Before You Go

Before You Go: Broadcast News The Inside Report

Episode Summary

Time to "talk shop" when two veteran newsmen, Eric V. Tait, Jr. and Stephen C. Miller, join hosts Nicole Franklin and Bryant Monteilh to share the inside scoop of broadcast news.

Episode Notes

When news personalities such as Ted Koppel and Walter Cronkite delivered news from overseas, broadcast audiences probably were not aware of who was manning/woman-ing the foreign desks of network newsrooms at the Big Three:  ABC, CBS and NBC. Eric V. Tait, Jr. and Stephen C. Miller give the inside report on how they made decisions--decisions for which they often had to fight to cover--that brought diverse story coverage into the living rooms during the early years of television news. These two and their African American colleagues played a big role in some exceptional reporting.

Stephen C. Miller went on to write for the New York Times and is now authoring a number of books. Eric V. Tait, Jr. still produces and hosts a weekly series, Media Watch, to monitor the standards of African American present-day coverage. 

We also acknowledge the incredible storytelling brought to us by Eric's award-winning documentary, Then I'll Be Free To Travel Home hosted by the late Lena Horne, which features the uncovering of the African Burial Ground in Manhattan--one of the largest archeological discoveries on the planet. Be sure to visit www.evted2.org for viewing.

This episode first aired on KBLA Talk 1580 in Los Angeles.