Television news is now entertainment, and the stories are being written by the people that have a special interest in them.
The latest wrinkle is on wrinkles. There is a widespread belief that women can't grow old in television news.
Television news is a delicate balance of serving public good and private gain.
Some news managers have been slow to grasp that good television news is always substance over form.
Why something in the public interest such as television news can be fought over, like a chain of hamburger stands, eludes me.
Television news was expanding to an hour, and producers did not know how to fill the space and time.
My mother, Nancy Dickerson, was a reporter for CBS and NBC and the first female star of television news; my father, Wyatt Dickerson, was a successful businessman. Their parties, from the '60s to the '80s, attracted cabinet officials, movie stars, and presidents.
I have quite a bit of experience reporting on corporate behavior, both doing it with independent operations in early in my career, in the underground press, to magazines like 'Rolling Stone,' to regional newspapers and television, and television news programs, to papers like the 'New York Times' and public television.
You know, when people talk about filmmaking and the techniques of filmmaking, we use them all the time in network television news in order to make our stories simpler, tighter and more understandable to the general public.
I remember the mid-'50s well. It was when my life changed, and I left acting to become one of the first female television news reporters in the U.K.
