Once upon a time, a long-running and highly successful TV sitcom featured one of its popular leather-jacketed characters quite literally jumping over a shark at sea and a new expression was born in medialand. “Jumping The Shark” meant taking a process/idea/concept/plot/series one step beyond the most strained artistic rationality and was symbolic of the end of any further worthwhile creative endeavor and a signal that it was time to do something else.
Lately we’ve seen a whole lot of media execs, notably most recently at CBS News and thus linked by the headline writers to the lawsuit vs. 60 Minutes over the edited Kamala interview. It’s also linked to the fact that settling it or not may settle (or not) the sale of Paramount, which owns CBS, to new management. But this is NOT about politics or temporary political figures such as President Trump, but rather about a much bigger and more basic concept.
Bill Owens, the former producer of 60 minutes – YouTube, CBS Evening News
Here is Lew’s Guide To Media/News Execs as to how to know when it is time for you to exit, stage left OR right, post-haste and quietly if you want to have any career thereafter.
It all boils down to this:
When YOU become the story, YOU have jumped the shark that will consume your own profile and career, good or bad. It’s time to vaporize to dry land, lie low, live on your healthy severance and, as the REAL Lew Wasserman famously put it: “Stay out of the spotlight—it’ll fade your suit.”
Here, you see, is what a news EXECUTIVE does (as opposed to reporters, on-air personalities, what the Brits call “news readers,” and editors and segment and show producers): THEY MANAGE PEOPLE and MONEY.
The logo for 60 Minutes – YouTube, CBS Evening News
They are NOT journalists. They are NOT finders of fact or fiction. They are NOT EVER supposed to get that involved in the content, let alone BECOME the “stars” or the content itself. And most certainly, if/when the time comes to resign or retire, their announcements of same should be simple, quick, and perfunctory. They should not be not rallying cries to the Gods of Journalism and Free Speech or protests against anyone in management above them, in government, or those evil awful viewers who abandoned them in their moments of glory.
Now, I will admit these folks live in bad times for being that sensible. It was so much easier in the past when the on-air folks gave at least the appearance of and lipservice to neutrality. Once upon a time back then I attended a huge anniversary party for what was the nation’s premiere conservative commentary magazine. Black tie and at the grand ballroom of NYC’s Plaza Hotel, the guests were such a roster of stars that two friends and I made it our mission to meet as many of the famous faces as we could. And we did indeed meet everyone from Walter Cronkite and John Chancellor to Henry Kissinger and Dr. Edward Teller, father of the H-bomb!
Dana Walden via Variety YouTube
But the point is, in THIS modern era, the news folks wouldn’t go to such a place for fear of being seen fraternizing with folks they’ve publicly declared their enemies. And that, the fact that they so openly DO declare where they stand (Cronkite and Chancellor were both to the left but professionally hid or downplayed it in their work the public saw and heard) is why hubris has set in.
These execs are so needy emotionally, so desperate to be seen by their peers as the cool kids and good guys when their jobs are, at least on paper, to balance budgets, shuffle personnel, and stay OUT of the newsroom as much as they can. They’re jumping sharks left and right these days because the REAL bosses—the OWNERS of these outlets—are about what they should be about: MAKING money, not spending it to defend against lawsuits and blowing merger deals due to those liabilities.
Bill Owens, the former producer of 60 minutes – YouTube, CBS Evening News
BTW, not sure you noticed, before CBS, Wendy McMahon, the now former CEO of CBS News (the latest of these “I wasn’t pushed, I jumped on my own in a blaze of virtue signal glory, honest!!”) worked as a manager of stations for….ABC. And when you’ve burned two of the only three bridges to such power and the third just spun off their controversial brands, that limits your future prospects in a way. Unlike such on-air talents as, to pick a couple of examples, Megyn Kelly, Bill O’Reilly, and Tucker Carlson, who have increased their prestige, profile, and profits in a way that limited them not in the least.
It used to be said that politics was showbiz for ugly people. Clearly in all too many cases, media management is showbiz FAILURE for people who are unhappy to be successful and rich if they can’t also be admired by their cocktail party pals. That’s a bad thing for the news, the audience, and the Republic.
The great songwriter and singer John Hartford once penned a lovely ditty (go find it online recorded by him, Mason Williams, and others) entitled “I’ve Heard That Tear-Stained Monologue You Do There By The Door Before You Go” and it sums this up nicely.
A screenshot from CNN – YouTube, CNN
SO, again, Lew’s sage advice to any future shark-jumping media execs is this:
Just go. Quietly. Silently, even, especially when asked about it.
And preferably understand when it is time before somebody above you invites you to walk the public plank. Your friends may admire your martyrdom speeches, but the rest of us? We just don’t care.
