niyad's request: Why I'm BEYOND THRILLED that roger ailes is in trouble.

[calimary]

74. That movie, "Network," is my all-time favorite.

MAN, Paddy Chayefsky probably never realized how prescient he was. That movie came out in 1976. A Best Picture nominee, but beaten by the first "Rocky" movie.

"I know news departments are expected to lose money. But we see that as a wanton fiscal affront to be resolutely resisted." (Paraphrasing here just a wee bit, at the beginning of the second sentence.)

William Paley, who owned CBS back in the day (before he finally sold to billionaire theatre magnate Laurence Tisch and things started going to hell), believed that the news division shouldn't be a profit center. It should stand apart from all that. He believed that 23 hours a day belonged to the showbiz and the razzamatazz and the advertisers, and ONE hour a day should be set aside for information and public service. News. Straight-ahead news and information without all the fancy trimmings and dancing girls and laugh tracks and "cowboys-'n'-Indians". In the interest of serving and informing the public. Unvarnished and NOT glitzed-up. With newsmen who came out of the print world which was decidedly UNGLAMOROUS. Few if any women in there, but Pauline Frederick covered the UN and she was anything but a young "glamour-girl." And if anyone is old enough to remember the early Superman TV series, "girl reporter Lois Lane" dressed in a skirted suit with a prim blouse whose collar was all the way buttoned up. And her shoes were more conservative mid-heeled black pumps, NOT fuck-me shoes. Probably because she had to stand for long hours covering court and City Hall sessions, and fuck-me shoes don't lend themselves to wearable comfort, anyway.

In the beginning of my career, I bristled at being called a "girl reporter." I was a REPORTER. PERIOD. And I wasn't reporting on GIRLS. My first exposure to reporting was a dead body found in Echo Park in the dead of night, and also, a few days later, John Ehrlichman's trial in downtown L.A. for the Daniel Ellsberg break-in. At which I met one of my idols, Catherine Mackin - dressed in a white belted shirt-dress with 3/4-length sleeves and only the collar button unbuttoned, and a hem that hit just BELOW her knees, and low-heeled brown woven huarache-style shoes. I remember sitting in that courtroom, doodling on my reporter's notebook when things got really slow and boring, and I could clearly see John Ehrlichman's bald spot on the back of his head, seated several rows down but directly in front of me. So I drew a doodle of the back of his head. My near-miss with a Watergater.