MUSEUM OF TELEVISION & RADIO UNIVERSITY SATELLITE SEMINAR, THE: TELEVISION AND THE WAR ON TERRORISM: TELEVISION'S CREATIVE COMMUNITY RESPONDS {TERRORIST ATTACKS} {LONG VERSION}
Summary
One in this series of seminars conducted by The Museum of Television & Radio. This seminar, held in New York and moderated by Museum president Robert M. Batscha, is the fourth of five exploring the relationship between the American media and the war on terrorism waged by the U.S. government in the light of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Batscha welcomes actor Alan Alda; MTV Networks CEO and chair Tom Freston; "Sesame Street" creator Joan Ganz Cooney; Court TV CEO and chair Henry Schleiff; HBO executive vice president of original programming Sheila Nevins; Michael Davies, president of Diplomatic TV and executive producer of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire"; and "Late Show with David Letterman" and "Ed" executive producer Rob Burnett. (Panelist biographies immediately follow this summary.) The seminar opens with a clip reel that features a wide array of programming that responded to tragedy or war. The first clip, "On a Note of Triumph," is a 1945 radio broadcast by Norman Corwin about World War II. The second clip, "Westinghouse Studio One: The Strike," is taken from a drama about the Korean War. After a brief clip from a 1963 broadcast of "That Was the Week That Was" about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, clips from "M*A*S*H" and "All in the Family" are run. The second batch of clips in the reel is related to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001: the return of "The Daily Show" and its host, Jon Stewart, following the attacks; Tom Hanks's introduction to the concert "America: A Tribute to Heroes"; and clips from episodes of "Third Watch," "The Agency," "The West Wing," and "Sesame Street" (the last featuring United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan). Batscha asks the panelists to reveal how September 11 affected their work. Alda opens by wondering aloud, "Are we trying to pull back and bury September 11, or are we really just going on with our lives?" The actor goes on to discuss the way in which work can take on new meaning in the current climate, referring to his current appearance as physicist Richard Feynman in the play "QED." He explains that when a line using the term "ground zero" is spoken in theater, a palpable tension now falls over the room. Tom Freston suggests that the true impact of the artistic community's response to September 11 will not be felt for many years. Freston cites the way in which the turbulent 1960s eventually came to be to be associated with a certain enduring artistic legacy. Cooney discusses an episode of "Sesame Street" that aired after September 11 that was intended to teach children about what firefighters do, and Schleiff mentions several programs that Court TV has produced, including an analysis of possible evidence titled "The Trial of Osama bin Laden." Nevins says that she thinks that the most noticeable change in the television industry has occurred in the marketing area. She observes that most networks appear to be afraid to seem "self-important" in light of the attacks. Burnett talks about Letterman's high-profile return to the airwaves after the attacks and the sensitive approach that someone in comedy must take when broaching tragic subjects. He suggests that television personalities are less powerful than they once were, discussing the ways in which different late-night hosts handled the O.J. Simpson murder trial: while Letterman declared that he found "nothing amusing about a double homicide," Burnett recalls, competitor Jay Leno mined the case for monologue material, virtually nullifying Letterman's moral stand. Batscha opens the seminar to telephone calls from the college and university students who are watching via satellite. One viewer asks whether the panelists have faced any corporate pressure to address the attacks, and Davies states, "'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' got a note telling us we should remove the Twin Towers from the opening." He notes that he did not comply and that the network subsequently reversed its position. Batscha then asks the members of the panel to reflect on whether or not they see themselves as "obligated" to produce programming that directly comments on the attacks and the war against terrorism that followed them. Nevins states that her only responsibility is to produce the type of programming that HBO viewers seem to want to watch, and the rest of the panelists agree that they do not feel held to any moral code about what they "should" produce, suggesting that television is in such difficult financial straits that pleasing their audience is their primary obligation. At the end of the seminar, Batscha notes that since so much of the discussion surrounding September 11 is constantly being amended and reinterpreted he thinks the group should come back for another session in half a year.
Biographies Alan Alda is a five-time Emmy Award-winning actor, writer, and director. From 1972 to 1983 he starred as Hawkeye Pierce in the classic television series "M*A*S*H," in addition to writing and directing many of the episodes. During his eleven years on the series he won five Emmys, becoming the only person to be honored by the television academy as top performer, writer, and director. He has also won three Director's Guild of America Awards. His other television credits include recurring roles on "That Was The Week That Was" and "ER." He also appeared in the television films "Jake's Women," "White Mile," "The Glass House," and "Kill Me If You Can," plus the television productions of "6 Rms Riv Vu" (which he also directed) and Marlo Thomas's landmark special "Free to Be . . . You and Me." He created, wrote, and co-produced the series "We'll Get By" and co-produced the series "The Four Seasons," based on his film of the same name. He is currently in his eighth season as host of PBS's "Scientific American Frontiers." Alda's many film credits include Woody Allen's "Everyone Says I Love You," "Manhattan Murder Mystery," and "Crimes and Misdemeanors" (for which he won the D. W. Griffith Award and a New York Film Critics Award), plus "Paper Lion," "Same Time Next Year," "California Suite," "Flirting with Disaster," "Whispers in the Dark," "The Object of My Affection," and "The Seduction of Joe Tynan" (which he wrote). He wrote, directed, and starred in the theatrical films "The Four Seasons," "Sweet Liberty," "A New Life," and "Betsy's Wedding." He has also appeared in numerous plays, including the Broadway productions of "Art," "Jake's Women," and "The Owl and the Pussycat."
Rob Burnett has been the executive producer of "The Late Show with David Letterman" since 1996 and for the past two seasons has doubled as executive producer/creator of the NBC series "Ed." He is also president and chief executive officer of Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants, Inc., where he oversees the series "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn." Burnett joined the writing staff of "The Late Show with David Letterman" in 1988. In 1995, after serving as the program's head writer for several years, he co-created "The Bonnie Hunt Show." He returned to the Letterman show later that year as a producer and writer. He and his co-producers on the Letterman show accepted Emmy Awards for Outstanding Variety, Music, or Comedy Series for four straight years beginning in 1998. He also served as executive producer of Letterman's four prime-time specials.
Joan Ganz Cooney is co-founder of Children's Television Workshop (renamed Sesame Workshop in 2000) and originator of the landmark preschool educational series "Sesame Street." She served as president and chief executive officer of the company until 1990 and is currently chairman of the executive committee of Sesame Workshop's board. Following the launch of "Sesame Street" in 1969, Cooney and her colleagues created numerous other award-winning children's series, including "The Electric Company," "3-2-1 Contact," "Ghostwriter," and "Dragon Tales." Cooney began her career as a reporter and later worked as a publicist and as an award-winning public affairs producer for New York's WNET/Thirteen.
Michael Davies, owner and president of the production company Diplomatic, is executive producer of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" and was instrumental in importing the show to American television. A television programming veteran, he has developed numerous game shows, specials, and series, including "Win Ben Stein's Money," "Disney Presents Bill Nye the Science Guy," and the American version of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" Prior to forming Diplomatic, he was executive vice president of alternative series and specials for ABC Entertainment, where he oversaw the production of the 1998 and 1999 Academy Awards, among other programs. Before that he was senior vice president of development at Buena Vista Productions. Earlier in his career, he worked at Dick Clark Productions, Inc.; PBS; and Merv Griffin Enterprises.
Tom Freston is chairman and chief executive officer of MTV Networks, which owns and operates seven television programming networks: MTV, MTV2, VH1, Nickelodeon/Nick at Nite, TV Land, The National Network (TNN), and CMT. Freston, who began his career in advertising, joined Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment, the precursor to MTV Networks, in 1980. As head of marketing he oversaw the breakthrough "I Want My MTV" campaign. From the early days of MTV until today, he has held a succession of positions, culminating in his appointment in 1987 as chief executive officer. Under his leadership, MTV Networks has launched a variety of ancillary businesses, including films, books, magazines, consumer products, and websites.
Sheila Nevins has been executive vice president of original programming for HBO since 1999. She is responsible for overseeing the development and production of all documentaries and family programming for HBO and Cinemax and their multiplex channels. She was previously senior vice president of original programming for the cable channels since 1995. Under her stewardship, HBO's documentaries and family programs have won forty-three Emmys, seventeen George Foster Peabody Awards, and ten Academy Awards. Nevins herself has won a Peabody Award for her work in documentary and family programming. She joined HBO in 1979 and spent four years as the network's director of documentary programming, winning the first Peabody Award ever presented to a cable program, for "She's Nobody's Baby." Before that Nevins worked as a producer with Don Hewitt for CBS's "Who's Who," as a producer/writer for the Children's Television Workshop, and as a writer for Time-Life Films. She earlier worked as a field producer for ABC and as a producer for National Educational Television's "Great American Dream Machine."
Henry S. Schleiff has been chairman and chief executive officer of Court TV Network since 1999. Before joining the cable network in 1998 as president and chief executive officer, he was executive vice president for Studios USA and before that was the New York-based senior production executive for the Universal Television Group, which he joined in 1996. Previously he spent nine years at Viacom, first as senior vice president of Viacom International Inc. and chairman and chief executive of Viacom's Broadcast and Entertainment Groups, and then as executive producer for Viacom International Inc. From 1981 to 1987 he was senior vice president of business affairs and administration for HBO and head of HBO Enterprises.
Details
- NETWORK: Paley
- DATE: March 6, 2002 Wednesday 7:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 1:31:02
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:69309
- GENRE: Seminars
- SUBJECT HEADING: N/A
- SERIES RUN: N/A
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Robert M. Batscha … Host
- Alan Alda … Guest
- Rob Burnett … Guest
- Joan Ganz Cooney … Guest
- Michael Davies … Guest
- Tom Freston … Guest
- Henry Schleiff … Guest
- Kofi Annan
- Norman Corwin
- Richard Feynman
- Tom Hanks
- Jay Leno
- John F. Kennedy
- David Letterman
- Simpson, O.J. (Orenthal James Simpson)
- Jon Stewart