The Derelict Gunslinger

Real Reporters Don’t Do Happy Talk

I don’t remember ever wanting to be a news reporter. But at the age of twenty-seven, I got stuck doing the news for a tiny radio station that was trying to salvage sponsored newscasts after the wire service was repossessed. For ten years, I learned the basics of broadcast journalism in the Northern California towns of Sonora, Yuba City and Chico, and in Baton Rouge where I strapped on my derelict gunslinger’s belt before moving to Miami.

By the time I arrived in Boston, I was a hotshot at digging into public records and convincing reluctant sources to tell me secrets. And I was overly eager to impress other reporters with the muckraking skills of a “real journalist.” I wanted them to know I not just another pretty face, as if there was any doubt.

Unfortunately, it was a bad time to nourish my delusion of journalistic prowess. TV news was edging toward young, attractive correspondents, and abbreviated viewer-friendly stories that did not require digging into documents. My obsession with establishing legitimacy was a major handicap.

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As a “real journalist,” I rejected hair spray, makeup, cosmetic succors, and/or surgical scalpels.When a casual acquaintance at a social gathering learned of my job for the first time, she asked, “Are you actually on TV?”  Acknowledging that I was left her dumbfounded. “You look so ordinary.”

I endured yet another blow to the charisma in a newspaper article that was mostly complimentary of my muckraking talents, even though the writer was under-whelmed by my appearance. He described me as looking “more like an insurance agent than an investigative reporter.”

The insurance man was not identified. Presumably, he was ordinary looking. Anyway, I was well aware that TV folks were supposed to look like TV folks and took no offense to the portrayal. If my muckraking show closed in Boston, maybe I could get a job selling insurance.

Of more concern to newsroom producers than my on-air appearance was the length of my stories. “How long is it?” was the first question when I told them a segment was ready. No matter the length, no matter the topic, no matter the magnitude of the story, the reaction was usually the same.

“To long, can you cut it down?” For the most part, I ignored time limits at the expense of my popularity.And my job.

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By the early eighties, television investigative reporting was in free-fall in Boston, as well as in other major cities around the country. Before departing WCVB and launching a job hunt, I had heard grumbling at gatherings of Investigative Reporters and Editors that topflight muckrakers were being forced to do superficial consumer oriented and/or “viewer friendly” stories.

It was evidence of an insidious trend away from television’s post-Watergate attempts at hard-edged investigative reporting. Perhaps it was time for me to pursue my dream of being a rock and roll disc jockey. An oldie playing oldies.

But an old friend interceded by promising me great things if I returned to Baton Rouge. It was a giant step backwards in a business that measures success by market size. More disturbing, though, was the fear of revisiting the horrors of my past.