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10 Questions with ... Gil Gross
April 17, 2007
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NAME:Gil GrossTITLE:Special Correspondent, Talk Show HostNETWORK/STATION: ABC News Radio and KGO/San FranciscoMARKET:National and San FranciscoCOMPANY:ABC
BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:
WDZ-A/Decatur, IL, WLS-A/Chicago, WABC-A, WNBC-A, WCBS-A, WOR-A/New York, RKO Radio Network, ABC Radio Networks, CBS Radio Network, WWDB/Philadelphia, KLAC-A/Los Angeles, ABC
1. What drew you to radio? Why radio? How did you get into the business?
What drew me to radio was the $1.25 an hour. I was working my way through college loading UPS vans with things like truck tires from 10p-4am. It paid $2.65 an hour but I was falling asleep in my 8am class. A guy told me there was a job at WDZ in Decatur. I applied, got it, and then had to catch a train to Chicago to take the test for my FCC 3rd so I could actually work.
As for staying the business, that was a matter of plain, dumb luck. My News Director was Dick Westbrook, who could have had that job in any big city operation in the country but who liked small town life. I got an education in news and broadcasting that I never could have paid for.
2. About what are you most passionate these days?
I'm most passionate about cutting through the politics to get at what's true. The debate in this country and the complaints to newsrooms are often from people who want you to skew the facts to either a left-wing or right-wing bias, even though whatever that is seems to change every few years. "Balance" these days seems to be defined as putting a Republican and a Democrat on thr air together. They may be equally full of beans, but it's presented as if people are now getting both sides of the story, irrespective of whether any of it is true. The stakes these days are too high for us to be treating anyone's blather as one brand of truth.
3. You've won awards for your newscasts and you've hosted national and local talk shows, covered major news stories, interviewed the biggest celebrities and world leaders- of everything you've done, what would you say was the most rewarding?
Unfortunately what I found the most rewarding is what I get to do less of than anything. I was an investigative reporter when that phrase was a redundancy and before it became an oxymoron. I did a lot of reporting on children including a series on "runaways" for WLS that helped end their classification as criminals [kids escaping sexual abuse used to be tossed on Juvenile Halls with kids who were rapists!] A series I did for WNBC that stopped several states from sending foster kids out of state where they were often abused was probably the most rewarding thing I've ever done because it actually changed lives.
4. You've frequently filled in for two radio legends, Paul Harvey and Charles Osgood. How difficult is it to step in to that position- do you have to restrain your personality to fit the show, or is there a way to make the fill-in gig your own? How do you strike that balance?
T'ain't easy. Some say I've made a mistake my not making them more my own, but in Paul's case especially I believe my job is to keep his listeners when he's gone. I tell the news as stories [something Paul and I both enjoy] and may do analysis, but stay away from opinion.
Filling in for Osgood was different. Since Charlie didn't do opinion for the most part, I could concentrate on making serious points through humor, which is onr of my strengths. I also fill-in for a third legend, Ronn Owens at KGO. There the challenge is different because what I can say is restricted to some degree by being that objective anchor they hear later that same day from ABC News. That can be frustrating.
The best fill-in gig I ever had was for Keith Olbermann when he quit his radio commentary because he was going full-time at MSNBC. Since he was never coming back and the series had already been cancelled, for the 3 months of contractual obligation I was just myself. That was fun.
5. Who was your best interview subject? Which interview came out the worst? And who would you interview today if you could get anyone alive to do it?
Too many to pick a best. I like musicians more than anyone. I could have talked to Dizzy Gillespie for days. The worst was a guest who I won't name, but it was a writer whose daughter had died because of real malpractice in a New York City hospital. It was an emotional and important story. He showed up drunk on his ass. Heartbreaking. Of course there was the time the almost always affable Senator Al D'Amato challenged me to a fistfight in the hall at WOR because I had said something about him that upset his mother, who was a listener. The next time I saw him it was like it had never happened.
If I could interview anyone alive today it would be the Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the leader of Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani. The tension between these two American allies is close to what would be a disastrous war for the United States and hardly anyone is paying attention to it. It is easily the most dangerous offspring of the Iraq War, and Kirkuk has the capacity to make Baghdad look like a day at the beach.
6. To what kind of talk radio do you prefer to listen? Who are your favorites?
I prefer talk radio that isn't predictable. Right now Bill Handel is doing that better than anyone. I hate saying that because he works for the competition. On our side, Ronn Owens is one of the last people who manages to stitch together a wide range of people without the show losing focus. Oh, and Car Talk on NPR. Love those guys.
7. Most of the stations and networks for which you've worked have been big, nationally famous, successful entities. A couple were less successful, which raises the question: what makes one talk station great and another a failure? What mistakes have you seen made by the stations that didn't succeed, and what are the key elements of stations like KGO and networks like ABC that make them long-term successes?
It was no accident that KGO and KFI tied this year at the R&R Talk convention. Both stations know what they are about and dish it out 24/7. On news, both stations understand that a good news operation means not only that your listeners never have to leave, but your hosts are always getting a table setter of fresh topics and updated information. The hosts are not one-note people who beat the same drum every day, and they are largely local so they actually talk about the city I'm listening in. Satellite and Internet will eventually kill stations with no local content.
As for stations I've worked at that haven't worked, there are many reasons. Most lacked focus. There was a mix of incompatible shows. Many had no news, or badly done news, which had their listeners wandering off to the internet or TV whenever something happened.
What's surprising is most stations haven't a clue how to do promotion. What came as second nature in the days of Top 40 when we didn't have nearly as much competition is a forgotten art when we need it most. Hosts do few public appeareances. The chances of a remote are remote. Who does real contests anymore? Music stations do some, but why don't talk stations do it?
As for ABC, simply put, we hire great people, spend the money to put them at the story and make them available to our affiliates. It's a long term success because the people at ABC understand it's about making affiliates sound like a million dollars, not just puking out a 5 minute cast every hour.
8. What do you do for fun?
Hang out with my wife and son. Eric DeWeese [my best friend since college and GM at KUSC] hang out at the last remaining vinyl stores looking for albums we don't have.
9. Fill in the blank: I can't make it through the day without _____________.
...my family. Sorry. Uninspired hackneyed answer. Just happens to be true.
10. What's the best advice you've ever gotten? The worst?
The best was from Rush Limbaugh. He went with a bunch of us to a Mets game in 1992 just as I was starting my CBS Talk show. He said "be yourself. They can deal with anything except a phony."
The worst advice was "don't totally be yourself, because since your opinions are complex enough not to make either side happy, they'll hate you." That idiot advice I gave myself. The show lasted 7 years anyway, and for most of those years had a success that was not warranted by my performance most nights.
Bonus Questions
1. Having written for and worked with Don Imus, what was your reaction to the controversy that got him fired?
Sadness. I only worked with Don for about a year and a half before he was sent off to Cleveland, but he was generous in every way. I also like Charlie McCord tremendously, who doesn't get enough credit for his talent because he often plays straight man to stuff he wrote in the first place. He was also a hell of a news anchor before his writing talents made him Don's fulltime partner.
I think Don made a huge mistake picking on who he picked on, as well as what he said. I think he made a huge mistake in giving McGuirk such free reign or even a job. I think he made a huge mistake going on Al Sharpton's show when there were so many other and better forums for him. I also feel sad because unlike most people who spew that sort of crud, Don actually has given back to his listeners and the community in a way most of his critics and even his supporters never have and never will.
But here's the thing all of us need to remember: you may believe you are guardians of truth, political apostles or prophets or whatever you see in the mirror, but all of us in commercial broadcasting.... each and everyone of us... are, to our employers, carnival barkers. Our job in the eyes of our employers is to get as many people as we can in the tent to buy Ginsana or Ovaltine or a new GM car. When we scare away advertisers or we are not getting people in the tent we get fired. Period. It has nothing to do with free speech or being politically correct or any of the other nonsense I've heard in the past week. If the advertisers walk or the ratings fall, we go away.
What he did was unbearably stupid. It wasn't recent. It goes back to the 1993 Gwen Ifill remark, and all of the racist crap that crept into the show. That said, Don is also more than smart enough to know it and still has a lot to say. He could also do a lot of things with people to help heal and move past what's happened. Some people who say such things aren't any better than that, but I think Don is. If Sharpton can have a 2nd act after Tawana Brawley, it's hard to say Imus shouldn't have one as well. At a station like WOR that has no TV network or movie company to worry about and which can depend on local advertising instead of national advertisers to make money, I think he could come back and be as good as ever. Maybe better.
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