Unknown Speaker 00:01 Hello, I'm Marcia rock. I'm a Professor of Journalism at New York University. I am also an independent producer. And if I can promote my own product. I have three documentaries on WNYC this Wednesday evening. And from nine to 10 is a documentary produced in Northern Ireland called sons of Derry. And there are only two women in that program. I sort of laugh at that, being a feminist, but sometimes that's the way stories work out. I'm also the co author of a book called waiting for primetime, the women of television news that I co authored with Marlene Sanders, who was a correspondent for CBS and ABC for many years. I'm not fortunate enough to team teach with her down at NYU. And it was interesting for me to prepare a few notes as introduction to this topic. Because having done all that research in 1988, I was sort of curious as to where things stand today and that's how I would like to begin. Today's panel is titled the power of women in the media. Before I introduce our other two panelists from CBS and Newsweek, I'd like to give you some background and post some questions that might help focus today's discussion. For me, there are three main questions about this topic. First, have we reached the critical mass where women in the newsroom affects the coverage of the news? Second, does it make a difference whether a woman or a man covers a story, and third are the major roadblocks to women having power in the media, still, the glass ceiling, rising to management positions and the whole issue of childcare and family. The women men and media project has been analyzing the coverage of Women analyzing the coverage of women and women covering the news over a one month period for each of the past five years. In its 1993 report, it found that women are still significantly underrepresented in newspapers around the country, and on network nightly news. In print, men were solicited for comment 85% of the time, and men wrote 66% of the front page stories. Women appeared on the front page mainly in negative stories such as the Zoe Baird saga. Television was no better. Men reported 86% of the stories, and 75% of the people interviewed were men. And that represents progress. The number of women interviewed by network news programs has doubled since 1985. The percentage of women correspondents on the air though, has dropped. The small to middle sized papers had more female byline than the big papers with 40 to 50% of the front end local pages, which I think is actually rather impressive. On television, though only 14% of the stories were reported by women. NBC had the highest percentage with 20%, followed by CBS with 14% and ABC had the worst record with only 9% of the stories covered by women. Of course television has its new stars. We all know Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer and Connie Chung. But what about the other women correspondents in network news, Susan Solinsky is organization CBS has the best record in a 9090 study of network correspondent visibility done done by Vanderbilt University. Rita braver, Susan Spencer and Leslie Stahl were in the top 20 Except for Andrea Mitchell at NBC, no other women placed in the top 50. In my research for today, I found one item about local news that I'd like to share with you. The Christine craft case brought to light the problems of sexism and sex discrimination in local television. That was 1981. Although it took five years to reverse the jury decision that was in favor of Kraft, we had hoped she provided a consciousness raising for the industry. Apparently that is not the case. Last June, Diane Allen, a 44 year old anchor in Philadelphia was demoted and her salary cut because she had to make room for a 31 year old woman who would make her 49 year old male co anchor look better. The president of the radio and television news directors association which is an association for new stretches across the country. A very large organization responded to this and said Unknown Speaker 04:59 it would be be the same as saying it was discriminatory. If the Washington Redskins cut an older lineman because a new younger guy is coming up, that physical criteria are the true test of a local anchor. Now, my colleague Marlene Sanders has always said that local news wants the woman anchor to look like the male anchors second wife. And when Katie Tom was like go from W ABC, it was supposedly because they couldn't sustain her large salary. And she was over 40, an insider said. An insider from the station, said though it was the change in philosophy it was returned to the Father Knows Best model of one dominant male with a lot of lower page satellites rotating in his orbit. Of course, the story is not only for the women on the air, and we all know that television is a producer's medium, and Susan will tell us how it looks from behind the front line. If we turn to print, we see an interesting phenomenon the revival of the special women's section. The question is, is this a sign of the future or a return of the past? The Chicago Tribune and a handful of other papers are reviving this special section in order to attract female readers. Female readership of daily papers has declined over the past 20 years by 18%. The papers are anxious to get the women and the advertisers back. So about 60 papers have signed up for a syndicated woman news which offers articles on issues that were identified by a focus group I love focus groups. Focus group said women wanted health and fitness, child rearing, putting themselves together. Now I'm not quite sure what that means. Entrepreneurship and the balance of Korean family. Women news expanded this list to include sexual harassment, women's rights, health, pornography and women's depiction in the popular media. Women have most of the byline in the but 80% of those women are freelance. The question remains is this a special opportunity or a dumping ground? Susan Creighton of Newsweek will address the issues concerning women in print. I'd like to address women in the content of the news a moment before I hand the panel over. In the January 1993 study by women men in media, there was quite a few prominent women in the news, especially Hillary Clinton and Zoey bear. It also had issues such as lifting the gay ban in the military and abortion. news organizations also had more women to turn to for quotes than ever before. Four new senators including Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein from California, Carrie Moseley, Braun from Illinois and Patty Murray from Washington. They also had a senior member of the House Armed Forces and Judiciary Committees Pat Schroeder, and an influential member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Nancy Catherine Bach, Hillary Rodham Clinton Clinton moved from the back to the front pages when she was given an office in the West Wing. But an op ed piece in the Chicago Tribune by Eugene Kennedy, I just can't help but reading this to you stated that, besides making Chelsea into a latchkey child, this unprecedented move, dilutes disperses and weakens the authority, political and moral of the elected chief executive. This has every promise of being Samson and Delilah, and may bring down the temple. In terms of seeking comment on the other news items the bearer the abortion, the gay ban, very few women were sought out Schroeder's name rarely appeared. A 768 stories reported on the evening news in January, Catherine bomb and Feinstein were each interviewed once about the Baird story and Moseley Braun was interviewed about the story criticizing her handling of a sexual harassment claim against one of her staff. In all interviews of ADH Senators and Representatives during that month, 82 were men and six were women. Unknown Speaker 09:25 I will conclude where I began. Have we reached a critical mass in the newsroom? Do women reporting the news make a difference in the way story is covered or who is interviewed? And is there still a glass ceiling? Through last statistics? Only 10% of the members of the American Society of newspaper editors are women. 34% of journalists are women, which is unchanged from a decade ago. And 80% of graduate journalism students at New York University are women. Are they a sign of change or set up for frustration. So to answer some of these questions I am very honored to first introduce you to Susan Zorinsky was probably done more to bring women into broadcast journalism than any other person I know, because she was Holly Hunter's role model for broadcast news. She's covered every kind of story and was instrumental in organizing the coverage of the liberation of Kuwait. Many men sought help from her, including my friend, Neil Hickey from TV Guide, he needed to get out of Kuwait and she had the only functioning car because she had the petrol. Of course, Neil had to drive the car when they crossed into Saudi Arabia. Unknown Speaker 10:46 So the reason why we let him come along. Unknown Speaker 10:50 She's currently a senior producer of the new newsmagazine show eye to eye with Connie Chung, which debuts in June and she was the director of political coverage for CBS last year, for the election. Unknown Speaker 11:05 Thank you. I really, I say this, from the bottom of my heart, not wanting to delineate the importance of this, get together. But I hope that we can stop having these conferences pretty soon. And that someday that it won't be news that there are six women elected to the US Senate and 47, to the House of Representatives. And it won't look like we've won the Kentucky Derby when they announced that a woman has been named to the Attorney General's post and the two other women occupied cabinet level positions, and also have a secret fantasy that at some point, the expression first woman to hold this job will be blocked from all of our respective computers. But that's then this is now and I'd like to tell you something, if there's any data, that there's resentment out there from our fellow males, about women in power, just close your eyes a little bit and think about the last five Hillary Clinton jokes she heard. Think about Zoe Baird and Kimball wood. And if they had been men with the issue of who's taking care of the kids ever been raised at confirmation hearings? I don't think so. Today's women leaders come in many shapes and sizes, from CEOs to single parent mothers. And while I spoke of resentment about 15 seconds ago, you do think the media and I speak here for CBS, since I've worked there, most of my adult life is on the right track, or at least at the starting gate. But it took time. What kind of power do you really talk about and about women exercising in the media, I think women at CBS at least exercise a fair amount of power. And I use myself as an example. Before I get into some hardcore specifics, I want to give you a sort of short story about the illusion of power, in 1987 suggested a documentary of the cult Seven Days in May of that Soviet Union and the changing face of communism. And a major element in this documentary was going to be an interview with Boris Yeltsin. He was then the Moscow City Party chief, but very important guy, a guy who's really yelling about change way before anybody else. So I was the producer. And I was sent in to negotiate this interview. And I thought, it's finally arrived, CBS really takes me seriously, they think I, I have power and maybe five foot one or so on a good day if I slept. But you know, I had a reputation of feisty kind of taking no prisoners. And so I'm sent in. But before I left, New York gave me kind of novel throws like this. They said, this is your this is sort of your last resort, you know, you get into trouble. So I had no idea what it was, I thought maybe, you know, maybe it's a bribe, I didn't even think that I dumped it in my bed. And I went off on my merry way. And I have this meeting with with Yeltsin and several translators. And it was in this huge hall and sort of right next to the Kremlin, and I'm in there for about two and a half hours. And if you think I'm short now, man, I'm sweating, and I'm not getting anywhere. And I'm using my charm, my power, my journalistic skills of why he should do CBS being the first western interview that he's ever done. And I'm about to give up. And, and I know the whole documentary is centered on this is the key element. And I never really failed before it CDs. And I remembered Ah, what's the secret weapon. So I go in my bag and say, excuse me, second, I turn around and pull it out of my backpack, very professional looking, and pull out this brown sort of envelope and I opened it up, and I look and I sort of laughed myself and I pull down to this eight by 10 glossy of Diane Sawyer. That's the correspondent I was working with and I said to Mr. Yeltsin and my best Russian, this is who you'll be doing the interview with. And suddenly, you know, this big enormous guy, who I do admit now two or three times in this negotiating series, looks at this picture and his slice jaw slacking. And he says in his best English I think we can arrange myself Unknown Speaker 15:00 Food okay powerful, who maybe not? Let me be serious for a second. CBS really does have a great reputation. I person sitting in this audience who was an intern of mine over the summer and I had lunch and I said, you know, I really think that part of the reason I am where I am, is because starting as a woman in the in the early 70s, CBS was so anxious to promote women that I got promoted way faster than I might have. Ordinarily, I spent a lot of time throwing up and back hallways because I thought, oh my god, I'm not ready for this. But I couldn't I couldn't disappoint any everybody and myself, so I kept going forward. But at CBS News at this time, the Washington bureau chief is a woman, the senior producer for the morning news in Washington as a woman, the senior producer, for the magazine show that I'm working on, most of them are women executive producer of all the weekend programs. That's the Saturday show Sunday show Sunday morning is a one. We have women at every level, the national editor was a woman on mahogany row. That's the male power, formerly the male power structure. There is now a woman there was one before who had left of her own free will. But I believe that CBS, women are in positions of power. The kind of power they wield always depends on the kind of person they are themselves. But I use this expression and I hope you're not offended. But I believe the CBS women at the present time are mostly ball busters. And I use that in a very kind fond way. I don't use it in a negative way. My husband when he read my speech this morning, okay, he's the expression ball. And I said, You bet I can't. I had an advantage at CBS. Some might think I was given the shaft but I prefer to think otherwise. I was the first woman White House producer for CBS and I did that job for about close to 10 years. I've been sent to every trouble spot for CBS to run the operation. Those of you who are younger in this audience may go what war, the Falklands War, the War, the now being a small war. The US invasion in Panama, I went to set up the coverage for Gorbachev's visit to China, which we intended to take and look at the country because we hadn't been there in so many years which turned into Tiananmen Square and a massacre and and a movement unlike anything I've ever seen in my life. And then most recently, the the the war against Iraq, spending time in the Middle East was quite another experience. They're running the CDs operation is tough in its own sense. But we're talking about country that thinks exposing your arm as a crime. I am speaking to myself and and I've worked at CVS my entire adult life, which is since I'm 19 years old, and I turned 41 in March. I have worked as a researcher on the assignment as a producer for the morning news evening news. I've been the senior producer for both Evening News in Washington in New York. And last year, as Marsha said, I was the director of political coverage. And even at a stint with CBS Sports where I was on loan in a position at the Winter Olympics. And you don't think being a woman in that boys club is tough man I'll play it was easier than being in Iraq. Rachmat rather was easier. I have been able to exercise what I consider ultimate power, deciding what we covered, who covered it, how it came to paying together, decisions that were editorial, logistical, and in many cases dealt with matters of life and death. In China, and in Kuwait. I was making decisions not just on what pieces we would do and pitch to each broadcast within CBS. But how should we push into Kuwait? Who should go how many people are these vehicles that were building safe? I'm going outside the Pentagon? Am I going to get somebody killed CBS at that press at the time I was in there already had Bob Simon and a crew missing we didn't even know where they were. And the men at CBS that the man that I went into replace a TBS felt very responsible and felt virtually paralyzed. So they said, well, we'll send Zaretsky and she'll beat everybody up. New York, of course, can overrule you, I'm not under the you know, but it doesn't matter if New York is a man or a woman and you understand this, it's New York, the people in New York have the ultimate power to overrule you. But I must tell you that I made most of those decisions, and nobody ever came back and question me. You know, if they thought I had too much sand between my ears, I think they would have told me. Unknown Speaker 19:21 You know, the experiences that you have as a woman really depend on how forceful you are. I think in general, you know, we've seen the glass ceiling and industry but in the media, especially in television, there are more women in positions of authority. There are more women out there in the field. I'll tell you a short story, which Marcia made me laugh remember that in Kuwait. When we went in there, we were running out of fuel. I used to like to say the national pastime seemed to be burning it instead of using it as Petro and I had a great idea. I said, you know, I called our office in Tehran on our satellite phone and I said, you know, Aramco is based there, can't you call them and see if I can rent one of those Giant fuel trucks and the category mean like the trucks you see on the highway that don't fill up the local gas stations? I said yes, yes. It's Aramco. We're based in the center where they're pulling the stuff out of the ground. And he said, Okay, he said, Call back in a half hour. So I called that and a half hour and, and he said, Yes, we can get one. But it's $32,000. This was over a weekend. He said, We can't do this without New York approval. And I had words that I won't repeat here. And I said, Here's my Amex card number. Give me my Amex card. I'm authorizing it. We need the petrol send it in, so that 20 hours later, my fuel cup, truck comes driving up the corner. And it was like the pied piper, there were 1000s of people following this truck. I had no idea how long they follow this truck, but they were screaming because you know, you're you're in a city that every two hours this thing comes over. You can't breathe. It's like Day for Night because all these fires were burning, but nobody had any gas. So and we were having equal jerrycans that would last our generators about 20 minutes. So Trump comes up pulls up, it's 1000s of people whooping and screaming, you think it was the Americans that come to liberate them. And I have a British reporter friend of mine that works for ITN and I've been at war with him in almost every disgusting hole in the world. And he's sort of sitting on the on the corner watching the scene unfolding in his he's laughing and he is best English. English accent says only a woman would have done this. By the way, did Could I borrow some petrol? Said Yes, yes. I don't want to give you an illusion that it was always like this at CBS. You know, CBS went through its growing pains as well as everybody else. The I guess the best example were women sort of really took it in the rear was during Watergate. And my friend and close colleague lesley stahl was a very aggressive reporter during Watergate. She was really out there, but it was really a boys club. Every night CBS would have these specials and it was Dan shore, Roger Mudd, Marvin Cao, sometimes George Herman, Bob Schieffer, and Leslie, and for maybe two weeks running wasn't never said a word, we'd have panel discussions, you know, she, she just never got in there. So finally, one night, she decides no matter what, I'm going to participate in this discussion come hell or high water. So at some point, that discussion turns to gossip. And Dan shore is God, we might judge that. Well, if it's gossipy one, Lesley. Leslie stood there. I'd say, you know, there's nothing if any of you have done on air work, the expression dead air? Yes, its expression because it's. So it seemed like an hour. I think it was only maybe 3040 seconds. She didn't say anything. And she said, Well, finally she said, and she taught and it was, it was awful. It was awful. She didn't know anything about that gospel. It was embarrassing. It was hideous. So I'm in the control room, and I'm sitting there looking like the Edward monk painting. Before home alone, and and she comes out and she says How bad was it? And of course, you know, you don't want to say how was the worst thing you've ever done in your professional career? How was he so bad? So she, of course goes to call the parents who will give her the truth. So I grew up in the newsroom, and I'm sort of standing by her saying what's if she's going to implode, and she called her father, and she's obviously on the phone, father, and I only hear lovely thing to the conversation. And she said, I was terrible. I've ruined women in journalism. I have done everything, you know, to kill what progress people have made. And so she's and obviously he's saying to her, Oh, wasn't so bad. And she's saying really, really? I'm hearing her and, and, and she finally says, Well, let me talk to mother. She'll be honest with me. And lovely tells me later that her father said, I'm sorry, she can't come to the phone right now. She's too upset. She hangs up and so you know, it took a long time to get there. But today, women really are making decisions at every level. Even the chief engineer at CBS in our building is a woman which I consider a great piece because I looked at her drawings and I don't know what she's doing. There was an attitude on the part of CBS was President Howard Stringer even to Larry Tisch and and the president of the CBS News Division, that they don't make decisions on the on the basis of sets. Unknown Speaker 24:21 I must tell you, though, that you do have to be prepared as a woman to face different things. Can you stand one more story? I won't have time to take too long. You know, you we all think we're we're powerful and you know, you work as a journalist and you think you're you traveled kind of like a cone, some kind of bubble that protects you. In Japan, I remember the most women I met were serving tea. In the Mideast. Nobody wanted to touch me. But I think one of the strangest experiences happened once when I was on a Secretary of State Schultz trip and it was one of these 1000 city trips and we didn't really send produces for the most part on this but I got to go and We're in Saudi Arabia. And we're going to the palace. And I was told by the embassy, that I would not be allowed in the palace. And I said, Excuse me, you're telling me that I've been on this trip for 17 cities, and I'm gonna have to wait in the bus outside the gate. I said, No, we thought we take you to the embassy. And I said, I don't think so. I'm going in, we could create a scene, or you're going to let me in. And so we go in there. And it's mostly reporters, like Don Oberdorfer, from the Washington Post and Shepler, then at the New York Times, and it was the boys and Jack McClatchy from ABC. And we're standing there and on first in line to go through a security check. And there are the Saudi guards in their in their beautifully sewn robes that are quite elegant looking. And they you could tell that they are half a horrified then on the woman, and I'm standing in what is sacred ground, and be that they don't quite know what to do for the security check. So I step up to the mat, as it were, and I assume they'll do a sort of gentle side field, this guy gives me a full frontal field. And I think, you know, I, you know, I'm a woman journalist, it's in the 90s. You know, it's in the 1980s. How is this possible? And, of course, my gentleman colleagues are hysterical behind. And Schultz, who, coming back on the plane to the next stop, was very embarrassed. And he came back and he was fumbling and couldn't look at me. And he said, I, I understand you were, and I say, felt up. Said, I said, Well, yeah, I'm really sorry. He said, the government has apologized and said, Look, I don't mind giving sexual favors, but I want to get into the event. It's true. You know, this is this is this is life outside this country. In this country at this point, I do think women and the numbers of women had had an effect on the nature of the coverage, and particularly the coverage of Women. The USA Today had a piece it was their lead item a couple of days ago. And it said more than a third of Americans have seen a man hit his wife or girlfriend, according to the latest survey on domestic violence. I was at an awards ceremony the other day for women. It's called the matrix awards. And Don Shula was the keynote kid amazing statistic that I'd never heard before. She said, 10 women die every day at the hands of domestic violence. Now, I really believe that women have brought these stories to the front pages of the paper to the evening news shows into the primetime arena. I'm not saying that wouldn't have appeared. I don't believe that I do. But I think the proliferation of women in editorial and high editorial positions has made their prominence dramatically different. I think that our our level of awareness has been raised on family issues on on health issues, I think it's our interest, chances are the men would have come around to it at some point because of the famous focus groups. And that's what people would have told them. But I think it's important that women aren't senior editorial positions. There are still places where women are where power is lacking. There are holes in the universe, where they're struggling to climb and hang on. I'm lucky it's not at CBS. It's another industry. Saw once told me that she had two reasons why there was still these black holes of power. She said them the son wants one trip one night on some charter. She said, I have this theory. There are two reasons why women are still scraping. So what I said, well, first of all, women are better than men and men know it and they're afraid. And two, which was a real, which was really kind of interesting. When I thought about it. She said, Men always set goals for themselves. You know, they say at this point in my life, I want to be here. And at this point, I'm going to be there. They have certain expectations. And I think for the most part, I mean, I'm 41 and in my era, and many of you are my peers here, thankfully. I really believe that we didn't set these sort of ultimate goals. I mean, quite frankly, I'm amazed to be where I am right now. I mean, I I sort of turn around Unknown Speaker 29:06 I'm afraid somebody will figure out I'm not as smart as they think I am and i That's why I get up at five in the morning every day so I can outsmart them. I really believed that women don't have the same expectations or set the same goals. I hope my friend Sarah Newman, sitting in this audience who I've known since she's 11 years old, and a first year student at Barnard has those goals. I hope she sets those goals. But and I believe our daughters will be different. What do you do to expand the power? I'm not quite sure I used to love the Jesse Jackson expression, keep our eyes on the prize and grab the bag, the power bag, but I think we got to keep pushing. We got to try to convince the world that we're really no different intellectually. We're different physically. We're different emotionally. But quite frankly, I think that's a good thing. There will be a natural expansion of the power base. I believe that but let me tell you something in my career when I've been offered a management job and I have been offered several I've turned Under down, and even for the greater good of a woman in a in a management position on somebody who always prefers to have a hands on, I'd like to be producing a show I like to be producing pieces, I like to be in the field. So I guess what I'm saying to you guys is that it's up to you. I'm looking at you people to take the management positions to powerful places so that I can keep producing programs. Thank you. Unknown Speaker 30:31 Are there any questions specifically for Susan that you'd like to ask? And then we'll move on to Susan. Sarah. Unknown Speaker 30:39 Wanted to I was interested in your comments to do more with your CVs is 19. And because I write about careers, and planning careers for both young men and young women, you sure know that journalism communications and broadcasting was a really trendy thing, the point that colleges have so called major, how do you see young women especially don't getting the kinds of jobs to begin with, because I do think they are voting centers in the UK 20 Now in ways that we weren't 20 years ago, but but our you know, they know about the internships and so forth. But they do start at 19. Part time me, Unknown Speaker 31:28 too. I started in my second year in college, and I was working up on Capitol Hill. And I got a part time job at CBS. And I was a political science major. And I happen to like film, and I actually thought I was gonna be a film editor, I was shooting and editing films and small documentaries on the side. And I got two CDs. And I was spoiled to this sort of thing, because it was the network. It wasn't a local, you know, I wasn't covering school board issues or fires or murders. I was I was, I was watching people I had watched as a child. I mean, this was the intelligencia within the broadcast medium. And it was an amazingly intoxicating, seductive thing to be around. And I remember calling my parents like, the second weekend, I had worked and I said, Hey, good news, I figured out what I want to do. I want to work here, I want to I want to be a producer. And Unknown Speaker 32:23 science or Yeah. So you've kept your discipline. Unknown Speaker 32:27 Yes. Because to be honest, and I tell people this to this day, and people say should I be a communications major, I always say, be a history major, be a political science major, take those as a minor? Because it's, the basis is invaluable. Unknown Speaker 32:41 Okay, let's take one more what else you want to Unknown Speaker 32:44 do afterwards? Yeah, because I think there's overlap intersecting. Unknown Speaker 32:49 I'd like to introduce Sarah Crighton, who is the assistant managing editor of Newsweek responsible for the back of the book. Before joining Newsweek, she was editor of 17. Magazine, and before that road freelance for such publications as Esquire, Mademoiselle, Harper's ms, and the Village Voice. Unknown Speaker 33:09 One thing I want to say is that in the early 1970s, my mother became the first producer at CBS. And it's because, yeah. And it's because, basically, because at Newsweek, the women at Newsweek had brought a class action suit against Newsweek, which to every media group in in, especially in New York, in a total panic, because all the organizations had been so sexist in the past. They were about to get screw to CBS went looking all through CBS to see if there was anybody there who had enough experience that they could promote her and they had never given any women opportunities. So there wasn't anybody there. They looked all through NBC, there was nobody there to look at ABC, nobody there. And my mother was an independent producer who had started on game shows I've got, I've got a secret and to tell the truth, and she did great, great specials, like Johnny Carson goes to Cypress Gardens. But at least he knew how to work with both film and tape. So she had the basic skills and there was nobody at CBS. So she got hired, and they stuck or they had a 60 minutes like women's show in the daytime. That Okay, we got a woman producer, we can stick her in here, she can do this nice women's issues. And she kept doing stories, the first story that she did, went up on the front page of The New York Times in the Washington Post, and the second one that she did broke news and wound up on the front page and they went CAD This is great. We now only have a one but we have one we can put them in the nighttime. So she's the first one. She had a pretty miserable time, but she did great work. But it was that lawsuit at Newsweek at Newsweek. Newsweek was the type of place where they turned out Frances Fitzgerald in the 60s just before she went off to Vietnam to do fire in the lake, because they didn't because Newsweek could not have women writers. Susan Brown Miller was a research or she couldn't get promoted nor FM was a researcher she couldn't get promoted. The list of women who weren't good enough to become Newsweek writers is really phenomenal group. So in 1970, it occurred to the era 43 women there. It occurred to them that they could bring a class action suit against Newsweek for job discrimination. And they hired Eleanor Holmes Norton, who was a young ACLU lawyer at the time, and and it was obvious that they weren't going to win so Osborn Elliot was then editor of Newsweek, and he decided he would negotiate and after five months of striking a negotiation, finally they cut this deal, he said, that they would make women writers and that they would hire male researchers, which they had never done. In the past, only women were researchers, and only men were writers. And I thought this would happen in the next couple of years, but that no women could be senior editors, because the place was not ready for senior editors. And after two years, not a single woman had been promoted as a writer. They couldn't find any writers. I mean, within Newsweek, or outside, we could not find a single one writer to hire. So these women went back to the courts, and Newsweek had to cave in again. And this time, they said, okay, and you promise that by 1975, we'll have a senior editor. They also started something that they then call the famous writers School, which was probably preposterous. I wasn't around at the time, but they took the two top writers in Newsweek, and they trained women five days a week, eight hours a day, they sent them to school, and lo and behold, after you know, a 12 week course, they had a whole bunch of writers, they could produce what of course they had, they had done the hard work. So that was that was back in the mid 70s. That was only 15 or so years ago, right now. The place is completely changed. You have of the five top editors, there are two of us who are women. The chief of correspondents is a woman, the chief White House correspondent is a woman. The Moscow bureau chief is a woman, the deputy Moscow bureau chief is also a woman they both have small children and they have a daycare center in the bureau. Great in when Tiananmen Square happened, we had more women correspondents there than we had male correspondents, our art directors, a woman or graduates director, as a woman of the senior editors, the senior editors who edit the various sections of the magazine more than half for women. And I tried to, I meant to bring a magazine count outside, before I got here to figure out what percentage of the writers are women. But there are a lot of things. Unknown Speaker 37:59 I didn't I forgot to bring my, my sheet and the fact is, the magazine is doing great. This last week, we won the award, which is sort of the Azmi Award, which is sort of like the Oscars for magazines for General Excellence. And we want to click on winning awards all over the place. The magazine is basically livelier and healthier and more creative and changing up. Like it's never done before. And also the atmosphere is hugely different. And it's even different now than it was five years ago when I got to Newsweek. I mean, a number of these promotions have happened just in the last five years. Although it's been steady, I mean, it's been steadily increasing throughout the agency was steadily increasing. Part of it is because the old place and a lot of institutions and a lot of other magazines that I know that were like Newsweek, back in the 70s and which remain like Newsweek are stuck to a very hierarchical model. They regard their management style and in terms of military, they use that military as a model. The bullies are rewarded bullshitters are rewarded, muscle flexing are rewarded. And when I first got to music, there were still a couple of these guys who had come up through that tradition in that system. But the fact is, they're basically all gone. And one of the reasons they're all gone is because once women started getting into the system they had because the hierarchical model had always rejected them. They rejected the hierarchical model. They were consensus builders rather than bullies because they have been treated with a lack of respect for so long. The last thing they were going to do is turn around and dump on the people underneath them. If you if you had been stuck as a researcher for years when you should have been promoted. When you finally were promoted. These women didn't turn around And then start being disrespectful to the people below them. And the truth was, it was more effective. It was better management morale worked up better to senior editors who actually treated their writers with respect and didn't bully them. And we're consensus builders got better writing out of those writers. And they also basically saved money for the magazine because the magazine started to close better and the reporting was better, the whole atmosphere was better. So basically, in terms of pure, what is effective, what works? And where do you save money and everything else and hardship. This new model was the one that suddenly became the preferred one. And it wasn't any great sort of major philosophical discussion that made it happen. It just was simply this infusion of people with different values and a different approach. It also has made the magazine better because you have, you have many different perspectives. And one of the things that you see with magazines, or with news organizations that haven't changed in the last number of years, is they still have this very homogeneous approach. I mean, they if you have a non diversified group working with you, you're not going to get a diversified perspective, which means that you're going to start failing to capture an audience. The reality that is in the magazine is not going to reflect anybody else's reality, or else it's going to reflect a very small subset. One example which, whose when you take this where does this go? I was asked that question. Well, let's, let's put it this way. There's there's a magazine, there's a magazine, it's very like news, we can in fact, often said in the same breath, there's a magazine that's been having. It's been having a hard time the last couple of years because it's been losing readers steadily. And it is not as Newsweek has been becoming stronger. This magazine has been growing weaker. readership is down circulation is down. They're not winning the awards. We are. And there's there's a very basic reason for that. They have almost no they have no top one. They have no women in top positions there they have well, few. Unknown Speaker 42:42 Yes. Who else? How many? Yeah. The numbers of of of there are far fewer writers. They have had in recent years some absolutely fabulous women writers there there was a time when the the national affairs department there boasted marine dad, Alessandra Stanley, a number of other terrific writers who, but but because the magazine was still operating on a very traditional trajectory, those women weren't allowed, their voices did not emerge in the same way that the magazine muted those voices and obscured those voices. Once both of those living went on to the New York Times where they were freed up to start using, taking a more creative approach to what they were doing. They both turned into stars, they're one of the reasons why we all pick up the New York Times. That also is an effect that that the organizations that have a lot of women are finding, which is that the old traditions don't mean anything to us, because the old traditions didn't help us get to where we are. So we we don't feel any loyalty to them. And also, we're where we are because of change. And so we wind up being proponents of change in organizations where the people who who, who are loyal to the old traditions aren't interested in change. And the fact is, if you don't change up a magazine, or if you don't change up a new news organization, if you don't look at the world in new ways, you're gonna lose your audience. And basically, it's your audience that keeps you alive. It's a dialogue between you and your audience. Smart publishers realize that dumb dumb ones don't. One of the reasons why at Newsweek the old boys network has died is not because there are so many women there but it's basically because it can't stay alive with the old boys network, working very solidly because you don't wind up with a with a diverse group of people working for you and various perspectives. Unknown Speaker 45:00 Has it affect our coverage? It, it affects our coverage in small ways. In small and not so obvious ways, one of my favorite pieces of the magazine ran in the last couple of weeks was a small story that's now beginning to get a lot of attention from local news stations and, and shows around the country. It was just just a one page story about girls clothes, clothes for little girls, which really came out of the fact that I tried to buy my three year old daughter a bathing suit, and was wondering pass Bloomingdale's and went up there. And the only thing they had were little cooker outfits either look like a dominatrix. Or a cooker. It was it's all you can't believe what these things look like. They they're all gold LeMay this year, it's thongs. It's, you know, it's just obscene. These black things with zippers all over and cutouts and you know, it was appalling. And then if you look through all the racks, it's all these, you know, crap tops and everything else. Well, I don't, I don't want a three year old cooker in my house. So we had we had somebody, I got somebody to report on a you can't believe the closer we are, the biggest problem that we had was one of the things that was sort of statuses, we couldn't really show all the clothes because we dressed up all these little kids in these clothes. And they were so obscene that like, we weren't going to publish them. But it's actually that's, you know, that's one of those little stories, that actually resonates in a quite large way. Because, you know, it's it's just one page. And it's just a couple of pictures. But it's, it really reflects what's going on out there and informs us and allows us to have maybe some kind of impact maybe just sort of raised a number of issues. On a larger scale. I think Susan was right, that that having all these women in the organization has brought a lot of family issues, women's issues, to the forefront, and that we cover them, but a lot of in terms of what Marshall was talking about. The fact is, no matter how many women you have in these news organizations, the roles of news organizations, it's not an advocacy role, and, and shouldn't be expected to, to be advocates in one way or another. We are there we're there to chart and to follow shifts in society, not necessarily to initiate shifts in society. But what we are what you can have with a lot of women in these organizations, as these women are picking up on those changes. There were a lot of changes going on, that all male organizations weren't picking up on or they weren't reported. And they weren't recorded. So there's a very valuable role that the women in these organizations play but but you have to put it in perspective. How do you change organizations that have not promoted a lot of women? I think basically, in some cases, you just let them die, because the ones that don't change, and the ones that don't bring in women are first of all, setting up such a large and valuable talent pool, that they're depriving themselves of just huge numbers. I mean, basically, they're dealing with a limited pool, the ones that are open to women and minorities in a way that they haven't been in the past. going to lose out, and any organizations that don't take advantage of the people who come their way, are going to be presenting a very narrow viewpoint and a very have a very narrow perspective. And they're going to fail to appeal to an increasingly fractured audience. I mean, an audience that is not a monolithic group. And in terms of what we do, the last question that Marcia wanted us to answer. The one thing I think holding women back today is not sort of massive organizations. It's still his lack of self confidence. I think that women knock themselves much more than men do. I think that women, when they open their mouths and say something stupid as we all do, sometimes, we tend to beat ourselves up in a way that our male colleagues don't. And quite frankly, it's sort of a waste of time to beat up on yourself too much. It means never held, you know, the fact that they didn't knock themselves has never held them back and and the other Lastly, it's hire more women. Basically, if you're in a position of power, hiring more women, good women, smart women. Unknown Speaker 49:57 loudmouth keeps a placement More likely and it keeps moving forward, and then you're going to beat your competitors, and you're going to live happily ever after. That's it. Thank you. Unknown Speaker 50:08 So now we'll take questions. Yes. I want to say, first of all, Unknown Speaker 50:15 Kate mills and man Robertson said about when the women's movement came, the fact that they were going to keep women, even if they were underpaid. And so they knew that story that the male reporters so that I think it's a piece of so. And also when you said, Sarah, about, you know, we're not advocacy. And we just to report to them, that they documented through backlash, that it was a male advocacy scene that was taking place, whether the mentor out there advocating anything, they were putting a spin on stories that was on the cutting dance movement. And I don't know whether you'd call that male advocacy, but I think it would be. It certainly was not objective, not objective reporting. Unknown Speaker 51:04 But I think that was men reflecting the times in society as opposed to being advocates. Unknown Speaker 51:10 I sure. I would also think that we've seen very recently the right stories that a New York Magazine has a lot of women said, that was the story. That was a real distortion about what was going on. And when you talk about domestic violence is kind of wonderful. And now reporting it. For years, your mystic violence was either ignored, or and we just had the story about the Superbowl and what happened with failure. And you had been writing stories about the Superbowl and domestic violence as if it was also women's fiction. So I just think that difficult. I'm delighted that women are there. But I think we have to be careful. And just because we have women, it doesn't mean you're going to do it. Right. Unknown Speaker 51:58 But I have to, I have to say that I agree with Sarah, that you really have to walk a very fine line. And you know, you're a journalist first, you sex is irrelevant. And I think that that in any situation to go in, go in as a woman first is is is going to hurt you in the long run. You're just not going to get the reporting done that you need to get done. I do think sensitivity has been raised, but I can't help but but think asexual really, as a reporter. Yeah. Unknown Speaker 52:31 I have a theory that's related to my question to the question is really about the content of Unknown Speaker 52:43 broadcasts, which is why Unknown Speaker 52:46 when two issues and this is not just the news, but across all programs, but it's a solution as well, to problems and violence is what constitutes news primarily. The other issue Unknown Speaker 52:59 being Unknown Speaker 53:01 a woman's appearance, perpetuated as a very powerful and desirable attribute in our culture. Do you feel the presence of women in media in powerful positions are doing to improve both the situation? And my parents? I think the thing that I see older than myself or more like men, in a lot of ways than I am, I assume that I behave more like men than women and I hire who were concerned. Do you think that is a are those things currently impacted and being improved as younger women in numbers and in confidence about changing the agenda will Unknown Speaker 53:54 only given me that an hour's worth? I think that women in senior editorial positions are conscious that we Siam of the increasing violence that we put on the air. Part of that is a sensational ism that it's almost hard to walk away from partially because because things of immediacy, like waco disaster are so technologically feasible that it's there as an instant. And it's so seductive that you can't help but be drawn into it. I don't think that that being a woman or a man that I'm going to or as a woman that I'm going to say we're not going to do more violent or less violence. I think that that you try to look for solution stories. This is a fairly big push within some of the programs and even the one that I'm currently working on to sort of say, Are there solutions that if your story is a violent story, there's got to be a second half to it. You know, there is an increasing amount of violence on television. I can't speak to the to the entertainment divisions, philosophy Because I know that that that has to do with what makes money. That's not what I'm about. That's not what journalism is about. You bet they're gonna put on more violence because the numbers are there. If if people were disgusted and didn't watch those things wouldn't be on there. And that's in a funny way, why we end up doing so many violence stories on the evening news and on these primetime shows, because especially these primetime shows, what the human drama that we are recording ends up being so interesting to people, they're, they're so drawn into it, that it's, it's, it's a little sick, but it is, the people are out there, and I'd be lying to you if I didn't tell you that. I looked at our story grid the other day, and it scared me. It scared me to death because at some point I said if the word rape crime, abuse isn't in, if I can't find that in one of the slugs, I think, you know, we're I can't find a story. It's I'm not quite sure what to do about it. You know, it's part of our society is it's, we're chronicling the times we don't invent them. We're watchers of them. I'm sorry, what your your second half of your Unknown Speaker 56:10 The other issue with health care carrot Unknown Speaker 56:14 is so powerful. Unknown Speaker 56:16 For stories, very constructive. Unknown Speaker 56:19 If you don't don't do not think that Diane is an incredibly feminine looking woman. I'm not talking about whether she she's attractive. You mean she is Ethan, she attracts me. in broadcast journalism, that is a that is a problem that will plague us till we die. If you end there's no way around it. If you're an ugly person, whether you're a man or a woman, you're not going to be on the air. Chances are if you look in the mirror, you're not going to apply to be it a correspondent, if you're if you're not particularly well, you know, well, let me finish urban Halloween I look at and I saw I saw him on the air the other night, and we all looked up and we laughed. And you know, when we caught ourselves, I used to be proud of the fact that Dan Shore was on the air. Because you know, Dan shore is not the kind of guy that you'd get on a blind date and say, Boy, am I lucky. But intellectually, he's a fantastic guy. I think, you know, as much as I would like to say things are changing, I'm going to be honest, I'm going to tell you that when we look at audition tapes, if a person doesn't get a sort of, I'm not saying they have to be gorgeous and seductive, like Diane Sawyer, who I think is an amazingly attractive woman, but they have to have a certain sense of appeal. I don't think I'm going to be honest, I don't think we would hire somebody that's that's ugly. I don't think CVS would hire Irving alanine. I'm being honest, I'm not. But he's boring. Well, yeah, that's. Unknown Speaker 58:01 A couple of things that each of you said, one of them is selling ourselves to our parents. And I'm not using the term selling in a pejorative way we do that each of us every day, in our contacts with other people. Where it links it is our use of certain words and certain vocabulary, which is particularly important for the media, whether visual, or verbal. And it was very gratifying this morning, to hear the word, just use just once, in all of those morning presentations. It ties in with putting ourselves together, how we sell ourselves, how we package ourselves. And that ties in for me with the whole issue of setting goals for ourselves, which uses and say that women don't do as much as Unknown Speaker 58:56 men didn't, it didn't used to. Unknown Speaker 58:59 But that ties in with what I would call strategic career planning. And I keep coming back to what the media could do, and what they ought to be doing in terms of selling something other than violence, and whether that power couldn't be harnessed to somehow do something better, and something for us. Unknown Speaker 59:28 We're not selling something, we are chroniclers of our time. You know, we're observers of society. We take note of things we think are interesting. I read that story, as a matter of fact, in Newsweek, and I clipped it and I thought, you know, maybe we'll do something when we go on the air and tune about these kids. You know who I called it the I slept across the top. That's very good. No, and I said, what I mean, it's, it isn't our job to invent. It's our job. Not to reflect and therefore let you as a people change. It's our job to point out something terrible or peculiar. And then have you react rather than for us to invent a new form of behavior? I may not be hitting your point. I Unknown Speaker 1:00:16 mean, no, absolutely. Unknown Speaker 1:00:18 Why? Why? Because we're journalist. I mean, we're we're news we're not common to I'm not commentary. You know, if this was a documentary on PBS on sort of the future of women or to take something someplace else, that's fine. I'm, we're news. We are chroniclers of our time. Yeah, white. take a stab here. Unknown Speaker 1:00:41 Yeah, the it's not enough. I get out. I'm totally with Susan on this. The thing is, by being chroniclers, what you can do and what what you have to do. And if you're doing it, well you do is a lot of news organizations have not recognized the fact of the world has changed. So for instance, the family norm that they will present that they start with the basic role model is, is still in many cases, Ozzie and Harriet with two kids. So then every story that they report on families suddenly goes, Oh, my God, look at this dysfunctional world. You know, this family here is dysfunctional. That person there is dysfunctional, you know, if you don't have this, this core nuclear family, you are dysfunctional labeling, the vast majority of people in this country as dysfunctional and the vast majority of women in this country is dysfunctional, because they're working and they have children, and they're leaving, God forbid their kid with who knows who they are, you are doing a tremendous disservice. What women like us can do is to say, wait a minute, you know, this has never been the norm, because it's a fantasy model that you're basing all of your reporting on, let's get a realistic model of what a family is, and then take it from there. Let's reinterpret all all the, the, you know, the basis of the fictions and start with the kind of reality and then start analyzing our society. And that's a very subtle thing. That's something that you you can't pick up a newspaper or magazine or turn on the news and go, Uh huh. I see, you know, this dictate how we're going to cover abortion, or the Battle of abortion rights. No way. I can't. Unknown Speaker 1:02:34 Yes, in the back. Unknown Speaker 1:02:36 I thought Unknown Speaker 1:02:37 some of triflin genuis, you say you're asexual. And you're recruiting you're just simply chronicling, but it depends upon the focus you're using in terms of your Chronicles. And your asexuality, for example, it's an interesting story, you're being sold out from the front. When you when you were going into the past, do your news story. But that wasn't reported? Unknown Speaker 1:03:03 Well, because I don't really think that that was I don't think that's news. If I called my editors in New York, I Unknown Speaker 1:03:09 mean, it's breaking Unknown Speaker 1:03:11 news. I think many people might have thought that was Unknown Speaker 1:03:16 well, it is news to this group of special interests. But it's not news in terms of did it affect the Mideast peace talks that I was that I was attending, probably Unknown Speaker 1:03:24 that attitude has affected communities, and has affected the entire Mideast situation, actually, my Unknown Speaker 1:03:34 AP reporter wanted to do a story on it. And I asked him for fear that I've never gone into the Secretary of State. But I still have to disagree with you. I don't think that's news. I mean, I think it's a it's a moment in my own mind. And maybe it'll affect something that I write at some point in some in some deep reset, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't even recorded it to my editors in New York, when I call them to tell them I just figured you know, it, you know, Unknown Speaker 1:04:04 what I want to talk today was a, a look at something a trend in society. It's a way we're treating and we want to understand a certain behavior. You look at how children are being dressed, and then you understand, well, maybe that's why children I feel as children anymore, and they're being forced into situations, which lead to early sexuality. I mean, that's that's not news. That's a trend. But you know, hardness or softness, get into discussion of what's news, but that's a trend is a trend news. Yeah. Unknown Speaker 1:04:38 Can I ask a question when the Zoe Baird saga was in the news. Do you think certain decisions on coverage were different at Newsweek than at other magazine? Can you talk about that? Unknown Speaker 1:04:50 Sure. One of the biggest stories that we did at the time, was one of the writers on staff a woman She decided that she wanted to go out and and she didn't feel that that the babysitter's view was being taken into account well enough. And so we ran a quite long story. She went out and interviewed just and we had reporters across the country interview both illegal immigrants and, you know, women with citizenship papers, but who were being treated badly being treated well. And basically, we did so. So it was nanny gate from the eyes of the nanny, but I mean, that was a very interesting perspective. And I think that's one that, you know, no man in my, one of my staff would have thought of I mean, and those were voices that you don't, you wouldn't instantly think that you would be hearing. So Unknown Speaker 1:05:49 it's also it's, those are the days when a woman comes up or a woman producer and said, what if we did this? And you suddenly say, That's a great idea, no man would have thought of that. That's where it's an advantage. That's where it changes what the coverage is, like. It's, it's a sensitivity. But But I still maintain that, even on occasion, what we've done at CBS to sort of sensitize people, sometimes if a woman has a great idea, and it's kind of a woman's take on something, we have a male producer go out and do it. You know, and that's it. We sort of play with that a little bit. Sometimes it's too sometimes it's for a couple of guys we think are assholes who want to sort of open their minds. But but it's a story they never would have thought of, but we made them do it and, and we hope they go at it asexually. But, but we are Unknown Speaker 1:06:36 leading that should that's what you're confused. Well, Unknown Speaker 1:06:40 I mean, to go with something else. nonsexual? Unknown Speaker 1:06:46 Because, as you've spoken to the group, saying, I think you should go in as a reporter, not from a sexual bias is what you're saying to us. But we have we have that a woman's experience. It's not to do with, do we have that bias or building up? Or? Yeah, that's we why we want women in Newsweek, and that's why they see a story differently. Not that they go in a clan was as a set of ideas. That's why it's true. Women in government and so forth, not because they're feminists, necessarily. Right. But because Unknown Speaker 1:07:21 I also think that in journalism, you're fighting the example I gave you about, you know, is this a very special project or dumping ground? You know, women always dealt with women's issues, and were put on the, you know, and those stories, the women's stories, so I think also, you want to show that you can report anything, you bring a woman's sensitivity to it, but you're not to be locked into women's issues? Unknown Speaker 1:07:46 Yeah, I mean, I don't think anybody does, like, you know, I think everyone's very sensitive that story to be assigned a woman, or if it's a black that you put a black on it. I think there is sensitivity in the management of assigning stories, that you don't do that. I know. I noticed that CVS, yes, yes. Unknown Speaker 1:08:03 No, I wanted to, to actually address what you were saying before, which is, are the numbers that you gave, which is something that we hadn't discussed. And I think one thing as we're talking and we're all I'm 39, Susan is 41, the women who I work with, who are both the writers and the editors, and they think they're all it takes time for these changes to happen. And, you know, we are all of a certain age group, I mean, I think that those numbers that you're seeing don't genuinely reflect actually, the changes that are already in process. I think that they're just, it's just, it's just a matter of time. I mean, if you realize that Newsweek, and CBS and all these organizations, were back in the dark ages, just 15 years ago. Unknown Speaker 1:09:01 I agree with you, you can't walk through the nation in a funny way, when we were stacking this, this new kind of trunk show, we had to go out of our way to look for some men. Almost everybody that applied that thought was really good was a woman. And at one point, the executive producer said to me, that, you know, you're gonna get a funny reputation if everybody hire is a woman. I mean, you know, we've gone the other way, because the women have risen so fast and are so so well thought of in this field. And as producers and their their audition tapes were better. It takes about pieces were better. Nine out of 10 women I mean, our staff is predominantly women, not because I had that in my mind, but because they were better. And I had to go out of my way to look for some some decent men. Unknown Speaker 1:09:46 Let me just interpret the numbers. They were looking at correspondence. I mean, for byline. This should include producers. Because as we know, producers practically write the scripts for the correspondence and I think that Isn't television where it's extremely fuzzy? They didn't do magazines. But they did find that in the small and medium sized papers where there's probably more room for growth, rather than in the major papers, women were writing 50% of the Bible. Unknown Speaker 1:10:14 And most women, you give us women 10 years. For the major, it'll be Unknown Speaker 1:10:21 I just came into the conversation kind of late. So I don't know what statistics you uploading. However, recently, I heard on NPR, that that within the newspaper industry, women haven't risen above Managing Editor, statistically for the past 20 years in any great numbers at all. And until I'm of the mind until we do get into positions like that, stories aren't going to change the direction and newspapers aren't going to change. I Unknown Speaker 1:10:50 disagree, though. I mean, I think that you're right, in the sense of and I don't can't talk to newspapers, because I don't work for one. But look at the New York Times, and and that's still at male power structure is definitely, it seems impenetrable at the time, but they're smart enough. Look at the women on the front page of The New York Times. Look at Maureen Dowd. You know, Unknown Speaker 1:11:12 same for listening for less. Unknown Speaker 1:11:14 I mean, and there are people who have been in foreign countries who have been at war, Donatella Lorge cetera. You know, I ran into her in in Kuwait. And you know, she looked like she was 12. You know, but they're there. You're right. The The New York Times national rank is predominantly male, but, but at least they're starting to rise up on the reporter level, Unknown Speaker 1:11:35 you can't become a managing editor of a major newspaper. You know, before a certain age, there just aren't there aren't 20? You know, they're not going to give it to a man at the age of 30, then I can give it to a woman at the age of 37. I wrote mine. And yeah, and if you figure that we are all just heading into our 40s You know, in a way, give us 10 years. And, and, you know, it's also we're not, we're not the Oh, no, it didn't start with us. But there was. Unknown Speaker 1:12:06 But there was so few at that point. And if you look at the if you look at newsroom now. It's Unknown Speaker 1:12:13 a whole other ballgame, a whole other ballgame now. And also, it's not just that but there is, you know, before Anna Quinlan, there was Flora Lewis, before Lewis wrote, I mean, she was so part there was no way for her to write in any way other than I mean, it was indistinguishable from the other columns. For a woman to be writing on the opposite page of the times, and to be a calmness, she had to conform to a certain tradition. And a Quinlan is part of an entirely different three, where she talks in a voice that is, would have been unrecognizable, there are just a number of years that would never have been out to speak. Unknown Speaker 1:12:55 Okay, there's a question over here. Unknown Speaker 1:12:58 Well, I had a question that I was just thinking, you know, during all your coverage, I was getting very curious about what women in the Middle East and what. And there was only one piece I can remember, which was said long article by Citrix Miller getting what it was titled those women in Saudi Arabia. I even sent it to my mother. And I think, why don't say anything about that back on TV, why wasn't anything or Unknown Speaker 1:13:23 on women? We actually, why didn't you go? Well, we did do several pieces of for the most part, we were really busy in the field and with the with the pills, but we did we did several pieces, because it was a fascinating occurrence while we were there, which was a demonstration by women who wanted to drive. And, you know, I had been put under a sort of house arrest because I took one of the CDs vehicles into town because I had to pick somebody up and I said, screw this. I'm just gonna go. But we covered we did several pieces about women. Now it didn't dominate the coverage. It couldn't, you know, but we did. We did pieces. The New York Times did pieces. Almost everybody touched that subject, but we were there to cover a war. Unknown Speaker 1:14:10 With that, so, so good space, what you're talking about. I mean, you're comparing, that was a Sunday Times Magazine, right? So you have, you have just columns and columns and columns of space in a daily paper, you have daily coverage. Plus you have things like the Sunday Times Magazine, what you're talking about, when you talk about the evening news, you're talking about 30 minutes, 22 minutes, 20 candidates to capture to do all the world's news and if you're in the middle of a war, you know, that doesn't leave you a whole lot or and then you've tossed in, you know, evening, you know, late night, some ups and stuff. in Newsweek, we have 52 pages. But 52 Small pages, they're not like newspaper pages. We did cover you know, and we did to do stuff about women but but obviously it was a small portion of the coverage Unknown Speaker 1:15:00 was while we were there to cover it, it did get noticed. But it wasn't why we were there Unknown Speaker 1:15:05 in the yellow shirt. And Unknown Speaker 1:15:07 I've been working for a national magazine, three or four national magazines. And one thing that I've seen very consistent, that there's a majority of women on the edge Unknown Speaker 1:15:23 when it comes to the ad sales Unknown Speaker 1:15:25 and publishers, almost entirely non men. And I was curious if that was in an organization. Unknown Speaker 1:15:35 And if you had a portion to travel across those times, you Unknown Speaker 1:15:41 know, media and marketing and how advertising, what's happening to positions, Unknown Speaker 1:15:50 definitely. But that's, that is something that's been changing radically in the last couple of years. The woman who is head of circulation is a woman, which is always a traditionally a man's field. Marketing Director is a woman, again, these are all women who are sort of mid 30s, to, you know, basically 35 to 40 years old. It is still publishing the publishing side. And all these organizations, I mean, newspapers and magazines, is, you know, is very conservative, and it's going to be the last to go. And women are definitely needed there. But it's also definitely changing. Unknown Speaker 1:16:32 I didn't know that I ended up we were speaking after the Gulf War to an observation was in CDs to sellers of time, and I noticed that there were very few women there. And I asked about it just because I was curious. And they said it's just one it's one of those last bastions were limited, just that there were some women there. But the number, I was sort of struck by it I had Unknown Speaker 1:16:54 way more than Unknown Speaker 1:16:56 Well, it's it's a very different part of what I do you know what we do, it's in the corporate. And Unknown Speaker 1:17:03 I'll tell you one thing that the women on the business side of Newsweek did last year, there were that 10 of them. And they went off on a retreat together, and took golfing lessons for five straight days. Because the fact is, you cannot be on the business side of a magazine and not play golf 90% of business is done on a golf course. And there were all these women who were suddenly turning around and they were locked out of all the business that they have all become just as big golf pros as all the rest of them. If that's how you normally do your life, you know, but that's what they had to do. Are the women in power? Definitely. I mean, yeah, it's not going backwards at all. And especially when you get those of us who suddenly you're sitting in a budget meetings, we sure as hell are not rolling back. And Unknown Speaker 1:18:03 the last one in the budget meeting, and we're the last ones to get the mail. Equal pay as well. Because sometimes I CVS happens to be I hope this tape does get playful artist. CVS is one of the cheapest networks in terms of what it pays people and producers. There's never a a we're gonna pay her less because she's a woman, they just pay less. Problems Unknown Speaker 1:18:34 since her studio started, researchers, secretaries and they withheld tax on their contracts. Getting paid a lot less. Unknown Speaker 1:18:51 I don't know this, I just find something interesting when I was interviewing that there were a bunch of women at 60 minutes who, when you call the guys who ran, I won't mention names, but some of the senior people over there for recommendations. They said, Oh, she's great. She's great. And I said, Well, how come they haven't been promoted within 60 minutes? They said, Well, it just didn't work. It was interesting to me. And I thought up, you know, here's one of those last bastions, you know, who's one of those little bubbles that you need to burst. And we took I took one woman, a young woman from 60 minutes, who was literally labeled a production secretary. She'd been doing associate producer work. I brought her in as a broadcast associate. And she's I mean, this woman could walk on water as far as I'm concerned. You could tell she's been doing the work. I'm not familiar. So I it's hard for me to speak about that. But the question I wanted to ask, in your opinion about the Sunday morning how long there is some representation how long you're more latency more secure. lesley stahl I mean, but I mean, let's be really clear, Helen. Unknown Speaker 1:20:07 Oh, I'm Margaret Warner. Unknown Speaker 1:20:10 I wanted to CNN was on NBC. Well, I mean, CBS CBS had their anchor as a woman. I don't think you can get much better than that. And she Yeah, she anchored the show up. But that was her decision to move to 60 minutes. CBS is great. Unknown Speaker 1:20:32 But on the other shows we're on. Unknown Speaker 1:20:37 Monday, Regulus probably when I forget it. I think there ought to be. Yeah, Unknown Speaker 1:20:55 yes. But are you know, Bochy, for now anchors Face the Nation and the key replacement of Susan Spencer? And I would say dispenser Would you ever wanted to Face The Nation? And she said, You know, it's a lot of it. I think that there should be more women in these in these shows. I'm not quite I mean, because CVS had Lesley, the whole face nation staff is women. And we used to have a expression for them, which I won't say publicly among the women at CVS. And so I'm not I'm not my consciousness sort of is, is that we've always had women. But ABC definitely looks like the boys club. I think we should have more women. And that's just a question of pushing ABS has had a tough record, Carol Simpson has done a lot for ABC in pushing them in terms of women, more women reporters, they they do have fewer women reporters, fewer women in senior positions, they're better now with senior senior editorial positions. But they've they've not been as forward as some Unknown Speaker 1:22:00 of this. I think there's also one other point to make, which is, again, goes into all these news organizations, the men who are our age, have a very different, most of them, not all, but have a very different take on things than then the guys who came before, and it just doesn't occur to them, it wouldn't occur to them. If, you know, if a lot of the guys who I work with, if somebody said to Jonathan alter, okay, John, you know, put together your the new John McLaughlin put together your ranch, he wouldn't occur to him to just have pick five men. I mean, it just it you know, it's just when the curtilage or to have six men on a regular basis in a rotating woman. So I think that, you know, those in the cases of a lot of these shows, the next generation of these shows is not that the shows are going to get integrated more is that you're going to have a new crop come along, Unknown Speaker 1:23:02 the producers will just have a different that, you know, their their mindset will be different. This question, you mentioned that. Unknown Speaker 1:23:22 I'd love to because when I went in, I was asked by CBS News to to run a part of the CBS Olympics. And I went in there and I was told that it would be very difficult for me that I was supposed to be in a position of power, and that nobody was going to listen to me and it would be miserable. And so I went in there and I and I found that it, it was a sort of very boys club type of atmosphere. But part of the, I guess, part of the initiation, because they knew I had been in some dangerous situations, and most of them the most danger they'd ever seen was a football game with in overtime, that they were little they treated me with a little more respect, you definitely had to a ver and this is sort of terrible to say but a very sort of Krissy feminine kind of person who went in there would have felt very uncomfortable. You know, if you've lived in a newsroom. And I don't say this, you know, everybody, a girl is one of the boys. It's a sort of familial kind of family field. So I really found that once I got in there, and once I thought and I treated them with respect, they always think if more was almost less, sometimes less gender than it was news versus sports, that they thought all news people think that sports people are intellectually new. Once that once I went in there and treated them as with respect, knowing that what I was really covering was was almost like a summit of athlete and I worked as hard as I did in a project. It was fine, but I definitely had a pool of myself. That people definitely came up and said, you know, you've covered a war. Have you seen any Buddy die in LBC dead people mean it was it was like, Okay now I can join spankings club. But I should have brought my rocket propelled grenade launcher that it brought back from Kuwait but it it was a little bit of a test it was very I shouldn't I was sort of cake it was very tough working in in the Mideast especially in Saudi. It took me a long time to gain any kind of foothold with the Saudi government with the with the militant Saudi military. The American military, I learned pretty fast that I was not I was a no nonsense person and they were fine. With you were fabulous. Fabulous. And they have become my best friends. And I was offered a job at CVS in CVS Olympic unit. And when I came back, Unknown Speaker 1:25:50 I guess what my question is the coverage of sports. Is there a difference? Or whether Unknown Speaker 1:26:02 i There were there were a lot of women producers within the Olympic unit and, and the main producers were doing profiles of women athletes. I think that because they're in our age, and these guys were actually younger, they were in their early 30s, you know, late 20s, early 30s. I think that the men and the women have a different mindset. It's this group that's coming up now. It's our family of reporters that just don't treat people differently, which is advantageous to coverage as a whole. I think that the older guys still have this kind of tunnel vision TV. You know, Unknown Speaker 1:26:37 I mean, Newsweek Unknown Speaker 1:26:41 covered the Olympics in a big way. And it was mostly appalling. This this year, and it was just hideous, and one of the happiest days in the past year. And if I don't mind having untape was the day that our our much Harold's heralded sports writer Frank du Ford was lured away by Vanity Fair, I did a jig like I've never performed in front of a lot of people. Because he's, he's an old time sports writer. And he would turn in he would be covering summer Sanders or somebody and he would write turn in a whole piece, which was all about our girl summer. And you would say, Frank, we don't we don't do profiles like this anymore. We don't refer to a Olympic athletes is our girl. And, you know, and he would throw a fit. And he would say, you know, you hired me to attend it. And the truth was, a lot of people love these pieces. They were just so embarrassing. It was the magazine would come out. And I would like walk down the street, just cringing. I didn't know what to be associated Unknown Speaker 1:27:44 with this garbage of cages. Unknown Speaker 1:27:47 But I mean, every piece and you know, especially dealing with like young gymnasts. I mean, you know, salivating over 14 year old gymnasts Oh, that kid was so adorable. You know, it was it was agony. But he's gone. And I now have a say I did not have a say in his hiring. But I do have a say in the hiring of his replacement. And whoever is our writer next time to the Olympics is not going to be somebody to whom and ever occurred to say, to write a sentence or a whole piece about our girls summer. So. Unknown Speaker 1:28:31 I think that there are certain stories that men, I think that everybody would have come to domestic violence and odd divorce cases and women's stories because I think that CBS is very conscious. And if this tape says Get out, I'll probably be fired. We do look at research on what people are interested in and what issues people care about. But I think women in senior positions editorially, you know, I read something in a magazine. And I take note what if we did this as a feature? It wouldn't have occurred to men, maybe for another two years because it wasn't hot enough. It wasn't. It wasn't an issue on the front burner for them, whereas it is for me. So I think editorially, we bring stories forward that are of interest. You know, the health stories, the family story, the nanny problems that that I think we're ahead of our time, because we're thinking about these things over time lot about Unknown Speaker 1:29:34 asexuality over the last couple days. The white gay journalist has been very prominent next was Newsweek, the one that said that news within the postal office said that their troubles could march Unknown Speaker 1:29:48 the price that the Washington Post policy has always been that nobody The Washington Post can can march in political marches. The policy at Newsweek is different Um, we've got writers and editors who are marching, but they are not ones who don't do they don't cover. They're not involved in political coverage per se. I mean, they've been a movie critic, you know, that's cool. That's fine. Well, Unknown Speaker 1:30:18 you know, obviously women cover women's issues and women's issues. Many cover women's issues when you Unknown Speaker 1:30:24 have someone who is openly Unknown Speaker 1:30:26 gay, and what criteria that you use for Unknown Speaker 1:30:30 assigning story. It was a very good, it's a very good question, a associate producer for us. And we're trying to think about what we've been doing in the military with a gay ban is lifted in the military. And he's, he was doing some research, and he admitted to me and he, you know, he's these new employees, for the most part, he said them, I'd like you to know, I'm gay. And I said, that's fine. But he asked me if we had hoped in this meeting, and he came up after he said, I would really like to do the research for that, sorry, I've got great contact. And I said, Great. I said, I'm never going to come to you because you are gay to do a gay story. But if you have specific interests in certain contacts, that's fine. The interesting thing is he came to me the next day. And he said, I was really thinking of going to Washington, because a lot of people are going to be in this one city. And I can do a lot of business. But I was also going to march. And he said, How do you feel about that? And I, I said, you know, CBS doesn't have a policy, per se, or if they do, I didn't exactly know what it was to fit. But on this broadcast, I think I feel that if you're going down to do work, that you should go down and do work that you shouldn't march in that in the break. If you have a problem with that, then I'll reassign story, and I'll let you electrical March. But if you're working, you should work. And he said, No, he found it fine, and that he was physically there. And spiritually, he would be with people and he wasn't in a march. But I think that when somebody has opened again, I think it's the Washington Post, or the New York Times today did a piece about a sales contest. You know, it's, I'm, I'm a journalist. And if somebody's got great context, I'm going to use them. But I'm not going to say because you're gay, you should do that story. Unknown Speaker 1:32:17 I want to get back to the topic of violence and violence on the news and the competing competition for the public, and so that this gentleman had to come up with increasingly violent stories and sensational stories. And I wonder, what's Unknown Speaker 1:32:34 the thing that reporters, journalists, Unknown Speaker 1:32:37 and your people can do about this, because you're just getting younger, younger age, is the most violent in the nation. And women really are not by nature of violence. Unknown Speaker 1:32:54 In the sense of what we can do in terms of Unknown Speaker 1:32:57 whatever selectivity of news, maybe stories about how to cope with the violence, propagate violence, because the media is propagated, Unknown Speaker 1:33:09 except you don't want you don't want your media to be censors. You don't want us to not report things because they are offensive, or because they're troubling. I think that Unknown Speaker 1:33:22 there's a way of doing there's a selectivity. Unknown Speaker 1:33:27 It's not that you're simply reporting. Unknown Speaker 1:33:29 And I think that as a television journalist, there are certain scenes that we're not going to put on television, you know, that's a selected editorial judgment, we may do a story about a short child murdering somebody else, because of the nature and how the child slipped through the cracks of the social welfare system. I think that we're sensitive to increased violence and the criticism of pushing violence in an effort to get viewers. I don't think you'll ever eliminate it, because we shouldn't. I think that the more stories that we can do, to get at the root cause to get at the solution, but I are important, but I think that we must keep reporting what's happening. And that selectivity has to be very carefully editorial, editorially based, not just because it's violent, we're going to not put it on because that's going to promote more violence. I don't think we can get into that business. Unknown Speaker 1:34:27 But it is it is tricky. It's tricky knowing exactly what to do. And, and I don't you know, I don't even really know what I think about the issue, but I do know this, that this week. I was all alone, flicking on the TV, and there was rescue 911 and in rescue 911 they simulated a teenage girl who's in a car crash, it's all on thing and she begins to like burn alive in her car. Are these people keep pulling up with their cars trying to let this girl out and this girl is there now. And, you know, 35% of her body is covered with claims. But you didn't. I mean, I have thought about that program all week. And it was like three days after Waco and everything else, I think it was on Wednesday night. And you know, I kept thinking to turn it off there, for Christ's sake, turn this stuff off. And I just it of all, the entertainment. I mean, I'll just say it's split out of all the entertainment that I experienced this week, that and seeing the screening of Much Ado About Nothing, those are the high points of my weakness. So what do you do? I mean, all of us. It is a huge audience out there that is riveted to stuff like Unknown Speaker 1:35:46 this. One thing I thought of Do you remember it, there was a story recently a local television station when with a woman, and I can't remember why they were doing this. But the woman was in a situation where her husband had been stalking her. And the television station went along and the woman was visiting a grave. I can't I don't even remember the circumstances. But her husband shot her in front of the crew. And there was a fairly big debate, not long, but large number of people on whether CBS would buy this footage and whether we would put it on the air. And we all looked at each other. We said, what? We shouldn't be discussing this. No. I don't believe any other network. did. I think you did. We we had a discussion. It was it was it was like, it was like should we hire a Simon degree? I mean, it was that quick. Nobody at the table said that we should buy that stuff. I know that inside edition was in a bidding war for like the, but that's a selected decision that we were not going to put that on the it's gratuitous violence. Unknown Speaker 1:36:55 Let me just from my perspective, I think television is a storytelling telling medium, I think there's an under a lot more pressure than Sarah, to tell the story to make it exciting. And I know that she's struggling with it. Now with the stories for the magazine and the other news magazine news. One is struggling with it, to try to use the medium creatively, which lends itself to violence and excitement and that kind of storytelling. Unknown Speaker 1:37:24 One of the reasons why magazine shows is so successful is because they are doing stories of human drama. It's actually replacing entertainment drama, because for the most part, what you're looking at is real. It's one of the reasons why all these television movies are in this race. Like these producers can't get to the scene fast enough. Sometimes when we're in places like Waco, we're tripping over these Hollywood producers, who are trying to ahead of us to get in and secure people's rights for these really violent tales. You know, any movie you see on television now is is for the most part, a real story Unknown Speaker 1:38:01 to work with while back, I think it's worth the seduction. Unknown Speaker 1:38:09 It wasn't inadvertent drugs, Unknown Speaker 1:38:13 you know, there you can you can choose to see that. We to some of my work, I'm seeing people too. They don't want to just do that they want to see if there's some hope. They want to they want to make a connection between the problem people are gonna we're gonna get our downline and you may not see it in in what comes back to you, but it may be Unknown Speaker 1:38:41 one of the problems I'm sorry, one of the problems we face and and and we do face this when we let go to when some of these people who come in and analyze what we do and they they track sort of stories, you know, a violent story versus a solution story. You know, I call them I have a file on my desk in a pub working through and they're positive stories. People turn off and and you know, so as much as I argue and and, and I do advocate some of these great things from stories. The audience isn't there for the entertainment division. They can't sell it so until society comes around, and and is and is as drawn in by the person who's really made it who's really making a difference with changing a kid's life. It's really hard. It's a battle that everyday I face and especially now in this magazine show. It may kill me. Unknown Speaker 1:39:32 Okay, we'll just take one more questions and then you'll stay for five minutes to answer questions. Okay, one and Unknown Speaker 1:39:41 two. Why didn't you tell the story about your field? And we said we're interested in use this. But here's this special interview and you Now we see women keeping special interest in Unknown Speaker 1:40:06 interest group, I have to tell you I don't think that was news. Unknown Speaker 1:40:13 The point that I'm making is that our take on something she's not special interest. We're Unknown Speaker 1:40:20 I understand what you said. Not that story. But do you think most people would be interested in that story other than women? I get to what I don't think it's news, I didn't think it was an accident, not I understand what you say. Unknown Speaker 1:40:40 The special interest group, Unknown Speaker 1:40:42 we're winning. You are you are, you are covered to me. But I don't think the public would have been interested. Would you care? Okay, let me ask this room. Would you care about that story on? Hey, we have one last Unknown Speaker 1:41:06 question was there Unknown Speaker 1:41:13 for you, based on your experience editing 17, do you have any sense of what young women who the readers of 17 are interested in? Because I know I looked at it a week and Unknown Speaker 1:41:26 certainly 70 know Unknown Speaker 1:41:29 what the kinds of things? Unknown Speaker 1:41:33 Yeah, unfortunately. Well, I'll tell you what happened to me. I was a freelance writer, married to a freelance writer, and after eight years of freelance life was somebody time for somebody to get the hell out of the house and get a job. So I got the only job that I could get, because I'm much better at doing things like getting jobs. And he is, and I got the articles editor job at 17. And I like teenagers a lot. I like teenage girls a lot. I think they're just a great, I like that age. And the first thing I did, I realized that I thought the magazine was appalling. And all the articles that were being written for it were being written in the same way that was written when I was a kid, which was basically they were all frauds, it was made up anecdotes was women's magazines, at their very worst where it wasn't, the articles weren't backed by good reporting. It was anecdotal stuff, but most of the time, you could tell that it was made up. And it was written down in a voice that that was, you know, another sort of fantasy voice. I mean, I you know, who talks like that? I'm very sort of patronizing, in a way, and also insisting in all cases, that everything all problems can be sort of tied up with red ribbons, and, you know, pink ribbons, you know, oh, there's a problem. But don't worry, everything will be okay. Which was a crap. So what I did was I basically got rid of all the writers who had ever written there, and I began hiring my friends, especially newspaper reporters, who didn't even who hadn't even written for women's magazines and didn't even understand that, like, a lot of writing, they're sort of made up. And so you would give them an assignment. And they would actually go out and report the pieces. And they would actually give real reporting and they would write them in a very serious fashion. We were the first magazine to do we did a great piece I love which was our Asian kids really smarter. This is a 1984 85 when suddenly scores, you know, and that brought out just huge, you know, I mean, race, culture, genetic inheritance, all sorts of things. We did some we did the first one, actually, before I got to 17. The way that I got to know some team was I did a piece on date rape in like 1980, which had gotten a huge response. But we did a lot about violence. We did a lot about interracial dating. That was a big topic. We did a lot of abortion standoffs, we did all sorts of topical stuff. And what we began to discover was, the more serious the topics, and the more and then the richer the presentation of the topics, the more these girls loved it, they loved it. And we began giving them instead of like, you know, boyfriend pieces, we began giving them serious issues to deal with, and they ate it up because we were the only place that was, you know, talking to them like human beings. And they're out there trying to fake sift through all this stuff and figure it out. And finally, somebody was taking them seriously. And we began with different you know, we would write we would publish these pieces, they would get 5000 Letters by back about very difficult political or social issues. And also, we would we would flip things. I mean, we were reflecting one piece that we ran was actually the one of the most interesting things that we began doing was, we were starting with the assumption that teenage girls are at war with their mothers a lot of the time, and we began to get all these letters from from girls going, Wait a minute, I'm not at war with my mother. Why does everybody think that teenagers hate their mother, and you be I became realizing, Oh, I get it. You know, somehow, we're all told that the only healthy relationship between girls and their mothers is a dysfunctional at each other's throats once and have healthy supportive relationship is somehow sick because you're not breaking the bond. So you begin to understand we begin to feed back articles to them, I start talking about 17. Like, if at all, I get excited Unknown Speaker 1:45:56 advertisers respond. Well, they loved it, because Unknown Speaker 1:45:59 what happened was the first year that I was there, the circulation went up 500,000 in one year. And my bosses loved me. Because in one year, what year was 1984? Because, you know, clearly, I had like some special, you know, some special gift. It's really amazing. You know, you start getting people good stuff, and they start responding. It's a remarkable thing. Sassy Did, did they know, it's sort of different, it's really sort of different. But they had it Wait, let me finish this one thing, and I'll explain that, but but the next year, so they promoted me the next year, we kept doing it, we won all these awards. It went up in two years, the circulation went up 850,000. And so I kept getting promoted. And unfortunately, by 1988, I was promoted to editor at which point I suddenly had to start dealing with the owner who was Walter Annenberg, you and I did not really see eye to eye on a lot of issues. And I also had to, like start having conversations with the fashion side of the magazine about you know, what you see that green is the color this spring, but what kind of green and and also Furthermore, the truth is, for me to get to be editor, they had kicked out the person who was edited before and put her into a special orbit up here. But she managed him for a month to make my life so miserable, that I got the hell out of there. And the first thing that she did was she got rid of all those articles and that whole approach and the first issue after me was when it was called boys boys, boys, boys, boys, boys, boys, boys, five, and it really hasn't changed. But just around that time, sassy, started, and sassy did get into trouble, but sassy. At the time when they were getting started. They were Australia. I mean, it was an Australian bunch starting it up, and they did not understand and this actually ties into the whole issue of advocacy. They did not understand how how fundamentally puritanical this country is. And so what they did because they thought it was really hip and really cool. They put on the covered 17 was dealing with all the same things being sexual, you know, sex information, promiscuity, birth control, we you know, we we would do ones where we would slip in phrases like you know, blue balls because you realize that like these girls are being told this stuff you gotta use these phrases or else they're not gonna know what you're talking about. We've slipped these things in Don't worry, you know, the guy is not going to die of blue balls if you don't so but sassy did that but they advertised it in a big way and they promoted in a big way and their first issue came out saying you know, basically how to lose your virginity and how to give a blow job and they sent it across the country and big surprise their advertisers dropped them like hot potato and they were banned from you know, schools across the country and everything else and it nearly killed the magazine which was too bad because actually they were trying some interesting things but they didn't understand that this is a very you know what what what goes what works you know in in 116 from Broadway does not necessarily work across the country No, I think Unknown Speaker 1:49:27 we're close if you could come up and ask the guests individually Thank you very much for your this expression gonna die. And boy still. Yeah. Unknown Speaker 1:49:55 You better believe joint family served four. Unknown Speaker 1:50:01 Years