Lou Waters speaks candidly to Rose Law Group Reporter comparing yesterday’s ‘hard-rock’ and today’s ‘opnion’ journalism
(Editor’s note: Water’s bio appears at the end of this interview)
By Phil Riske | Managing Editor
What went into your decision to settle in Oro Valley and run for office?
A matter of history. My 13-year radio career ended in Tucson, where my television career began. When my CNN career ended, I returned to the desert where I’d meet my wife and live so many wonderful years.
The “run for office” part was difficult; journalists just don’t become politicians, as I explained to the folks who asked me to “serve” as a “public service.” Service always has been in my DNA, so I ran and won . . . twice.
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With less technology and fewer reporters back in the 80s, how was CNN able to “feed the beast” 24/7?
It was the most difficult and bumpy road to success. Our first question with a worldwide staff of fewer than 300 journalists: “How do we fill 24-hours with television news?” Question began being answered in 1981. A two-minute “cut-in” to report a fire at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas became a two hour “cut-in” with unedited video from Las Vegas. Local TV stations, reports from hospitals with video cover of injuries and hospital strategies, telephone interviews from inside the hotel and police updates. After two hours of intensive reporting, [someone] approached me on the anchor desk and said: “I think we can do this.”
What do you make of certain media critics who contend CNN tends to extend the life of a story by beating certain subjects to death for days?
The CNN I helped invent – the CNN where we often interrupted coverage to report another breaking story, kept pace with news events under the imprimatur, “The News is the Star,” had no time to “beat a story to death.” We were rock-hard news with no time for interviews with celebrity bounty hunters with something to say about police manhunts for escaped murderers. That’s not news.
You speak about consequences and rewards of media. What are your main points of each?
Journalism is public service. It’s the only profession protected by an amendment to the United States Constitution. It carries the burden of responsibility to be fair and accurate. That responsibility has been often abused throughout the history of our nation as it is now being abused by what I call “opinion journalism.”
Without facts there is no foundation for debate in a democracy. Our democracy is at risk. And, in large part, it has to do with the Internet and cable news, I’m sorry to say. News has become a profit center and media, generally, are controlled by too few.
Ratings are everything. Journalism is under siege.
Edward R. Murrow – the acknowledge godfather of broadcast journalism, said, “This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it’s nothing but wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.”
What’s your view on the Brian Williams situation?
He’s emblematic of the world of “celebrity journalism.” We want and need news reported factually, accurately and fair. We don’t need or want to know how daring you can be in exercising your duties.
If you had to pick one story you reported that had the most impact on you, what would it be?
The attack on Colorado’s Columbine High School – the first in a dreadful series of such episodes. Children killing children. It happened again at Sandy Hook. It has led to my official duties and responsibilities in support of public safety.
Oro Valley is the safest community in the State of Arizona. For two years running, recognized as the model agency for school resource officers – Police who not only protest, but counsel and teach. I frankly don’t think I can bear another story of an attack on children by an armed gunman.
Will the printed newspaper ever go extinct?
Maybe. But like soldiers, they’ll never die. Here in Tucson, the evening paper, The Citizen, went belly up, it’s employees laid off and, after much hand-ringing, rose like the Phoenix to become the online, Tucson Sentinel. The former citizen journalists are in charge, and it’s one of the better sources of “facts” in our town.
What’s it like to be the subject of a story, rather than the reporter? Have you been covered accurately in your role as vice mayor?
I try not to be covered. I accurately declared at the beginning that I was no politician with no intentions of becoming one. I’ve known many good politicians in my long career covering politics for CNN. But most politicians I’ve encountered are in it for the wrong reasons but even so, as a journalist in elected office, I find it difficult when I realize the public is being ill informed and even lied to.
Far too many of our “politicians” will say or do anything to remain in office. And far too many things they say are just not in the best interests of the constituents they serve.
Anything you’d like to add?
Read the book: “Informing the News” by Thomas E. Patterson
Journalism, thankfully, is not dead. It’s just going through another period on life support and polarization.
*******
VICE MAYOR LOU WATERS
Term Expires: November 2018
Family: Wife, Marty, Children, Scott, Christopher & Alexander
Grandchildren, Dylan and Ripley
Education: University of Minnesota School of Architecture
Biography:
An anchor when CNN went on the air in 1980, Lou Waters remained one of the network’s primary anchors until September 2001, adding to a journalism career spanning nearly 40 years. At CNN, Waters co-anchored CNN Today, a daily program of news from 1-3 p.m., with Natalie Allen. Additionally, he co-anchored Early Prime and hosted special editions, including Coming of Age, a series on aging in American society. In 1994, Waters traveled to France and England to prepare a series of reports on the 50th anniversary of the allied invasion of Normandy. He interviewed allied survivors of the invasion, adding depth and perspective to CNN’s week-long coverage of D-Day. Waters was also active in CNN political coverage, having participated in each of the Republican and Democratic National conventions since 1980.
He anchored several hours of award-winning coverage of the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986. In 1989, Waters was in the anchor chair when a powerful earthquake struck San Francisco. He covered the initial hours from CNN’s Atlanta headquarters before boarding the first jet allowed to land in the Bay Area after the quake. There, Waters continued reporting from the streets of San Francisco—a place he once called home.
The recipient of many awards, Waters received three Houston International Film Festival awards and a first-place news award at the New York Film Festival for his extensive political coverage in 1988. In addition, he won a Cable ACE award for Inside Politics ’88. Waters received three Golden Microphone awards as news director and anchor at KCST-TV, San Diego (now KNSD-TV). His coverage of a 1979 plane crash for CBS won an Emmy Award for spot news reporting.
Waters grew up in Minneapolis, attending the University of Minnesota School of Architecture. He discovered campus radio and for 13 years built a foundation for his TV career with radio jobs in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City and Buffalo. After a string of television reporting jobs on the West Coast in the early ’70s, Waters became a news director—first in San Diego, then in Tucson at KVOA and KOLD, where he was spotted first by CBS, then by ABC. He accepted CNN’s offer in February 1980.
Since returning to the Oro Valley community, Waters has volunteered his time on numerous local and national fronts, including:
A five-year member of the Citizens Volunteer Assistance Patrol for the Oro Valley Police Department
The Southern Arizona Arts and Cultural Alliance (formerly GOVAC)
Host for the Tucson Senior Olympic Festival
Member of Key Speakers Bureau focusing on issues surrounding aging in America
Participant in events nationwide on behalf of Make a Wish Foundation, Duke Children’s Hospital, New Hanover Medical Research of Wilmington, North Carolina, Lexington, Kentucky Children’s Charity’s, Boy Scouts and the Ara Parsegian Foundation
Involvement in the development of arts and culture as an essential element in conferring identity and a sense of belonging to the Oro Valley community
Currently, Waters is liaison to the Conceptual Design Review Board, Visit Tucson and CItizens Volunteer Assistance Patrol. He serves on the board of the Tucson Mexico Trade Coalition, as a columnist of Tucson Local Media and Oro Valley Voice and as an adviser to young journalists about the importance and seriousness of their work. He is a national and local public speaker on matters of media, consequences and rewards as our nation ages and about the impact of 24/7 television news.
In 2009, Waters published a biography, “Have I Got a Song For You, The Bobby Dale Story,” now available in paperback at Amazon.com.
Courtesy Town of Oro Valley
