Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!

Ira’s Pep Talk

New York City

1974

After her first lunch with Howard Kingsley, Dena tried her best to do something to stop the direction the show was going in but had little luck.

This was the fourth time she had asked Ira Wallace to program an interview with the blind woman who had just been named teacher of the year and for the fourth time he had turned her down. Wallace, who was having what was left of his hair cut by his personal barber, Nate Albetta, said, “Nobody wants to see that sickening candy-ass stuff, do they, Nate?”

Nate said, “Don’t ask me, I couldn’t tell you.”

“Yes, they do, Ira,” Dena said. “You don’t know it but there are a lot of nice people out there. Everybody is not trying to rip everyone else off. You need to get out of New York and travel around this country and meet some of the people who are your audience.”

Wallace said, “You’re telling me I don’t know my audience? Me? Have you seen the numbers this week?”

“No … but that’s not the point.”

“Let me tell you something, and this I learned from that great journalist, Walter Winchell: gossip is like dope; once you get people hooked, they need a little every day, and if you don’t let them down, you have them for life.”

Dena rolled her eyes. “Oh, great, Ira, why don’t we put that on a bronze plaque and hang it on the wall?”

Dena looked at Nate with the straight razor in his hand. “While you’re at it, why don’t you cut his throat for me, will you?”

Nate laughed; he was used to their arguments.

“You know, kid, you’re gonna have to get over this mistaken idea you have of human nature. This ain’t nothing new. People can’t wait to get the dirt on other people. That’s what makes the world go round and pays your salary and you better hope they don’t ever get over it. You’ve got some fantasy about brotherly love. It don’t exist. You think people are some kind of pure, white feathered birds flying in the clouds. They’re not. They’re pigs and they love to wallow in the mud and dirt.”

“A lovely sentiment, Ira. Gee, I’m glad you told me all this. I was starting to think that there might be one or two decent people out there. A good thing you caught me in time.”

Nate laughed again while Wallace said, “Yeah, yeah”—he relit his cigar—“you may think it’s funny but if you don’t watch out, you’re gonna get stomped on. You got some idealist idea about man being some noble creature … and all this crap about how we can change human nature. You can’t change it, you’re beating your head against a brick wall. People have had a couple of million years to change and they ain’t changed yet, have they?”

“Not much.”

“No, and they ain’t going to. Not in your lifetime. So get over it.”

“Don’t you ever feel just a little bit guilty?”

Wallace threw up his hands. “Jesus, what is this?” He looked at Nate. “I’m in a Frank Capra movie all of a sudden. Now, don’t let me down and turn out to be some loser.”

“Ira, I’m not trying to let you down. I know it’s OK to expose real corruption, but I don’t think you realize that people are complaining about how mean the show is getting. I hear it all the time.”

“Sure, you do. The rich and the powerful can’t control the press anymore and it’s making them mad. But we ain’t the villains—they are. Don’t shoot the messenger.”

“I’m not but these hidden camera things you are doing are pretty iffy.”

“Hey—who is going to decide what to withhold? Are you? Is the president? No. Is Howard Kingsley? No. That old craptrap about news being withheld for national security reasons don’t wash anymore; we’ve pulled down their pants and exposed them and they don’t like it. That’s why they’re squealing like stuck pigs, and when we catch anybody, and I mean anybody and I don’t care if it’s the goddamned pope, with their fingers in the till or anywhere else they don’t belong, we’re gonna report it. Right, Nate?”

“Right.”

“You’re gonna see a lot more respect for television. We can make or break them and now they know it. You stick with me. Do what I tell you, people will be knocking each other down to get on the air with you. You’re gonna be more famous than most of the assholes you interview—and believe me, you’ll be working long after these slobs have crashed and burned.”

Wallace put his hand up to stop Nate and leaned toward Dena. “You remember that guy that was on top of the building over at Sixty-seventh Street the other day? And a crowd gathered when he threatened to jump and after about thirty minutes the crowd started yelling at him, ‘Jump, Jump!’ ”

“Yes, I remember. Disgusting.”

“Yeah, disgusting, but that’s your audience, kid, those are your so-called nice people. So when you’re doing an interview, remember they’re down there just waiting for something to happen. They want action and I’ve got the ratings to prove it. You think Winchell had guilt? Hell, no, but people remember his name, not those country club snobs who thought they were better than him.”

“Ira, all I am asking is why we have to hit so hard all the time. We’re not at war, it’s just a television show. Can’t we even try to do a few human interest stories for a change?”

“You wanna preach? Get a church. This ain’t The Waltons, this is the news.”

“So I take it the answer is no, no teacher stories?”

“Only when the teacher,” Wallace said, signaling Nate to resume, “is also a child molester. Now, that’s a story.”

There was no way to argue with Ira, of course. He was right. And he had the ratings to prove it. He had been the first to jump on the trend of ambush interviews and perfect the sensationalized sound bite. In the beginning, everyone had laughed at him, then hated him, but not now. The world of what they called television news was changing and changing fast. Now they were all scrambling to change their own formats.

And as Ira liked to say, “Hey, it was gonna happen—I just came up with the idea first.”