

And I think that people now have grown accustomed to that impossibility and a thinking now that it is possible, perhaps. Maybe not Jesse Jackson, but maybe there'll be somebody else three, four years, ten years down the road who will run a successful campaign and end up at least getting the nomination. That's another step you've got to make. I remember when Richard Nixon ran for the presidency of the United States. He lost one time. He lost twice. The man never gave up. And if you stay up in the spotlight, in the limelight, you can turn it around. You can make it work and you can reach your goal. So if Richard Nixon can do it, yeah, just people like Jesse Jackson can do it too. CBS News correspondent Harold Dow. If you have a comment or would like to purchase a cassette copy of this program, write us. The address is in Black America, Longhorn, Radio Network, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 7-H7-12. For in Black America's technical producer Cliff Hargrove, I'm John L. Hanson, Jr., please join us next week.

You've been listening to In Black America, Reflections of the Black Experience in American Society. In Black America is produced and distributed by the Center for Telecommunication Services at UT Austin and does not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Texas at Austin or this station. This is the Longhorn Radio Network.