Walter's Visit Draws Spotlight
Posted Courtesy of The Post and Courier (http://www.charleston.net)
BY PRENTISS FINDLAY
Of The Post and Courier Staff
I've never seen "The View." Daytime TV isn't my thing. But in my view, Barbara Walters coming here for "The View" show on Monday at the College of Charleston makes the broadcast a big deal. Without Walters, it's just another TV program that has discovered the charms of Charleston.
No offense to Meredith Vieira, Star Jones, Joy Behar and the rest of "The View" cast and crew. I'm sure they're fine people who work hard to put on a popular show. They're not, however, broadcast journalism pioneers like Walters. In 1976, she broke the gender barrier with her appointment as co-anchor of the ABC evening news. She was paired with Harry Reasoner on the anchor desk. It was 17 years before Connie Chung followed her as a co-anchor with Dan Rather at CBS. No network has tried the same sort of nightly news pairing since.
Chung has faded off the TV screen since the demise of her CNN show, "Connie Chung Now," but Walters is riding high. She's the queen of celebrity interviews. Although Walters will no doubt get a royal welcome here, her debut as a network news co-anchor was rocky. Reasoner wasn't keen on their pairing, but ABC executives saw it as a way to boost ratings. It was a way to break taboos and shake up established broadcasting traditions. They were shooting for the same kind of success they had with "Monday Night Football."
"The ABC evening news show lacked imagination, promotion and packaging. The logic of pairing Walters and Reasoner, flawed though it turned out to be, flowed from the phenomenal success of the 'impossible' combination of Howard Cosell, Frank Gifford and 'Dandy' Don Meredith, which gave ABC a three-hour hammerlock on Monday nights during prime time," writes award-winning journalist Jeff Alan in his new book, "Anchoring America: The Changing Face of Network News." He devotes a chapter of his book to Walters.
"The evening news strategy self-destructed because Harry Reasoner was essentially an old-school anchorman in the CBS tradition of solo anchors. He could not adjust either to the new concepts or, famously, to Walters herself."
Walters eventually was moved off the evening news because Roone Arledge realized her talents were wasted there. She focused on her prime-time celebrity specials, which earned monster ratings, tons of publicity and premium sponsorship rates. In 1984, Walters took over co-anchoring duties with Hugh Downs on "2-0/20" and helped make that show into a serious competitor with "60 Minutes."
Of course, the live broadcast Monday at the College of Charleston Cistern is about more than Walters, Charleston or "The View." It's about the Holy City's "From Darkness To Light," a private organization that works to prevent child sexual abuse. Founder Anne Lee submitted a tape about her organization and Charleston to Walters and "The View." Lee was picked as the winner in the show's "The View From Your Hometown" contest, which means her organization gets $25,000. The other finalists were Boise, Idaho; Ardmore, Okla.; and Detroit. Who could choose one of those places over Charleston?
Quilted Northern bath tissue's parent company Georgia-Pacific is providing the $25,000 award to "From Darkness To Light." Quilted Northern will have a presence around town Sunday, said spokeswoman Kim Eberl.
Quilted Northern's Chrysler PT cruiser will make appearances as the "TP Cruiser." That's "TP" as in toilet paper.
"We're taking that PT Cruiser and outfitting it to look like a roll of toilet paper," Eberl said. The Quilted Northern quilters, the product mascots, will hand out free rolls of Quilted Northern toilet paper at Brittlebank Park on Sunday, she said. Perhaps most interesting, Quilted Northern has commissioned a local artist to make a miniature reproduction of Fort Sumter out of toilet paper. It will be displayed at Brittlebank Park on Sunday, she said.
"It's quirky, but nonetheless Quilted Northern is sponsoring it and giving the $25,000 to Anne Lee so we're trying to help make an impact on everyone's bottom line (pun intended)," she said.
Prentiss Findlay covers television for The Post and Courier. Contact him at 937-5711.
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