THE DAY CNN LEARNED TO GO WALL-TO-WALL

CNN had assigned me to supervise a 9 am to Noon newscast and have anchors and producers in Atlanta, New York City, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles.  It was a first for the network, a first for me, and a first for me to try out what I had promised myself years before.

I usually left the CNN newsroom on Techwood Drive in Atlanta about 1 pm weekdays, an hour after NewsWatch ended.  On this first day of September in 1983 I paused to look at an “Urgent” from the wire services:  Korean Airlines flight #007 was missing on its trip to Korea from the U.S.  You can imagine CNN gets many “Urgent” messages from the wire services around the world.  But this one seemed particularly interesting to me.  So I stayed in the newsroom for an extra hour or so, forgoing my usual effort to sleep from 2 pm until my kids got home from school.  I could always get more sleep “tomorrow.”

After about an hour and a half of watching the story with no new information I decided to head home.  Once home I kept tuned to CNN for updates.  The original story kept being repeated every half hour or so but no new information was forthcoming.  Normally I’d go to bed about 8 pm only to get up again about 2 am.  That was so I could be at CNN again by 3 am to prepare for the next DayWatch.   This night I stayed up until about 10 pm waiting for more details.  They were few and far between.

I arrived at CNN at my usual 3 am timeslot.  As I prepared for the 4 am arrival of my producers I kept watching for any new details on KAL 007.  There was no substantive update.  The first hour rundown for DayWatch, the 9 am hour, was due to the writers and editors by 7 am.  The 7 am producer was making last minute adjustments to that rundown at 6:45 when another “Urgent” came across the wires:  “KAL 007 had been shot at by Soviet jets.”

Immediately I said to the 9 am producer, the 10:30 am producer, and my producers in NYC and LA: “Drop everything.  We’re going wall-to-wall with 007.”  You must understand that in 1983, 3 years into the life of Cable News Network, top breaking news stories ran at the top and sometimes the bottom of each hour but NEVER wall-to-wall.  There was so much else to put on the air, so much more news to report.

BUT….I also thought of that night in 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee; the night Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.  That night in Memphis I was busy in the newsroom producing the 10 pm newscast at WMC-TV, editing news film, and doing “phoners” for TV and radio stations across the U.S. and around the world.  I was also keeping an eye on the program monitor in the newsroom watching what we were reporting about the huge story…both WMC-TV program interrupts and NBC News program interrupts.  But it began to bother me that they were, indeed, interrupts.  That night NBC’s prime time lineup was mostly comedy shows.  So at the end of a local or national interrupt the reporter or anchor would say: “That’s the latest on the killing of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the subsequent unrest.  More as it develops.  WE NOW RETURN YOU TO OUR REGULAR PROGRAMMING ALREADY IN PROGRESS.” 

That ending just seemed wrong to me…the “kid” in the newsroom.  I made myself a promise that night that “if I’m ever in charge and a big, really big story breaks I’m taking air and keeping it…reporting the story on-going.”  And that’s just what I was deciding to do that morning at CNN about KAL 007.

My staff in four cities backed me on the decision and off we went preparing for 3 hours if necessary of updates and repeats of the big story.  As usual at 7:30 am CNN Executive Vice President and to many of us our news mentor Ed Turner arrived.  After looking over the 8 am rundown of the 6am to 9 am newscast (EP John Zarrella…now CNN Miami Bureau Chief and space program reporter) he then moved on to the first hour rundown of DayWatch.  It was there, immediately, that he saw we were going wall-to-wall with KAL 007.  He said rather forcefully:  “Byrd, we don’t do that.”  My immediate reply was:  “Ed, if you don’t like it you can fire me at noon.”  He huffed and puffed for a few seconds, shook his head, and walked off to his office.

At 9 am we told what we knew about the missing plane and the Soviet jets.  We updated the information that one of the passengers the flight was a U.S. congressman from Georgia, Larry McDonald.  We went live to The White House and The State Department.  We went live on the phone to other congressmen already in Korea for a conference and live on the phone to CNN’s Moscow Bureau.  We updated.  We repeated.  But we did not go live to The Pentagon because none of the networks had, as yet, worked out the technical details on daily live reports from there.

At about 9:40 am our DayWatch Atlanta production assistant, Pat Reap, came to me and said: “I’ve got Congressman McDonald’s Rome, Georgia office manager on the phone.  Do you want to put him on live?”  I thanked Pat (and, as it turns out, I could never thank him enough) and rushed the Rome office manager on the air.  Atlanta anchors Dave Walker and Lois Hart, CNN’s first anchor on the air when the network began 3 years before, began asking the interview.  In his first answer the manager told them and a nationwide audience:  “I just got off the phone with The Pentagon.  The plane was shot down and everyone on board is dead.”  This was 9:45 am.

We had our big break in the story.  We rolled forward:  live to The White House (nothing on that yet here), live to The State Department (nothing on that yet here), live to Moscow (we’re beginning to get some rumblings here).  Then we got word The Pentagon had called a news conference for 10 am.  CNN and the other networks sent microwave trucks to The Pentagon “just in case.”  The Pentagon news conference confirming the information that the Soviets had, indeed, shot down the plane and everyone on board was dead.  That news conference didn’t end until about 10:30 am.  That’s when NBC, CBS, ABC and the other news outlets had first news they could report on the story.  By that time we were 45 minute down the road on the details.

We went on with the story up to Noon, when we handed things over to the next program.  I then walked across the newsroom and down the hall to Ed Turner’s office.  I just stood in the door. After a moment Ed looked up and said simply:  “You can keep your job, Byrd.”

WALKING & TALKING BABY FACTORY

She was sitting with another girl on the front steps of Messick High School that fall morning of my 10^th grade year…my first at Messick.  She was beautiful.  I knew right then and there she was the one.  She still is.

The details of what led to what are for another time because the focus of this is as the title says.  As we began to make plans to spend the rest of our lives together she kept using the term: “I want to be a walking, talking baby factory.”  I would smile and shake my head approvingly…but I really had no idea what she meant.

So we got married.  11 months (to the hour) she delivered Susan Gayle Byrd.  The pregnancy had been perfect and so was Suzi.  Sandi had beamed as the perfect mother-to-be.  She “wore” her pregnancy with pride and joy. She even delivered Suzi and both of Suzi’s brothers by Dr. J.E. Holmes’ suggested “medial hypnosis”…no drugs, no knockout stuff. 

As her parents and mine waited at Methodist Hospital for word of the birth, waited for a chance to see Suzi and to see Sandi, we didn’t know what to expect.  Or, sure, her mom and mine had been through birthing before:  hers a total of 4 times, mine 3.  But this was Sandy (later changed to Sandi because an “i” was easier to scratch into the bottom of hobby ceramics than a “y”):  The walking, talking baby factory.

Finally we were told we could look at Suzi through the nursery windows.  With great pride I led the procession to the windows and to our first glimpse of Suzi.  We “ooohhh-ed” and “aaahhhhh-ed.”  We took pictures.  We beamed with delight.

Then, suddenly, from behind us we heard laughter.  We all turned around in unison to see Sandi, the walking-talking baby factory, on her side on a hospital gurney, head propped up on her arm, laughed and asking: “You all look so silly.”  There she was, about 15 minutes after delivery, laughing at us.  Turns out Dr. Holmes, the medical hypnosis, and Sandi had all done so well the doctor wanted to send her, and Suzi, home right then and there.  The trouble was the hospital had rules even Dr. Holmes couldn’t avoid.

Dr. Holmes was our family physician.  Dr. Holmes delivered me and my two brothers.  Dr. Holmes delivered all 3 of our children.  And Dr. Holmes, working with the walking, talking baby factory delivered 3 beautiful children.

LOCK AND KEY

When I was getting things ready for the launch of CNN-I I ordered 5 desks, 5 desk chairs, and 5 filing cabinets from the company's usual supplier. When they came in and were put in place the delivery guy handed me the keys to the desks and cabinets: all serial #00001. Each key fit every desk and every file cabinet. I said: "What the @#$%^&@?" He said: "Unless you specify they all come that way and they fit any and all locks with that number." So I walked around testing, opening up file cabinets all over CNN, including some outside CNN'S executive offices. I went to the next floor, opening file cabinets along the hallways of TBS.
I then went to the afternoon story meeting in the CNN conference room. At the end of the meeting I stood up and announced: "I have a field trip." Without further explaining we got on the elevator and went to the 3rd floor....where I had NOT tried this ahead of time. When we got to Ted Turner's outer office area I walked around opening up Ted's file cabinets. About that time Ted walked out and said: "What's going on?"
Soon there were locksmiths all over the complex!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TURN THAT LITE OUT!!!!!!!

Back in 1967...when I was "just" the 10 pm producer (Memphis is Central time) and film editor....and when the civil rights folks had 'taken up' James Meredith's "Mississippi March" after his one-man march ended with him being shot.....................................a 3-man NBC film crew came in to do an update on the march as it was to rally one night in Greenwood Mississippi. The crew checked in with me about 3 pm and took off for Greenwood. They knew we'd process their film and I'd edit it late that night for the Today Show the next morning. They got back about 10:15 pm and their film went "in the soup." When it came out about 10:45 I put it on a projector and we watched the raw material. They weren't telling me a thing about what happened.

The film began with a dark scene, a bright white shaft of light beaming out in front of the camera and the sound of 3 sets of feet crunching on the asphalt as they walked the 2 blocks to the rally at the court square. The cameraman, electrician, and the sound man walked forward with the camera rolling. Occasionally a bug would fly through the shaft of light.

Suddenly from off camera you heard someone yell: "TURN THAT LITE OUT." The crew kept walking. "TURN THAT LITE OUT." They kept walking.

Then there was a gunshot...the sound of shattering glass (the camera light)...the view of glass pieces falling through the slowly dimming light shaft. Then darkness. Then we heard: "I TOLD YOU TO TURN THE GOD DAMN LITE OUT." Camera shuts off. That was it.

 

The cameraman turned to me and said: "What can we do with this?" I said: "Watch this." I called NYC and told them what happened and that I would "put a head and tail leader on this. Run it as it..unedited." The Today Show did. And NBC Nightly did, too....unedited.

HE DIDN'T LOOK LIKE JAMES EARL RAY

James Earl Ray has been in the news again in the past few days.  Photos have been re-released from 1968 when he was brought into Memphis from his capture in England a little over 2 months after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  The pictures show Ray in shackles and a bulletproof vest, being posed with then Sheriff Bill Morris.  The capture and arrival in Memphis were big news back then. But you almost never hear about the time the next morning when Ray was taken from Memphis to prison.

This is that story…one told the next day and forgotten until now.

Ray confessed in a Memphis courtroom March 10, 1969. I was a reporter for WMC-TV in Memphis at the time.  I “just knew” Sheriff Morris would move Ray out of his Shelby County Jail to state prison that very night.  I asked my news director if I could take photographer Bernie Mintz and stakeout the jail in an effort to get film of Ray’s departure.  The boss told me no, saying there wouldn’t be a story there.  I still tried to make my case but he said he couldn’t afford the overtime.  I told him: “If I don’t get a story you don’t have to pay me.”   He agreed.

Bernie and I staked out the rear of the jail all night.  Sheriff Morris, who would become Shelby County Mayor and later would run for governor of Tennessee, knew we were there.  Frequently that night the sheriff and his men would flip the lights off across the rear parking lot, run to the sheriff’s big car, and speed out of the lot.  Bernie and I would jump out of our car each time and film the departure.  And each time, within minutes, the car would return with Morris and his men laughing at us.  This went on hour after hour.

Some time after midnight a sheriff’s patrol car pulled up at the gas pump at the rear of the jail.  Three men in deputy uniforms, along with helmets and thick fur-lined coats got out.  One went inside.  One waited on the steps smoking a cigarette. The third deputy was busy filling the car’s tank.

After a few minutes a deputy emerged from the jail and joined the other two in the patrol car.  It pulled forward a few dozen yards and stopped.  Suddenly the lights turned off again and out ran Morris and his men.  They jumped in their car and sped off with Bernie filming the “escape.”  We got back in our news car.  Then, slowly, the patrol car approached us.  The rear window rolled down and the deputy in the back seat yelled: “Hey, newsmen.  Don’t get cold out there.”  They laughed at us as they drove away.  We didn’t film that.  All was quiet for the remainder of the night.

Eventually the news director called us on the two-way radio saying Ray was in the state prison and we should give up our still watch.  And, he noted, he wasn’t going to pay us because we didn’t get a story.

The next afternoon Sheriff Morris called a news conference.  NBC, CBS and ABC were there.  The New York Times and the Washington Post were there.  It seemed just about every national and local news group was represented. I was there, too…not quite ready for what happened next.

The first question was asked to Morris:  how did you get Ray out of the jail?

The Sheriff said simply:  “Ask Dick Byrd.  Ray spoke to him.”

Jungle Jim, I Ain’t

 

 

Here’s some advice. If somebody from the circus ever asks you to ride one of their elephants…run and run fast!

 

In the late 60’s, when Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus used to travel by train one of the two units, either the Red or the Blue, would come to Memphis to perform each year. 

 

One year I was “selected” to cover the arrival of the train and the subsequent “circus parade” from the railhead to the Mid-South Coliseum in mid Memphis.

 

So off the rail yard I went with photographer Paul Bateman alongside.  As Ringling animal trainer Gunter Gable Williams supervised the unloading of the circus animals Paul began to shoot film and I began to take notes.

Out came the cages of lions and tigers.  Out came an assortment of horses, camels, donkeys and sch. And then out of a really big train car came the elephants.

 

As the huge elephants gathered alongside the railroad tracks, trainer Williams said to me:  “Why don’t you ride one of the elephants to the coliseum?”  I acted disinterested.

 

But then he said, “Well, one of your GIRL reporters rode an elephant last year!”

That was it.  I couldn’t let Kay Pullen get the best of me. After all, she was JUST a girl. So up on the elephant I went.  Paul threw me an audio tape recorder and he planned on walking and driving alongside filming the event.

 

So off we went…through the rail yard and onto busy Airways Blvd. headed north toward the fairgrounds and the coliseum. You must know it was a warm day…a very warm day.  I think the eventual high temperature that day was in the low 90’s.  And as the elephant swayed back and forth, I began to sweat.

 

Also the elephant’s tough hide began to scratch its way through the bottom of my pants.

 

I began to make audio recordings I was calling “Thoughts while riding an elephant.”  I remember giving the elephant’s name on tape (A name I understandably forgot later).  I remember talking about how high I was from the pavement.  But, I also remember how I began to make spitting sounds into the recorder. 

 

That’s because an elephant, too, gets hot on a warm day. And when an elephant gets hot it does something absolutely disgusting to cool itself off.  At least it’s disgusting to someone who just happens to be riding on his back. The elephant would fill his trunk with, for lack of a better term elephant spit. Then he would blow that elephant spit on hit back to cool himself off.