Speaker 1: It's night Side with Dan Way on WBZ Boston's news video.
Speaker 2: Dan is off, He'll be off tonight, He'll be off
Speaker 2: tomorrow and return fresh as a daisy. January one, which
Speaker 2: is Wednesday. Night Side will begin another year, and I
Speaker 2: am Morgan filling in tonight. I'll be filling in on
Speaker 2: Tuesday tomorrow, and I've got a number of things to
Speaker 2: tell you. I am going to start with doctor David.
Speaker 2: Nathan was supposed to be on tonight. I know a
Speaker 2: lot of you heard me go over my Monday schedule,
Speaker 2: my schedule for tonight. There have been changes in carimebou
Speaker 2: sim me. If you're listening the hits, just keep on coming. No,
Speaker 2: doctor Nathan. He'll be joining me over Mark Luther King weekend.
Speaker 2: And Jerry Beck, who was scheduled for eight isn't near
Speaker 2: his phone, so we left the message we will endeavor
Speaker 2: to get him. My guests replaced Doctor Nathan, Joe Anne
Speaker 2: Desmond will be joining us at eight point fifteen. All right,
Speaker 2: so you can't tell the players without a scorecard. I
Speaker 2: had to make a lot of jumbling around and that's
Speaker 2: just been over the past three minutes. But I want
Speaker 2: to say a few words about President Jimmy Carter, thirty
Speaker 2: ninth President of the United States, Why Not? The best
Speaker 2: of book he wrote described him so appropriately. He was
Speaker 2: the right man for the right time, for the right job.
Speaker 2: And I know a lot of you listening necessarily don't
Speaker 2: agree with that, But look at the time he was
Speaker 2: running and succeeded as president, America had turmoils left, right, up,
Speaker 2: down and dead center in the middle, and he did
Speaker 2: the best he could to address those. He received a
Speaker 2: peace prize sewing up a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt,
Speaker 2: and after his presidency he continued to work for the people. Now,
Speaker 2: on Saturday on my show, The Morgan Show, I have
Speaker 2: Stu Fink on and he's going to be doing his
Speaker 2: Going but not Forgotten segment for all the people who
Speaker 2: we lost in twenty twenty four, and there will be
Speaker 2: a spotlight put on Jimmy Carter. So if you get
Speaker 2: a chance, I'm on nine to midnight this Saturday and
Speaker 2: every Saturday, and you'll hear Stu Fink with that special. Now,
Speaker 2: when you lose a president, be it after they served,
Speaker 2: while they were serving. It's a gut punch to America,
Speaker 2: and probably for most of you listening. Depending on your age,
Speaker 2: you recall the gut punch of November twenty second, nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty three, when the news of President John Kennedy's assassination
Speaker 2: just stunned all of us, and no matter who you were,
Speaker 2: a child like I was, or an adult, you felt it.
Speaker 2: Imagine having the responsibility of telling the people in your
Speaker 2: area that news. Well, I have a person who had
Speaker 2: to do that. And as a matter of fact, she
Speaker 2: was a trendsetter on her own because she was the
Speaker 2: first female newscaster here in Boston and across the country.
Speaker 2: And she's here to share with us that memory of
Speaker 2: what she would through and other hard points of her career.
Speaker 2: Joined Desmond. Welcome back to WBZ Radio.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Morgan. I'm delighted to be here.
Speaker 3: And how well you put that, what you just said,
Speaker 3: how I had goosebumps. It was beautiful, just what you said.
Speaker 2: Well, it is a fact that you had to look
Speaker 2: into the eye of a camera and tell the people
Speaker 2: watching that we lost that president.
Speaker 3: That's right. And in Boston that was so hard because
Speaker 3: he was a hometown boy and it was two hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty thousand people on the other side of the
Speaker 3: camera that I was talking to. So I was a
Speaker 3: mess the first time I ever went on the air
Speaker 3: with no makeup, hair uncombed, no shiny handshaking, scripture clearly upset,
Speaker 3: no time to go over the script or review which
Speaker 3: cameras would be on. When I never had such a devastating,
Speaker 3: exhausting day of reporting in my life. I will never
Speaker 3: forget that I have a.
Speaker 2: News, not news. I have a commercial break to take.
Speaker 2: Let me take it. When we come back, we'll delve
Speaker 2: deeper into this situation. If people want to call in
Speaker 2: six one, two, five, fourteen thirty or eight eight, eight, nine, two, nine,
Speaker 2: ten thirty, You're more than welcome. Please do call in
Speaker 2: and we'll share some memories with Joined Desmond, former Channel
Speaker 2: four newscaster. Time and temperature eight fifteen fifty one degrees.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Way Live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Night Sights Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: Dan is off tonight. I am Morgan, Morgan White Junior, Philly.
Speaker 2: I'll be here tonight and tomorrow night. Dan. We'll be
Speaker 2: back Wednesday. Happy New Year, the first of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: Right now, I've got Joinned Desmond, who was well known.
Speaker 2: We saw her every Monday through Friday on TV four
Speaker 2: for the six o'clock and eleven o'clock news when we lost.
Speaker 2: When I heard yesterday that we lost Jimmy Carter made
Speaker 2: me think back to that moment. Now, there's no comparison.
Speaker 2: Jimmy Carter passed away at one hundred, lived to be
Speaker 2: a ripe old age of one hundred. But it made
Speaker 2: me think of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy and
Speaker 2: I have somebody who is right there reporting to all
Speaker 2: the Bostonians watching TV four that the president had been assassinated.
Speaker 2: What else can you tell me about that day for
Speaker 2: you sitting at the anchor desk.
Speaker 3: I like the way you put that, because everybody had
Speaker 3: a different kind of day going on for them, and
Speaker 3: we all were hit at some point in the day
Speaker 3: by this incredible news. Here's my story. All of us
Speaker 3: as reporters at WBZ had to do what we called
Speaker 3: ride the wires. That was the name of the job,
Speaker 3: and it meant that you had to listen to the
Speaker 3: wire machines who's brought in the news, Associated Press, the UPI,
Speaker 3: United Press International, And that was my job on that day.
Speaker 3: It fell to me Lucky me, and I didn't like
Speaker 3: it because I was working on another story for the
Speaker 3: evening news that I wanted to focus on it, but
Speaker 3: I had to listen to it. And these little machines
Speaker 3: kept rattatatting through the day, very irritating, but sometimes you
Speaker 3: had to stop and if there was a port and
Speaker 3: bullet and they would go ding ding ding, three dings,
Speaker 3: that meant get up here and look at this, and
Speaker 3: then we'd do what we call rip and read. That
Speaker 3: means you ripped it off, you ran into the studio
Speaker 3: and they read it on the air if it was
Speaker 3: a hot news story. On this particular day, I heard
Speaker 3: it go not just three dings ding ding ding, it
Speaker 3: was ten in a row. What's going on? So I
Speaker 3: ran up to the machine and I looked at it
Speaker 3: and it was stopped. I went back and sat down
Speaker 3: and said, oh, dear, well, I hope nothing's wrong with it.
Speaker 3: Started up again, the ding ding ding, and I rushed
Speaker 3: over to the machine and there was a message on
Speaker 3: it saying get off. Everybody, get off, And that meant
Speaker 3: that all of these people who fed news into this
Speaker 3: machine throughout the nation were told to get off. I
Speaker 3: just stood there, stunned, I'd never seen anything like this,
Speaker 3: and I thought, well, who do I call to fix
Speaker 3: this thing? Then came the words it started up again.
Speaker 3: Then came the words in capital letters. President Kennedy shot Dallas.
Speaker 3: Oh God, no guest or. And then I whirled around
Speaker 3: and I said, hey, everybody over here. Well, I was
Speaker 3: the only girl, the only female in the studios, in
Speaker 3: the newsroom, so they sometimes didn't pay any attention, but
Speaker 3: today they did the way I've talked, get over here.
Speaker 3: We all watched the news bullet and come in President
Speaker 3: Kennedy seriously wounded, and the story unfolded over the next
Speaker 3: few minutes. Then ed FULI, our news director, came in
Speaker 3: and gave us each assignments and said, you get out
Speaker 3: of here and go interview Tip O'Neill. You go to
Speaker 3: interview this person. I got Tip O'Neill, whom I adored.
Speaker 3: Tip was like a big uncle. He was just so sweet.
Speaker 3: Oh he was a nice man, and he would always
Speaker 3: say hello, dog, and which is word for me? Then
Speaker 3: you know, now today's world, when I see so many
Speaker 3: people say, oh don't you call me darling? I mean,
Speaker 3: I just loved him. I wanted to just be a
Speaker 3: little girl and crawl in his lap. He was so sweet,
Speaker 3: but anyway, this is big Irish face was just swollen
Speaker 3: with tears. And when I see his picture at the
Speaker 3: in Boston, hanging up at the post office, I think
Speaker 3: it is I often say hello, Doll, and I'll remember
Speaker 3: that day and the most moving interview he gave me.
Speaker 3: He'd helped John F. Kennedy rise from his earliest days
Speaker 3: in Boston politics, gave him all sorts of tips. That's
Speaker 3: how I got the name tip O'Neil, tips and I
Speaker 3: loved tips. I loved tip O'Neil. And the tears were
Speaker 3: pouring down my cheeks too, but luckily my back was
Speaker 3: to the camera. And after that interview, we made our
Speaker 3: way down Boylston Street and did a lot of men
Speaker 3: on the street interviews, and one that I thought would
Speaker 3: be unique. I saw carp stopped at a light right
Speaker 3: about well right about Boylston, so I poked my live
Speaker 3: mic through the window and I asked the people in there.
Speaker 3: I heard them saying, oh no, for their reactions to
Speaker 3: the news, I do what I get. We all got
Speaker 3: it all on camera, their shock, their sadness, the radio
Speaker 3: blurting out the news in the background, all of it,
Speaker 3: and then the traffic light suddenly changed and I quickly
Speaker 3: pulled my mic back out and the car drove away, slowly, sadly. Luckily,
Speaker 3: the camera man I was working with went along with it,
Speaker 3: and he stayed on that shot the back of the
Speaker 3: car as it pulled away. It was a different than
Speaker 3: the usual man on the street interview, but that unique
Speaker 3: piece was used several times in the later newscasts at
Speaker 3: WDZTV over the coming days. And you know, Morgan, that
Speaker 3: just provided the perfect rap to all the other man
Speaker 3: on the streets that people were doing. It gave a
Speaker 3: sad but unique sense of finality. Is that car drove
Speaker 3: away with the people you knew who were mourning inside.
Speaker 3: That was the Yeah.
Speaker 2: As I watched news today, both national news and local news,
Speaker 2: people seemed to be comfortable. It's almost like you knew
Speaker 2: he was in hospice. He was in hospice a long time.
Speaker 2: People normally are in hospice for a week or two
Speaker 2: and then pass on, but he was in hospice for
Speaker 2: at least the year.
Speaker 3: So you I didn't already yeah, already anticipating an end
Speaker 3: to the Jimmy Carter story.
Speaker 2: And that's what makes my talking to you so apropos
Speaker 2: because that's the story that punched America right in the gut,
Speaker 2: that our president was taken from us by an assassin's bullet.
Speaker 3: Right. He didn't have that time to make peace with
Speaker 3: with whatever needs to be made peace with. He didn't
Speaker 3: have time to go over his memories. Is I'm sure
Speaker 3: Jimmy Carter must have done during his time in the hospital,
Speaker 3: and just just to be able to review your life
Speaker 3: and to see it in focus. He never had that chance.
Speaker 3: It was just and the Carter.
Speaker 2: Complex for memoirs and memories and his history through politics.
Speaker 2: Say what, let me take a call. We have news
Speaker 2: and you and I will stay to the top of
Speaker 2: the hour. David and San Francisco, Thank you for calling.
Speaker 2: Welcome to BC, Happy.
Speaker 4: New Year, Thank you for going. Happy New too.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I have a story that Jimmy Carter's I find interesting.
Speaker 4: By the way, he was at the hospitals for twenty
Speaker 4: two months.
Speaker 2: Wow, almost two years?
Speaker 4: Yeah, almost two years. Okay. My story is that in
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy six, when Jimmy Carter was running for president,
Speaker 4: he had to what's the word lobbie or every state
Speaker 4: by state, all fifty states to have his name as
Speaker 4: Jimmy Carter on the ballot because his full name was
Speaker 4: James Earl Carter. Now was okay. Eight years before nineteen
Speaker 4: seventy six, in nineteen sixty eight, Martin Luther King was
Speaker 4: shot and killed supposedly by a man named James Earl Ray. Yes,
Speaker 4: and that's why Jimmy Carter wanted to have his name
Speaker 4: is Jimmy Carter on the ballot so that the voters
Speaker 4: would not be confused as to him between him and
Speaker 4: James Earl Ray. So that's my story there.
Speaker 2: Interesting fact.
Speaker 4: One more thing, One more thing, Uh, Maria, do you
Speaker 4: remember Carter's little Liverpool pills?
Speaker 2: Yes, advertised advertised on yeah, those Amateur Hour.
Speaker 4: Oh that's right, I remember that. I remember some uh
Speaker 4: it sounds like it came from a newspaper. Reporter somewhere
Speaker 4: made up this thing as pretty clever. And he referred
Speaker 4: to all the people have voted for Jimmy Carter. He
Speaker 4: called them Carter's little lever polls. Oh dear, I remember that.
Speaker 4: I remember that too. So now and you all have
Speaker 4: a nice New Year's and thank you for taking my call.
Speaker 3: It brings the mind to me something else that Jimmy
Speaker 3: Carter and Robert John F. Kennedy shared, which is neither
Speaker 3: one of them had the kind of beginning or the
Speaker 3: kind of preparation for politics that would be the most ideal.
Speaker 3: In fact, both of them had just the opposite. Jimmy
Speaker 3: Carter came from a peanut farmer for being a peanut
Speaker 3: farmer in a small yeah, and exactly. And then Kennedy
Speaker 3: was from a Catholic background at his he was the
Speaker 3: first Catholic president in the United States. So they had
Speaker 3: a lot to fight against. It wasn't one of those
Speaker 3: things where it was just an automatic shoe in. Both
Speaker 3: of them overcame whatever problems they had as young people
Speaker 3: to go on and become president.
Speaker 2: But being Katholic worked against Kennedy, or may not against definitely.
Speaker 3: Not for him exactly exactly. And being just a simple
Speaker 3: peanut farmer didn't help Jimmy Carter either. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: it's right. So both of them had to fight their
Speaker 3: early there, what they came in with, what their their
Speaker 3: earlier life was all about. But one thing that I
Speaker 3: your your caller was saying, these are some of the
Speaker 3: things that happened as a result of that and I've
Speaker 3: found in doing some research on this memory that I
Speaker 3: have of Kennedy's last day was that that the there
Speaker 3: were always some things that were were good that come
Speaker 3: out of everything that's bad. That's what I've found again
Speaker 3: and again, and his sudden death did highlight the need
Speaker 3: that we had absolutely no constitutional guidance for change. We
Speaker 3: had nothing that said here's what happens.
Speaker 2: I wait, wait, I'm sorry it. I have to take
Speaker 2: a news hit, and when we come back, we'll delve
Speaker 2: into that and talk about Congress making some changes in
Speaker 2: our history because of the Kennedy assassination. Let me take
Speaker 2: my break and we'll get back. Time and temperature eight
Speaker 2: thirty one. Here on Nightside fifty one.
Speaker 1: Degrees night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: Dan is off tonight and tomorrow night. Actually he was
Speaker 2: off all last week. My name. I am here holding
Speaker 2: the fort, and then we'll be back on Wednesday, right
Speaker 2: where he belongs behind this microphone. But for now, I
Speaker 2: am here, and I'm joined by a former Channel four employee,
Speaker 2: Joann Desmond, who was the first female And you know,
Speaker 2: I'm betting you feel uncomfortable hearing people always lead with
Speaker 2: that intro for you, because I like what you said
Speaker 2: that I'm not a woman, I'm a reporter.
Speaker 3: Well I am a woman, But first, first of all,
Speaker 3: I was a reporter, absolutely, absolutely, And you know, in
Speaker 3: those days we didn't just nowadays, an anchor person as
Speaker 3: someone who pretty much stays in the studio. They don't
Speaker 3: tend to leave the studio very often people come to
Speaker 3: them for interviews, right, But a reporter went out in
Speaker 3: the field and and saw things and talked with people
Speaker 3: and saw it with their own eyes, and could had
Speaker 3: to write their own scripts and get it ready to
Speaker 3: come back in. I was an anchor slash reporter. I
Speaker 3: did both, and that I hadn't done anymore. So it
Speaker 3: was exhausting, But that's how it went.
Speaker 2: We went into the break with this subject, and I
Speaker 2: want to get right back to it. After the president
Speaker 2: was assassinated the last of sixty three and beginning in
Speaker 2: sixty four, Congress passed a couple of bills. Right because
Speaker 2: of that, let's talk about those.
Speaker 5: Bills, Okay, okay, in fact example, okay, well again, Within
Speaker 5: three months of that, the House and the Senate both
Speaker 5: agreed on the warning of what was going to become
Speaker 5: the twenty fifth Amendment, and that would come into being
Speaker 5: law in February nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 3: Section one of that twenty fifth Amendment made it very
Speaker 3: clear that the vice president that the vice president became
Speaker 3: president whenever the president became vacant under these three circumstances, death, resignation,
Speaker 3: or removal from office. Section two gave the president, on
Speaker 3: the other hand, the power to name a new vice
Speaker 3: president is that became vacant with the he had to have. However,
Speaker 3: the permission of Congress and the amendments to other sections
Speaker 3: detail the process for vice president to serve as acting
Speaker 3: president if the president was then able to perform is
Speaker 3: or her duties, and how to resolve any disputes about
Speaker 3: the president's ability to discharge official powers. So the choice
Speaker 3: that amendment was was, now, did we ever use the
Speaker 3: twenty fifth Amendment? As the next question? Was it just
Speaker 3: some obsolete that they did.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 3: The twenty fifth Amendment was actually called into play in
Speaker 3: October nineteen seventy three when Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned.
Speaker 3: Gerald Ford became the new vice president in December of
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy three, and Ford himself invoked that twenty fifth
Speaker 3: Amendment nine months later when he nominated Nelson Rockefeller as
Speaker 3: vice president after Nixon's resignation. So again, when something happens,
Speaker 3: as I write my book, I'm very interested in what
Speaker 3: was the upshot of a story that I covered? How
Speaker 3: did the sax the nation? And this is a pretty
Speaker 3: good example our twenty fifth Amendment.
Speaker 2: I always found it. I just used the word suspicious
Speaker 2: that Joel Ford was part of the Warren Commission. In
Speaker 2: the Warren Commission spent months and months and months studying
Speaker 2: the Kennedy assassination, and a member of the Warrant Commission
Speaker 2: became President of the United States through circumstances. I always
Speaker 2: found that suspicious. But to what end?
Speaker 3: But I think you're one of the few people, Stuart,
Speaker 3: enough to watch that and come up with that suspicions. Congratulations,
Speaker 3: I didn't. I didn't you thought, But you're right. I mean,
Speaker 3: that would be suspicious, definitely. I'm going to ask that's
Speaker 3: what makes you so much fun.
Speaker 2: I want to ask you a very sticky question. As
Speaker 2: a woman. We've heard about all of these circumstances and
Speaker 2: the me too movement of the recent past five ten years,
Speaker 2: But back in the mid sixties, did you have to
Speaker 2: fend off unwanted attention, and that's the best way I
Speaker 2: can and say it. Like some of the women in
Speaker 2: the Me Too movement of today, well, it would.
Speaker 3: Make a much better story if I could tell you
Speaker 3: that I had to struggle and fight with my colleagues,
Speaker 3: if they chased me around the desk, that would be
Speaker 3: a much more exciting story. But I have to tell
Speaker 3: you I worked with the best. I have to be
Speaker 3: honest and say that I had. If I'd had a
Speaker 3: hashtag from those days as the only woman in broadcast
Speaker 3: news in Boston, it might read why not me? Because
Speaker 3: the truth is, my male colleagues and I got along
Speaker 3: so well. Mostly I think it's because they were highly
Speaker 3: principled men of good character. We liked and respected each other.
Speaker 3: We worked so hard, and I suppose some wag would say,
Speaker 3: she's we're working so hard, we've got time for an affair.
Speaker 3: But what the fact is, no one would ever think
Speaker 3: of that. I knew their wives. Their wives had have
Speaker 3: me over for dinner. We were it was like a
Speaker 3: big family. We all liked each other, and most important
Speaker 3: to me, we respected each other.
Speaker 2: I didn't have to experience that at all. You where
Speaker 2: did you go when you left Boston.
Speaker 3: I did get married when I left Boston and went overseas. Overseas,
Speaker 3: I have to admit the part of my problem was
Speaker 3: that the Boston Strangler was seemed to be following me
Speaker 3: and lots of different places in the studio and waiting
Speaker 3: for me there, and in my home coming to my home,
Speaker 3: a number of different places. I was just nervous. And
Speaker 3: I had fallen in love with a young military officer
Speaker 3: who said, I'm on my way to uncle a Turkey,
Speaker 3: and I'd like to have you come with me as
Speaker 3: my wife. I liked it. I was in love with him,
Speaker 3: but I was also terrified of the Stranglers, and so
Speaker 3: I said yes, and we we went off on the
Speaker 3: other side of the world where I knew i'd be safe.
Speaker 3: Let me think that was a part of it, frankly, Yeah,
Speaker 3: let me clarify that.
Speaker 2: As you covered the story of the Boston Strangler and
Speaker 2: It's Heyday, yep, you received unwanted attention from the strangler.
Speaker 2: You never confronted face to face. But he got into
Speaker 2: the TV studio, into the he got into the building
Speaker 2: and onto the set, but never face to face with you.
Speaker 2: He came into your apartment building knocked on your front door,
Speaker 2: but thank goodness, you never answered the door.
Speaker 6: But when your yeah, yeah, you got confronted by the
Speaker 6: Boston Strangler, you meant that as the man himself.
Speaker 2: Had designs on you. And I don't blame you for
Speaker 2: being I don't blame you for being afraid and figuring, well,
Speaker 2: I can get married to a man I love and
Speaker 2: being a safe location thousands of.
Speaker 3: Miles away, right, And we had a happy marriage and
Speaker 3: we had three beautiful children, so it was fine. But
Speaker 3: but I can't say for sure it was the Boston Strangler.
Speaker 3: I have to say that was never proven, but it
Speaker 3: sure looked mysterious to me, and especially when he came
Speaker 3: to the studio and my colleagues had seen one of
Speaker 3: them had seen him, and he thought he was there
Speaker 3: to learn about the weather. So the description was very
Speaker 3: similar to what we know about the Strangler. But again
Speaker 3: I have to as a Newswoman, I have to say
Speaker 3: this is not has not and pinned down with absolute proof.
Speaker 3: But it's sure suspicious. Okay, So enough about that. It
Speaker 3: it rated, it did get it did leave me something
Speaker 3: terrible and dangerous, as the Strangler led me to a
Speaker 3: very happy marriage. So I find again and again things
Speaker 3: that seemed to be awful, awful.
Speaker 2: Overall things absolutely things worked out, things worked out for you.
Speaker 2: Let me take a break. When we come back, I
Speaker 2: want you to tell your backstory, college, your backstory, your college,
Speaker 2: your early career. Time here on night Side eight forty
Speaker 2: five fifty one degrees.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World
Speaker 1: Night Sex Studios on WBZ the news radio.
Speaker 2: Joan, excuse me, Joan Desmond is my guest? You want
Speaker 2: to call in? I'm almost out of time with Joe
Speaker 2: Anne six one, seven, two, five, four ten eight eight
Speaker 2: excuse me, nine to nine, ten thirty. Oh Morgan, don't
Speaker 2: come down with laryngitis, please, Joe Anne. Yes, how'd you
Speaker 2: get started?
Speaker 3: Ah? What a good question, What a very good question.
Speaker 3: I have a phrase that goes through my head, has
Speaker 3: gone through my head since I was a little girls.
Speaker 3: I have several, and I think those phrases help me
Speaker 3: move forward. And one of my favorites was why not
Speaker 3: there was no when I looked at the newspapers, there
Speaker 3: was no ad. That's not where you'll see that. There's
Speaker 3: no never going to be an ad for an anchor
Speaker 3: woman or a television news reporter in the newspaper. That's
Speaker 3: not how it happens. But I did learn another good tip,
Speaker 3: which was just get into the organization somehow. Get in
Speaker 3: somewhere at some level. Maybe it's aboutom, but just get
Speaker 3: in and then keep your ears open. That's just what
Speaker 3: I did, And later I heard Barbara Walters say the
Speaker 3: same thing, that that's how she did it. And so
Speaker 3: I just started doing some programs over at one TV
Speaker 3: station and they afterwards, we'd sit around and Julia Childs
Speaker 3: was in the next studio doing her cooking show We
Speaker 3: get all her her leftovers, and somebody said to me, G,
Speaker 3: you know, I hear that WVZ is looking for a
Speaker 3: new anchor woman, the Betty Adams is getting married and
Speaker 3: to leave. Wow, that's all I needed. I was out
Speaker 3: there the next day knocking on the door because I
Speaker 3: thought to myself, why not, What can I lose? What
Speaker 3: if I had to lose? They hired me and I
Speaker 3: got that wonderful job, dream job because I was in
Speaker 3: it in the midieu where I could hear this conversation
Speaker 3: stuff going on after hours after our work was done.
Speaker 3: Just a casual comment. I hear they're looking for a
Speaker 3: new one. Oh that's just what I needed.
Speaker 2: And Grimal two and Channel four were neighbors.
Speaker 3: That's right, But oh do I love Channel four. I'll
Speaker 3: tell you Channel four gave me the top stories. Well,
Speaker 3: at first they weren't sure about me, and they gave
Speaker 3: me the light fluffy stuff, you know, like go out
Speaker 3: and ride with the race in the coaches with the
Speaker 3: in the races, go out to Suffolk Downs and do
Speaker 3: this little the biggest squash in the garden for the
Speaker 3: summer season. Things like that, and the canaria that can
Speaker 3: sing traviata and that sort of thing. A little stuff.
Speaker 3: But within two months they started me out with a
Speaker 3: big time stuff. And no one in print journalism could
Speaker 3: do that. No one else, accept people in television news,
Speaker 3: which was inventing itself at that time, could get away
Speaker 3: with what they had me go to. I was so
Speaker 3: thrilled that they gave me the big stories, the biggest
Speaker 3: news stories, and had I had to show that I
Speaker 3: was worth worth their confidence. So it made me carter.
Speaker 3: But I'll tell you WDZ sent me out to interview
Speaker 3: the Versus Mercury astronauts. Of course I did, Martin Luther King.
Speaker 3: I was so thrilled for that. I did Danny Kay,
Speaker 3: I did Peter Houston talk Jim Watson, who developed the
Speaker 3: DNA the double helix, and it just went on and on,
Speaker 3: the big time stuff. I spent every weekend at the
Speaker 3: Boston Library because in those days we didn't have internet
Speaker 3: to look things up, and so I had my own
Speaker 3: files that I would carry with me in and out
Speaker 3: every day.
Speaker 2: Research.
Speaker 3: And you didn't have research.
Speaker 2: I'm betting you did not have an intern working for
Speaker 2: you looking stuff up.
Speaker 1: You look stuff up, you bet.
Speaker 3: And furthermore, we did our own fact checking. There were
Speaker 3: no fact checkers in those days, and you didn't want
Speaker 3: and Ed Fui, our wonderful boss at that time, said,
Speaker 3: is that a first person or is that second? Did
Speaker 3: you hear that straight from the from the person who
Speaker 3: did it or said it, or did you have that
Speaker 3: as a secondary source. And he wanted always to be
Speaker 3: sure that we were saying the right thing. And I
Speaker 3: appreciated that, so we had to do that. I'll tell
Speaker 3: you one little episode that happened. I think it's so
Speaker 3: important you say, tell me about your early life. I
Speaker 3: think some of the things that happened in my early
Speaker 3: life had quite a bit of influence on what later
Speaker 3: happened each of the news shows that I did. I
Speaker 3: did the morning news, and then they started the news
Speaker 3: at noon, which they started for Jack Chase and me
Speaker 3: because our ratings were going up. And so then after
Speaker 3: I finished those daytime shows, they put me on the
Speaker 3: evening news, which was great. But when I joined the
Speaker 3: evening news team as one of the anchors, I wondered
Speaker 3: if I'd ever become part of their ritual they had
Speaker 3: followed the evening news. I thought maybe it was just
Speaker 3: a guy thing. What they would do is go over
Speaker 3: to Howard Johnson's next door and they talk over the
Speaker 3: day before they went back to their homes. They'd sort
Speaker 3: of get it all off her chests out of their
Speaker 3: heads before they went home. And finally they invited me
Speaker 3: after months and months, They said, do you have to
Speaker 3: hurry home to it? I said, well, no, I'm just
Speaker 3: going home. I don't rush, But well, well, why don't
Speaker 3: you just join us for a few minutes over at
Speaker 3: Hojo's tonight?
Speaker 5: You might just pay it. Wow.
Speaker 3: It reminded me of a time when I was about
Speaker 3: ten years old and one of the boys on our
Speaker 3: school playground noticed that I could hit a baseball pretty hard,
Speaker 3: pretty far for a girl. He said, yeah. And Edie
Speaker 3: asked me if I'd like to play on the all
Speaker 3: boys team. Was I thrilled? They were about they were
Speaker 3: two years older than I was, and I kept thinking,
Speaker 3: I get to play with the big boys.
Speaker 2: You made it when you get into a group of
Speaker 2: boys ten, twelve, fourteen years old through sports and you're
Speaker 2: judged as an equal. You maybe let me take let
Speaker 2: me take one more call. Let's go to Millicon and
Speaker 2: speak to Alex. Alex, you've got Joanne Desmond.
Speaker 7: Hi, Joanne. You know I was going to share a
Speaker 7: quick story. My dad had a restaurant and you talk
Speaker 7: when you mentioned Jack Chase. He did a story about
Speaker 7: a Greek immigrant, and I still have their eight I
Speaker 7: think there are eight millimeteria tapes we have him, you know,
Speaker 7: digitalized now, but back then on the partment it was
Speaker 7: the bi centennial, I think. But my dad came over
Speaker 7: to this country and he was he worked hard, and
Speaker 7: he had his whole family there, you know, helping out.
Speaker 7: And so Jack was really I don't recall too well
Speaker 7: because I was a little kid, but he he was
Speaker 7: so gracious and he uh, he sat down with my
Speaker 7: dad and he did the one of you.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's wonderful. What a great story that is. And
Speaker 3: where did your father come from? Did you say?
Speaker 7: Greyeah? We lost we lost him a couple of months ago.
Speaker 7: But he was ninety six and he was in Harborside
Speaker 7: for you know, when he came to this country and
Speaker 7: then he went out on his own and opened up
Speaker 7: to breakfast shops.
Speaker 3: How absolutely marvelous. That's a great American story. And Jack
Speaker 3: Chase is the doll. And Morgan thought Jack Chase is
Speaker 3: wonderful because he knew him as when Morgan was a
Speaker 3: little boy.
Speaker 2: Right, Morgan, Yes, I used to watch Getting out of Kindergarten,
Speaker 2: Unt Maynt Thelma. I had to go to her house
Speaker 2: because the school was one block away, and she would
Speaker 2: watch me during the day till my mother got home.
Speaker 2: And I would love Jack Chase and Dark Kent and Alex.
Speaker 2: Do you remember Jack Chase's tagline, Uh let.
Speaker 7: Me see uh something. Oh shush my memory, I'm drawing blank.
Speaker 1: Go out and make it a good day, make.
Speaker 7: It a good day. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, right, exactly right.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 7: Jack was a doll.
Speaker 3: He was every bit as kind and generous and charming
Speaker 3: as you saw him on television. He was the real thing.
Speaker 7: Yeah yeah, a waves, goodbye, goodbye, Happy New Year.
Speaker 3: H that's a charming story. Don Kent was just as
Speaker 3: sweet as Jack. Absolutely and I.
Speaker 2: Interviewed Don don Kent three times, each time than the last.
Speaker 2: Now I want to take a news break and wavene
Speaker 2: and then your phone will ring. It will be me
Speaker 2: requesting your time on the radio. Okay.
Speaker 3: Always a pleasure. It's always a pleasure talking to you.
Speaker 3: Thank you more, thank you, Joanne.
Speaker 2: All right, now I'm gonna get some water from a voice,
Speaker 2: and next hour we're gonna talk about Boston music performers,
Speaker 2: the places they played, and the music they made. Time
Speaker 2: eight fifty eight fifty one degrees