A COMPASSIONATE BUSINESS:   NICE GALS ..AND GUYS FINISH FIRST AND RUN MY WORLD

It’s a moment in your career that you never forget.  I remember it like it was yesterday. Nothing really happened, though. It was more like what didn’t happen. I didn’t get to meet her. And I didn’t get “the get” she got. She had outright beat me on the big story.

But was it really her?  That can’t be her, I thought.  I told the hotel concierge I thought she was wrong.

That tiny well dressed wafer of a woman was Shelley Ross?  THAT WAS HER?  The big TV producer?  The Iron Lady of network news who took prisoners, taught bookers to handcuff or kidnap (in one case, literally)… bookings and guests…and do whatever had to be done to win, place and (produce a) show.

I remember calling my CBS boss with the good news and the bad news.  The good news: That ABC was no longer there at the epicenter of the big story. Then the bad news: Shelley was the producer… And then the really bad news: She was leaving town with a bag full of tapes: her exclusive hidden camera prison interview with Luke Woodham, the alleged school shooter of the moment in Pearl, Mississippi.

And I was right behind her, checking in as she was checking out. She never saw me..didn’t even look my way. I wouldn’t meet her for another two years.

In the 90’s, Thursday nights were popcorn nights for me. I would stay in and watch all Shelley’s Prime Time exclusives with Diane Sawyer. I fantasized about working with them and making great television with them. A dream.

But first, back to my Luke Woodham nightmare: The woman at the other end of the bad news email chain was another household name in TV news.  Holly Hunter played her in the movie.  Broadcast News. But for her, it wasn’t a movie… It was her life. 18 hour days.  She was a human Amber alert for the entire CBS News operation. Shelley Ross…oops, .I mean, Susan Zirinsky. I think.

There I was interfacing…standing in between the two of them…kinda. One CBS veteran..I think it was Al Briganti once said, “I’d like to see the two of them in a locked room…and see who gets out alive”.

They were different but they were the same. And I must admit, I’ve never seen them in the same room together.

I never thought I was a Susan person, but long before I met her..I was addicted to her.  She was the Senior Producer for the CBS Evening News in Washington.  She published every day a list of every element…nugget…iota…detail…fax number associated with…EVERYTHING and ANYTHING one might need…just in case..if there was a power outage,  an earthquake..a plane crash.   She had the V I T A L  I N F O R M A T I O N  that someone may need.  It was the most organized, detailed phone/ story/contact sheet imaginable. And beautifully executed and perfectly margined I might add. Few spelling errors, I recall.

She was just as informative, in person.  A little too informative. Umm, unfiltered comes to mind.  Painfully honest, maybe?

What did you think of the hour, Susan.  “Please… just kill me.  Just stick a pen in my eye.”, she’d weep.  (When Shelley didnt like a piece, shed become almost physically ill, rocking her body gently and unable to even hit the stop button of the tape deck, “Make it stop, make it stop,”  she’d moan in distress.)

I collected that daily CBS Zirinsky Washington note..kept back copies of it…just in case I ever needed the fax number for the Secret Service shack at the Reagan Ranch in San Ysidro or the phone number in the kitchen of Camp David.

Holly Hunter spent a steambath of a summer with “Z” in DC.  To me that would be a dream vacation. Everyone called her “Z”.  I once nicknamed her “Susalah”. I think her grandmother was the only other person who called her that.

She took over 48 Hours after the original show honchos, Cathy Lasiewicz and before her Andrew Heyward, the shows creator. Cathy was a lovely mother to us all, years before becoming a Mom herself. Andrew was a superstar wordsmith and EP (but a not-as-great president).  Andrew cleverly saved 48 Hours from cancellation more than once and kept its budget low.  He also spoke excellent “Dan”,  that unusual quasi-Texan cornpone lingo of Dan Rather.

Susan spoke “Dan” fluently, even though she came from the core of the hard news division…the red, white and blue hot DC core.  I was more a Heyward person from the original staff of 48….but I worked on one of my great last contributions there under Susalah’s watch….a show about a boy named Charlie who became paralyzed in an ocean accident on Martha’s Vineyard. It was the first time anything I produced got reviewed by a newspaper. (The NY Daily News gave it a rave, btw)   It wasn’t nominated for any awards, though I felt it was award worthy. Only Sunday Morning got all the Emmy nominations, usually a couple a dozen a year. (Yes, an obsession of mine.)

Susan turned the little engine that could into a network gem…a real life “Law and Order.”  Crime rates and to Susan this was no pity party. Instead of lamenting the state of network news …she accepted the cold, hard (homicide) reality as content and championed her team …who would continue to step in to do big big breaking hours when needed. She honed and perfected the shows production values…something a hard newsie wouldn’t normally be good at.  She grew 48 into a mystery hour and appointment TV and a money stream, even creating at least one rendition for cable perpetuity. So, I’ll say it…what most people think …but bizarrely won’t say: This woman should run a network. News President?  She already is everyone’s secret news president…deep down.

But perhaps her greatest asset other than that she thought in Excel — BEFORE Excel…is that despite her hard news background,  she may have the biggest heart in television.   When one longtime worker bee producer faced a long dreadful battle with her son’s fatal cancer, Susalah was there every step of the way. Every day. Every minute. She was there. And, ever after.

In the elevator once with Mary Noonan, a fave colleague for years, we noticed that we were still getting used to Susan’s unfiltered…um, openness. When “Z” got off the elevator mid-conversation she stopped and looked back with: “I love you”.  We thought out loud…does she mean it?  She says it after screenings. In the hallway. On the way to the bathroom…we often got an “I love you”.  It took years to realize: she means it.

Which takes me back to her twin…you know the one. Who she was separated from…..at birth.  You remember.  That lady at the front desk in Pearl, Mississippi.  Shelley Ross.  Hold your breath, critics and snipers.  I have at least one story about her that you’ve never heard.  Have an open mind….and heart… for this one.

One particularly rainy summer night in New York at the GMA rim we got terrible news that a mother of one of our newer workerbee kids had died.   Her son, Jeremy Bennington was heading home to go see her since she had been seriously injured in a fall and was unaware of her passing. Shelley barely knew him. But it became her number one priority to make sure this young man was not alone when he got the news.

She formed a SWAT team and called an urgent meeting to get this kid home safe…protecting him from the oncoming pain, the big, bad world and the telephone.  One person was put in charge of contacting the airline. Another would arrange cars for him in both cities.   I remember Shelley…or was it “Susalah”… herself making a call to the airport supervisor. “Keep him off the phone….he MUST NOT hear about this in a phone call”.

For some reason, the people in this creative business attract and support passion. And compassion.

Ben Sherwood another genius with a big brain…and an even bigger heart  (author, broadcast producer, President, Chairman and King)  once ..in the middle of the night met a GMA producer at the airport with a grief counselor and mobilized a Zirinsky/Ross size army to support her family after a horrific tragedy in Southern California.  Hard News certainly has its share of softies.

During Shelley’s rescue mission, every step of the way this young man was coddled, fed by strangers, and escorted like a Secret Service special delivery.  Tender loving care from a woman who you’d think was a monster, if you believed some of the stories.

Oh yeah …it got in the newspaper.  She got angry when people made mistakes. Hmmmm. She would be pissed when people didnt do what they were told, so they say.   Wow, really?!  When men get angry and yell….they are “screamers”.   When women get aggressive like that….well…every nasty thing that could be said gets thrown in.

I am not an apologist nor am I delusional nor a Kool Aid drinker.   Did Shelley yell at people she shouldn’t have.  Absolutely.  I’ve raised my voice and yelled on occasion.  Its not good.   If we could rewind and change some of our reactions we would all be therapists..or magicians….or living in fiction.  Shelley surely must wish to have some re-dos.  But in life and in television, there are no re-do’s. I told Shelley she could run a movie studio, a bank, anything after the twelve hour programming monster of a morning show. Turns out she’d be content in helping the mammoth battle against cancer. (stay tuned about that.)

My buddy, superproducer and now, cameraman, Gary Wynn said it best: if you did what you were supposed to and did it right..you heard nothing from her.   But more than occasionally she would single out someone’s brilliance, production values, interviewing skill, lighting, bookings strategy that paid off. Whatever slam dunk hit her dopamine…she’d salute in an email to the entire staff.  Her herograms were legendary…like Andrew Heyward’s Christmas and holiday letters he’d write to every 48 Hours staffer singling out one or two contributions they made in the whole year in a well written mini-tribute. Current GMA Senior Executive Producer Tom Cibrowski often starts an email cheer that the anchors sometimes piggy back on when he’s thrilled with his team.  Just like a Ben Sherwood email…or more recently, Twitter love burst.

Chairman Ben does this every day on Twitter. Birthdays, anniversary with the company, milestones. And it means something.  Tape PA turned star producer Daisha Riley said to me the other day…”I didn’t think he remembered me…but he tweeted my birthday”.   You made her birthday, Ben.

It’s a crazy business and some days are really crazy…yet so worth it. And, boy, did I luck out.. how did I get such great bosses. Seriously.