I’ve unknowingly behaved inappropriately since then, but my rudeness toward Tom still bothers me. May he rest in peace.
When I first came on CNBC at ten o’clock I was supposed to be “the dessert” following Geraldo Rivera, who did nightly panel
discussions about the O.J. Simpson case. One day I got a call from an executive at CNBC telling me that the head of the network,
Roger Ailes, wanted me to know that Geraldo got a very high rating. He gave me the number. I got a very low rating, and he
gave me the number, and the show following mine, which was all about sex, got a very high number. My guest was a person in
show business, not the most famous you can imagine. I asked what Roger wanted me to do. He said, “He just wants you to have
that information.” I said, “Well, if
I
were covering the O.J. Simpson trial or doing shows about sex, I would have a high rating as well.” There was a silence,
and the fellow on the other end of the phone said, “Roger just wanted you to know.” Clearly a polite warning.
Since for me doing shows about sex was out of the question, I began to cover the O.J. Simpson case and soon was getting ratings
comparable to Geraldo’s. I had now entered the world of lawyers, but it was not my first experience.
That went back about ten years earlier when I was supposed to be doing a movie with a female star, and I was working on the
script with the writer for months. At the last moment, the female star withdrew from the picture and the producers decided
not to go forward with another actress. If they had called me and given me some explanation, I probably would have let it
go at that, but since I had been working on the script with the writer for months for no salary, I decided to sue them, even
though there wasn’t a signed contract, which in the movie business isn’t that unusual. This was the first and only time I
brought a suit. I’ve never been sued.
My lawyers warned me that the attorney for the other side was a real killer. I remember lying in bed in Los Angeles the night
before he was to take my deposition and wondering what he could possibly say to me, since I felt I was completely in the right
and had worked so long on the script. I imagined him digging out bad reviews from my past and reading them to me, but I’m
always prepared for any kind of a confrontation, so even though it was nerve-racking, part of me looked forward to it.
When I entered the room to be deposed, all the lawyers and the producers were sitting there. I looked at their lawyer, and
he was a most imposing figure, muscular, big, and very smart-looking. He asked with disdain who
was
I, anyway, to claim that I had worked on the script with the writer! He said, “Are you even a member of the Writers Guild?”
He obviously hadn’t done his homework. I said, “I am.” He sneered at me and asked, “Under what circumstances did you enter
the Writers Guild?” I said, “When the Twentieth Century Fox movie studio asked me to write the screenplay of Woody Allen’s
hit Broadway show
Play It Again, Sam
. He stared at me a moment and said, with some amusement, “Strike my question.”
They actually had asked Renée Taylor and Joe Bologna to do the screenplay, but since I had earlier worked successfully with
them, they asked the studio if I could join the screenwriting team. When Renée and Joe decided that they would prefer to work
on their own script, the studio went forward with me alone.
When I asked one of the executives why they were willing to do that he said, “Well, you were doing all the talking at the
meeting, anyway.” The movie was to star another actor, because Woody wanted to do two things on the movie, star and write,
I assume, but when Woody Allen opened in
Bananas
, a hit movie he had cowritten, starred in, and directed, they decided to go back to Woody to star in the movie version of
his play in which he had starred on Broadway. Woody read my script, was very complimentary, but felt it required more of an
actor than he was. I didn’t agree but thought he had certainly earned the right to write the screenplay of his own hit play,
which he did. We went back and forth in the deposition after that, and I believe it all ended with the producer’s willingness
to pay the costs of my lawyers. I didn’t earn any money, but I felt I had made a point. That was my first experience with
attorneys.
My experience with them continued later when I was covering the O.J. Simpson case. I had a live debate with Professor Alan
Dershowitz, who was on O.J. Simpson’s so-called dream team. More than one attorney around CNBC wondered aloud how Charles
Grodin, who a year before had been starring in a movie with a Saint Bernard, could possibly debate the renowned Professor
Dershowitz from Harvard.
It was an hour and a half debate and the response favored me 85 percent to 15 percent. Of course, it didn’t hurt that I was
against
O.J. Simpson. Later, more recently, I ran into Barry Scheck, the head of the Innocence Project with Peter Neufeld, another
member of the dream team. The Innocence Project is a wonderful organization that uses DNA as a way of getting innocent people
out of prison. I now support them financially and sometimes write about them for the
New York Daily News
Web site as well as doing commentaries in support of them.
About a year before I became a supporter of the Project, Barry Scheck confronted me at a book party and said that he had watched
my show with his teenage son one night a decade earlier and heard me wonder aloud how the defense team could sleep at night.
I said, “Someone who does such good work in getting innocent people freed with DNA evidence shouldn’t be representing O.J.
Simpson.” Other words were exchanged, and he turned his back on me and walked away, saying, “You should have more respect
for the adversary system.” I called after him, “I’m sure you’re right.” I doubt he knew I was being facetious. Given that
he knew how I felt about him, I still can’t understand why he’d watch me with his teenage son.
I think the jury system is flawed, because some cases are so incredibly complicated that they are, in my opinion, beyond a
layperson’s understanding of the law. I believe we should throw it out and have three judges unanimously rule one way or another
on cases.
Recently, I was a character witness in a case. The defense attorney described my journalistic background for the past thirteen
years, and the prosecutor described me simply as a professional actor. Lawyers want to win, and sometimes it seems to me that
the truth is most often secondary—at best.
No wonder I like to watch comedy tapes at night rather than courtroom shows.
At CNBC, there was a regular turnover in executives. Two really stand out. One was a woman who shouted at my producer in a
meeting about guests, “
No more old people!”
She was referring to two show business icons who had been my guests. The other was a man who regularly called meetings of
the staffs of the shows. I chose never to attend. He seemed to demoralize everyone with his comments and wasn’t there very
long. He had an odd habit of rocking on his heels as he spoke.
I don’t know if these people are out of the business, but I haven’t heard either of their names in years.
A startling thing happened when a top executive at NBC called me to say the head of NBC News asked him to tell me that I had
stumbled the night before. He meant my rating wasn’t at its usual level. I asked him if he had seen the show. He said, “No.”
That told me that content was irrelevant. The show consisted of the videos I had shot at the Bedford Hills maximum security
prison that led to four women being granted clemency. In fairness, he
did
say that whatever I had done could be used in the later part of the show. The show should begin with what today would be
called a hot topic. I chose not to follow his advice.
I once had a meeting with this head of NBC News who told me a story about how his friend Don Henley of the Eagles always taped
my show if he couldn’t see it when it was on. He said Don asked him if he had seen a particular monologue I had done. The
man, standing right in front of me, snorted in disdain and said, “Oh, God, no!”—like that was out of the question.
There’s an explanation for his rude behavior. It’s certainly not exclusive to him. Many people in the news business have a
patronizing attitude toward anyone who enters their field from elsewhere. They make false assumptions about lack of qualifications.
The truth is that throughout my life I’ve followed the news—social and political issues—a lot more than I’ve followed show
business, and I believe the success of my show speaks for itself. Also, I’ve been asked to broadcast commentary all these
years. The people in our country who may have something useful to say obviously are not all working in the news business.
A man whom I’ve found equally if not more offensive than the network executive is Steven Brill, the founder of Court TV. We’ve
never met, but once we were both at a party at Judge Catherine Cryer’s home and I chose not to walk over and speak to him.
I would hate to cause discord at someone’s party, and discord at least would have erupted had I spoken to Mr. Brill.
He once wrote in a newsletter of some kind that while he found me appealing in the Beethoven movies (a not so subtle dig),
he wondered how CNBC could have me sitting in the host’s chair. He acknowledged that he had never heard me say anything questionable,
“But what if something happens while he’s anchoring his show?” Surely, he said, NBC wasn’t suggesting that I was in the category
of Tom Brokaw or Brian Williams.
I found his observation insulting. I had recently covered the war in Kosovo, where things were
happening
all the time. You talk on a live satellite to the correspondent on the scene, and he tells you what’s happening. No one has
ever accused me of asking unworthy questions.
This mystifying of what it takes to be a good reporter is a joke. You don’t have to be an expert at anything, just know the
subject well enough to ask intelligent questions. In my observation, too often the so-called experts aren’t experts, and that
clearly applies to Mr. Brill.
Ironically, three of my biggest supporters were the three anchors of the network news, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, and Peter Jennings,
as well as Tim Russert and Jim Lehrer. I say this because they each chose to make it clear to me, not as a result of Mr. Brill’s
comment but just because they chose to.
If I sound riled up at Steven Brill, it’s because I am. That’s the effect arrogance has on me.
I debated whether I wanted to put the following story in this book. I felt if Steven Brill’s name ever came up in conversation
I would share it with friends, and while I undoubtedly won’t know most of the people reading this book, I figure if you’ve
come this far, that’s friendly enough for me.
Sometime in the nineties, Roger Ailes, who runs the Fox Cable Network and was then running CNBC, put together a whole evening’s
special with eleven television hosts onstage, most of them notable journalists. Among them was the late Tim Russert.
Roger had me seated center stage with five journalists to my right and five to my left. We would each host a segment of the
evening.
The fella who was second in command to Roger told me that his father called him after the special to say he felt I should
have hosted the entire special.
His father was Fred Friendly, Edward R. Murrow’s producer and a legend in the news business.
I should have asked Andy to have his dad give Steven Brill a call.
H
ere are the two most important things I learned from doing my cable show on CNBC. At this time, and for decades, if not always,
politicians who want to appear “tough on crime” have made it legal in New York to set up a sting operation on a young woman
on welfare with four small children, no record, and five dollars to her name.
Elaine Bartlett, an African American woman, was approached in Harlem by a police informant, a white man she knew casually
who offered her $2,500 to deliver four ounces of cocaine to someone in Albany. The man did this because he wanted a break
on his own drug offenses. The police didn’t seem to care who was being set up but wanted to build their arrest record.
Despite her boyfriend’s warnings, Elaine jumped at the chance. Elaine’s son later told me, “We had nothing.” On delivering
the package, Elaine was immediately arrested. She went to trial and was sentenced to twenty years to life at a maximum security
prison.
I was told about the case by Randy Credico, who now runs the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice along with Bill
Kunstler’s widow, Marge.
Randy, who has become a hero of mine, appeared on my CNBC show in the nineties. Another guest was Republican State Senator
Dale Volker, a former police officer. When Senator Volker appeared, he took the tough-on-crime position but allowed there
could be “some cases worth looking at.”
I went to Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, a maximum security prison in Bedford, New York, and did on-camera
interviews with Elaine Bartlett and three other young women with no prior records. One was a woman who was also set up by
the police. Another was a young woman who was dating a drug dealer, but there was no evidence that she dealt drugs, and the
fourth woman was a young mother of two who got hooked on cocaine to lose weight and was taking orders for a drug dealer. None
of these women had prior records, and between them they had a number of small children. The state seems to never consider
what will happen to the children when their mother is taken away for their entire childhood and longer.
I called Senator Volker and said I’d like to give a lunch in Albany for the Republican leadership and show them the video.
One of my producers, John Gabriel, worked with Senator Volker’s office to arrange the lunch, and the Republican leadership
came, headed by then Republican leader Senator Joe Bruno. I remember one senator said to me, “I’ve seen your show. If it was
up to you, you’d let everyone out of prison.” I said, “Nothing could be further from the truth. I believe there are many people
on the streets who should be in prison, and I believe there are many people who are let out of prison who never should have
been let out.”