Washington Press Club Foundation

Carole Simpson: Interview #6

February 13, 1994 in Washington, D.C.

Donita Moorhus, Interviewer

Carole Simpson - February 13, 1994 tape 1 of 2

February 13th, 1994
Listen to audio

Carole Simpson - February 13, 1994 tape 2 of 2

February 13th, 1994
Listen to audio
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[Begin Tape 1, Side A]

Moorhus: At the last session, we were talking about the Women's Advisory Board here at ABC, but in going back over my notes, I saw that while you were at NBC, you had hosted a women's public affairs program on the affiliate, WRC. That was in pre-'82, right?

Simpson: Yes, it would have been like '80, '81. It was a show called "Her-Rah," which was for a local station. It was kind of interesting. I was working for the network, but they had asked me to do it, and it was a show for and about women and women's issues, and it lasted for about a year and a halfóa year and a half that I did the show, and then they canceled it for budget cuts.

Moorhus: How does that work for you to work for a local, as well as for the network?

Simpson: It was volunteer. WRC is an O&O, an "owned and operated" station of NBC, so they called and said, "Could we use Carole as a host for this program?" We have to make nice-nice to the affiliates, and at that time, they were hoping to syndicate it to other O&O stations of NBC. So having a network correspondent rather than a local correspondent host it was important to them. It was just another part of my job. I didn't get any extra money for it or anything.

Moorhus: Do you know why you were selected particularly?

Simpson: Probably because I had been identified for a long time as someone concerned about women and women's rights, and the producer requested me to do that. I would think it was just purely because I've always been in the forefront.

Moorhus: And there wasn't any particular benefit to you for doing that?

Simpson: Yes, the extra air time on a local station in Washington, although I think they ran it at 6:30 on Sunday mornings. It was a public affairs show, so it didn't have a huge audience. They never gave it a chance to have a good audience by putting it in a good time slot, but I learned a lot of things and got an opportunity to be more aware of a lot of issues involving women that I hadn't been aware of before, so I learned a lot that I think helped me later in women's concerns. There were all kinds of things, like we had Miss Manners [Judith Martin] on. Sometimes it would be a funny show, sometimes it would be women in business and the trials of being in business in Washington. We also had a mechanic on, showing women how to take care of their cars. Things that I didn't know about. It was really quite a nice show. It was too bad it was just kind of a throwaway public affairs thing.

Moorhus: Was it just a half an hour?

Simpson: Half hour, once a week, yes.

Moorhus: So it had a variable format?

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Simpson: Variable format. Sometimes we'd have guests, sometimes we'd have one guest. Sometimes we'd have a car and we would look at how you can check on your oil filters and how to change a tire, things like that. So yes, it was a varied format.

Moorhus: Does that fall in the category of more of a magazine show, or as part of the news, or part of entertainment?

Simpson: It was considered a public affairs show, much in the way they use some religious programming, or you have these community affairs programs where you bring in people from the community, so it was just viewed as the local station's access time. Somebody pushed to get a woman's program on, and that's why it happened, too, but there was no commitment to it, as I said, because of the time slots that it was given. Sometimes it might be 1:30 in the morning. It was never any place where it could develop a big enough audience to be successful. It was little bit ahead of its time, as I look back on it now, obviously with Sally Jesse Raphael and Oprah [Winfrey] and all these other kinds of shows. It was kind of like that, not "tabloidy" or sensational, but just dealing with issues of concern to women.

Moorhus: Yes, ahead of its time.

Simpson: Yes, the health issues, so on.

Moorhus: Interesting. I also see that you, in 1982 and '83, were president of the Radio and TV Correspondents Association. Tell me about your work with that organization and how you became president.

Simpson: It was during the period of time that I was covering the Hill for NBC, and there is an executive committee that administers the radio and television galleries on both the House and Senate sides of the Capitol. There are offices that help set up hearings for television and for radio, making sure that we have facilities, and it is a research source foróthere's a press one, too, for print people, and there are the radio/TV galleries. This executive committee, made up of reporters from various stations, oversees and works with the Congress on, "We need this," or, "We need this facility," or, "We're having problems with this." This was the group that pushed for cameras in the Senate, being able to have access to senate deliberations on the floor.

So it's an important committee, and the Radio and Television Correspondents Association is made up of about four-thousand members. These are technical people as well as producers and correspondents and executives of all of the broadcast outlets, so it is one of the biggest press organizations in Washington, D.C. To cover the Congress, you have this I.D. and we also were responsible for distributing I.D.s for people that covered Congress.

I decided to run for it, and when I run for something, there is no point in justóI didn't want to be on the executive committee, I wanted to be head of it. So I did a real campaign, and it was one of the first times somebody actually went out and campaigned, but I sent letters to all of the reporters on the Hill telling them the kinds of things that I was going to do and would want to do. It was kind of a pro forma thing where you'd write a little statement and all of them would be sent out to everybody, as to what you would want to do. But I literally campaigned and called all my friends at all the networks and stuff like that on the day that you vote, because a lot of people don't go up there to vote, but I really turned out the vote. When I was working at NBC, they turned out the vote and got cars to take people up there, so I really fought hard to win that, and I became president of the organization.

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Of course, one of the major jobs is to put on the dinner, the annual dinner, which is one of the big, glittering affairs, like the Washington Press Club [Foundation] dinner. This one is actually larger than that dinner, and it's all radio/TV people, not print people, but all radio/TV people. The same thing, the Supreme Court and all the leaders of Congress are invited, and administration cabinet officials, and so on. It's the same kind of thing, but one of the big things it to have good entertainment. That was the year I decided to try to do the gag reel, which is now famous, the "Tapes of Wrath," and put thisóI don't know if you've seen itóit's a twenty-five-minute show. I spent three months getting all of the networks to send me their outtakes for this in-houseóit was going to be a one-time-only, just-for-the-industry show, which we called "Tapes of Wrath," and we got tapes of everybody's mess-ups and stupid stuff, and all the kinds of funny things. We had people digging in their noses at hearings. You'll have to see it. But it's now famous, and it's been everywhere.

I was so afraid that night, because it could either be a huge success or it could bomb and just be awful, and when you're very close to itóand I worked with another woman that was here. By this time I had moved to ABC. I was elected while I was still at NBC, but then I switched to ABC and was still president of the organization. So I worked with another woman producer here, and we put together this tape, and it's considered a classic. It's one of the funniest things anybody ever has seen. I looked at it maybe six months ago, and it still holds up. It's still very funny, although a lot of the people in there are dead. It is still a very, very funny tape. So it kind of put me on the map, because I ended up having one of the most successful dinners that they had had in a really, really long time. I don't think anybody's topped it. They tried a gag reel a couple of years ago, but this "Tapes of Wrath" is the measure of all gag reels involving the broadcast industry, and you should probably get a chance to see that.

Moorhus: Yes, absolutely.

Simpson: But this has been around the world. It has been in Poland, it's been in the Soviet Union. It's like a Xerox machine with videotape. This was copyrighted by our association. We found out it had been copied and it was being rented in video stores in the Washington area. People made copies of it everywhere, and it was sent all over the world. People were using it for fundraisersóI heard the Harvard Crimsonóand we lost control of this tape totally. It's been everywhere. Pieces of it have been on television. I think the BBC broadcast it. It's really funny, because even without knowing some of the personalitiesóof course, to those of us in the industry, and knowing everyone, it's very funny, but it's surprising to see how funny other people think [it is]. The Reagans requested it. We made lots of fun of Ronald Reagan in this piece, we made fun of the Congress, we made fun of everybody, and yet it was still a huge success. But it was very scary, not knowing whether this thing was going to bomb.

Moorhus: Who was the producer you worked with?

Simpson: Sharon Young, who was a "20/20" producer. She's now left ABC. But Sharon Young and I did it.

Moorhus: Did you narrate it?

Simpson: No, it's all music and quick cuts, and it's really funny.

Moorhus: Sounds wonderful.

Simpson: It was a highlight, it really was.

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Moorhus: That must have been quite a way to start at ABC. It was in your first year.

Simpson: Yes, because this was a dinner. Because I was president of the association, again, ABC came down with Roone [Arledge] and all of our executives came down. Again, it was a lot of pressure. We didn't want anyone to see it until that night, because we didn't want anything to leak out about what it was like, but still not knowing [the reaction]. People could be very offended by this, or they could thinkóit could go either way, and fortunately, it was a big hit, and probably everybody in this industry has a copy in their library. It's really funny.

Moorhus: What kind of entertainment had they had before this year, and what were they expecting?

Simpson: They would have stand-up comics. Bob Hope had been there, Gary Trudeau, Dave Barry, usually because it was inexpensive to bring inóI think one year there was Helen Reddy, but it was costly, because they have to come with a band, and you have to bring them in from far locationsóso Mark Russell, it was usually a stand-up comic, someone that did political humor, that was typically the entertainment for the dinner. To try something really totally brand new was ground-breaking. [Laughter.] It was ground-breaking.

Moorhus: Was your presidency ground-breaking because of your being a woman and an African-American?

Simpson: I was the first, and I think I'm still the only African-American who's been president of the association. I think Cokie Roberts had been president. There were other women. There weren't very many. I was one of the first women, and certainly the first minority to become president.

Moorhus: Did you have particular goals?

Simpson: Again, a goal of showing people that a black woman could do this. As I've told you, probablyóthroughout our discussions, I have told you that when people say, "No, you can't do this," it gave me the determination to show that I could, and I have always wanted to be a ground-breaker for those to come behind me. Somebody's got to test it, somebody's got to push open the doors, someone's got to show that we can succeed at these things just like anyone else.

So, as I say, when I decided to run for it, it was not because I had goals of what to do with the Radio and Television Correspondents Association, because it's not that much that you have to do in terms of that but hire staff and worry about the inner workings of that, but it was really to become president, and to run that dinner, and to have a fabulous dinner. That's usually how you're measured.

I remember Phil Jones decided to have a roast of Walter Cronkite. Walter was stepping down. I think his [presidency] was the year before mine. Maybe that's why I was so concerned about having a good dinner. It was either the year before or two years before, and it made sense. It was probably a year before, because this was '82, and Dan Rather took over "CBS Evening News" in March '81, so it was going to be a tribute to Walter Cronkite. It was to be a roast, a funny roast of Walter Cronkite. He had brought people from throughout Walter Cronkite's career to come and say things about him, and the thing went on until midnight. People were supposed to have little two-minute things. I think the first guy, who had gone to school with him and was a very old man, talked for like twenty-five minutes, and he couldn't stop him, and it justópeople left. By the time the dinner was over and Walter Cronkite was to get up to respond,

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about two-thirds of the audience had left. It was disastrous, and he [Jones] said he would never live that down. That's what I'm saying. You're kind of measured by how good a dinner you can put on, and whether you can get the president to be in attendance or something like that. Where is my photo? Up there. President and Mrs. Reagan came, and I'm presenting the toast to them as mistress of ceremonies, so that was the dinner.

Moorhus: So you were a clear success and a breath of fresh air after the year before in particular.

Simpson: [Laughter.] It was so awful! Poor Phil. He's still teased about it. He was trying to do something different, and it sounded like great idea, right? What better thing for an icon of the broadcast industry to have a roast of Walter Cronkite, but the people were justóthey weren't funny. It wasn't funny. Poor Walter.

Moorhus: One of the things that's interesting about this is that you chose a venue outside of direct broadcasting as a way of making the point that you could make this kind of a contribution.

Simpson: Yes. I've always enjoyed leadership roles, though, from eighth grade, running for the student council. I don't know where that came from or why that came, but I've always sought positions of leadership when I could.

Moorhus: So it was part of a continuing pattern of involvement and activism that you took on the leadership of the women here at ABC.

Simpson: Exactly. But this was an issue that I felt so strongly about, because I had been fighting for so long by the time I had come to ABC in 1982. I had started in the industry in 1965, and had heard all of these things about if you pay your dues, if you do this, if you do that, and women were doing all of those things, and still having opportunities denied them. And a lot of people are surprised when I tell then that I've suffered both racial discrimination and sex discrimination, but when I look back on my career, I was more often told, "You can't do this because you're a woman," rather than, "You can't do this because you're a minority," or a woman of color or something like that. It has been more sex discrimination.

The black employees were upset with me when I assumed the leadership position for the women at ABC, because the issues were the same, and the minorities were having the same problems as the women were having in terms of promotion and advancement and career opportunities and not enough of them in management or anything like that, not enough of them as part of the decision-making process, so they were very upset with me when I assumed this leadership role for the women, and I had to explain, "But when I look back, I've suffered them both," and clearly I know that, but more often than not, it's been because, "You're a woman." I've felt that phase of discrimination much more.

So the way I satisfied the black employees at ABC was that I became co-chair of the Minority [Advisory] Board, which was started after the women started, because the issues were the same, and it was clear that we could work in concert, that what we were talking about were the same issues. So I served on both boards, but it made a lot of people angry that why didn't I take on the racial issueó

Moorhus: First.

Simpson: óbefore I took on the sex issue, and I had to say because it is the sex that has held me back more than the race.

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Moorhus: Who did take the leadership on the minority issues?

Simpson: George Strait and Ken Walker, who were both male correspondents here in Washington, D.C.

Moorhus: George Strait I know is still here, and I just met him in the hall. What about Ken Walker?

Simpson: Ken Walker left some years ago to go to "USA Today," the TV show, and then that show folded, and I'm not sure what he's doing now. He was at Harvard for a while, at the Institute of Politics, for a six-month fellowship. I've lost track. I'm not sure what he's doing.

Moorhus: Did they approach the issue of minority representation in somewhat the same way you had approached the issue of women?

Simpson: Right. What we had done was, because the women had begun, we had a framework, we had a basis on which we knew then that we could do exactly the same thing with the minorities. When my husband [Jim Marshall] did the content analysisóhave we talked about this?

Moorhus: Yes.

Simpson: I told you that. What he also did was break out race, so we had the same numbers regarding each broadcast and everything else, so that we could very easily translate that into racial things the same way we were able to do it with women.

So the women started, and six months later, the minorities had their first meeting with Roone Arledge, which I attended, but I would try to take a back-seat role. You'll have to understand, again, the whole problem with black women and black men. Black men have been upset that black women have gotten more opportunities in broadcasting than they have, and it's true, and it's because they could say, "Look. You're a two-for: we got a woman, we got a minority." So it was easier for us, plus this whole, I think, fear of black males and the discomfort level that I think a lot of white males still feel with black males. Dealing with a black woman, it's not the same thing; you don't feel that threatening thing. It's something I don't understand, but I know exists.

So there have been problems in the journalistic community because a lot of black males have not gotten jobs that black women have gotten, and they know that, and they know because it was a woman and they're looking for a woman, and they [news organizations] don't want to deal with black males, so it was very important for me to take aówhat?

Moorhus: Secondary?

Simpson: Yes, very secondary role. I would not speak at those meetings. I would give them the benefit of all the information I had and what we should do and how to handle it, and I would strategically work with the committee, but every meeting I would not say anything, and let the males take the leadership roles. This was to keep peace in the family, but there's been that rift in the black community for some time, that black women have had it easier, and according to black men, have always had it easier because they were females.

Moorhus: Did the numbers analysis that your husband did support that?

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Simpson: Oh, yes, absolutely.

Moorhus: That, in fact, black women were better represented in the media than black men?

Simpson: Yes. Yes. Yes. No doubt about it.

Moorhus: But overall, minorities were as underrepresented as women.

Simpson: Worse. Much worse. The news division at that time had about 1,300 employees that were just news division. These would be editorial people, not technicians, not secretaries. These are people that are producers, people on the assignment desk, writers, associate producers, desk assistants, everybody involved in just the editorial process, and out of 1,300 employees, there were 24 blacks, and I think there were two Latinos and two Asians. We called ourselves the Minority Board, because we didn't want it to be the Black Advisory Board, because our concern was all minorities at that time being underrepresented in our news division. And we asked them to join us. They didn't, but we still operated on their behalf and tried to speak on their behalf.

Moorhus: So Latinos and Asians did not join the board?

Simpson: Did not join, but they were invited. We made them aware of all of our meetingsó"We want your input." But they didn't, and I think they were afraid, because there were so few of them, and they weren't sure where we were going with this or how much help it would be to them. But our issue was to bring the whole issue of minorities, not just African-Americans, but the lack of representation of all kinds of minorities in our news division when we are broadcasting to this diverse population out there.

Moorhus: How did you present your case to Roone Arledge and the other powers-that-be?

Simpson: In a similar way. Not with the same documentation that the women had, but we had a meeting with all of the executives, the same way the women did, and there were appointed spokespeople, George [Strait] and Ken Walker, and we also had different people that would bring up different pointsó"We want to bring up the point of promotions, we want to bring up the point ofóso that it was spread around.

There were several people that would make different points about some of the concerns, the subtle racism, the kinds of things thatówell, I must go back and tell you this story. The day that we were going to have lunch with Roone Arledge and the other executives of ABC, George and I had taken the shuttle up to New York, and we stopped by the news desk just to say hello. We had gotten there like at quarter to twelve, and lunch was at twelve o'clock, so we just stopped by the news desk to say hello to folks. One of the women that ran the national assignment deskóand I don't care to give you her name, because she's still very much alive and well and very high up in the hierarchy stillóshe looked at us and said, "What are you all doing here?"

And we said, "We're having lunch with Roone and them."

She said, "Oh, that's right, the minority lunch." She said, "What are you all havingóchitterlings and watermelon?"

Moorhus: [Gasps.]

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Simpson: [Laughter.] Everybody gasps when I tell that story. It's that kind of stuff that we were confronting a lot, people saying things. I was here. This story I've told quite often about the kinds of racist things thatópeople would not believe that people they were working with would say something like that. I was here, and Bob Zelnick was getting ready to go to Moscow to serve a tour of duty as our Moscow correspondent, and they were having a goodbye party for him on the seventh floor up here in our conference room, where you and I have had discussions before. It was seven o'clock, and I was finishing up something, and I really didn't want to go, and I said, "Well, I'll run up and say goodbye to him." I ran upstairs on the elevator just to poke my nose in and say, "Goodbye Bob, good luck," and there was a cocktail party and hors d'oeuvres. One of the ABC executives here in the Washington bureau, when I walked into the room, said, "Where's your cap and apron? Aren't you going to serve?"

And you sayó [Laughter.] I get very loud, and my voice, which is already deep, pitches even deeper, and I said, "What did you say?" And he starts trying to [imitates laughter]. I said, "No. Tell me what you said. Repeat to me what you said." And he is turning red. I said, "Did you ask me if I should be serving these hors d'oeuvres? Why would you think I should be serving these hors d'oeuvres? I walk into this room, you do not see an ABC news correspondent, you see a black woman. You think I should have on a cap and apron and should be serving these hors d'oeuvres." And I got so loud, I mean, you could hear a hush around the room, because I get really loud.

I did the same thing when this woman asked us about the chitterlings and watermelon. "What makes you think I eat chitóI don't eat chitterlings. I don't like them. What would make you think that I would?"

And they all try to [say], "I'm sorry. We were just playing."

I have a memo, I wish I could put my hand on it, but these were the kinds of things that were happening. Things people white people would have been afraid to say in the seventies, we started hearing creeping back intoóand I think we have Ronald Reagan to thank for part of that, because it was like okay again. It wasn't important. Affirmative action wasn't important, being sensitive to minorities wasn't important, and that message was clearly sent, because I could document the difference. If there's an executive of ABC News who, after all my years, twenty years, in the business, could look at me and see me come into a room and not see Carole Simpson, or not see an ABC employee, but immediately sees my sex and my color and expects me to then be serving the people, how could I ever be viewed as being an executive of this company or the senior White House correspondent or a replacement for Peter Jennings? It just shows you the mind-set of what you're dealing with, and you would have thought that that would have gone away, that after a while I would just be Carole, and they would know me as Carole and react to me as Carole, because I carry myself that way. I don't walk around like, "I'm a black woman and I've got a chip on my shoulder and be careful how you talk to me." I'm not like that, and I've never been that way.

It's always sobering to me that you never get beyond that, and I'm telling you, Donita, it's like clockwork. Every six months or so I will get a reminder like that. Something like that will happen, that, "You're still just a black woman." Somebody will say something, some comment will happen, some letter will come in, but it's like clockwork. Every six months I can expect to be reminded again that, "Don't think you're that high up there, or that you've achieved that much. You're still a black woman. You're still not as good as a white male, and you're still not as good as a black male." It's incredible.

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But here's the other thing I wanted to tell you about, this memo that I got. I was doing "Newsbrief," the little news brief at ten o'clock at night, and for some reason, at the last minute, we got word thatóI think we had already taped it. It's taped about ten minutes before it goes on the air, just so it's clean and the timing is correct and stuff like that, but if we have to go live with breaking news, we can take it live. But we had already taped a version, and then we found out that there had been a plane crash in Brazil, so they said, "We got to change it, we're going to have to do it over again, and I think there's time to tape it."

So they rewrote it, and when I read through it for this read, I thought that I had bobbled a word. I said, "I think I stumbled a little bit."

And the director said, "No, I didn't hear anything." They didn't want to have to do it live. It was on tape, and they didn't want to have to do it live.

I said, "But I think I stumbled a little bit."

And everybody said, "We didn't hear anything. It was fine, Carole."

So anyhow, they play it, and I heard the little bobble that I had done in it, but nobody else paid any attention to it. Next day, I come in, and there is a memo from our assistant bureau chief here, a lengthy memo about the news brief, and how it is inappropriate to use racial colloquialisms in a news brief to millions of the American people, and that it was totally inappropriate for me to say that "twenty-nine people are afeared dead." What I had done was stumble. I had stopped, I had hesitated, and that's what I thought. I guess it sounded like I said, "twenty nine people are uhó" and I hesitated, "feared dead."

But I get this memo about how you cannot use racial colloquialisms, and if this man thought, after all the years that I've been broadcasting, that I thought I could useóthat I didn't knowóI was so angry, I went berserk. I was justóhow could this man think that every time I go on televisionó [Tape interruption.]

I was like, how am I going to handle this? I was so angry, again, that he would even think that I would go on television. When I go on television, I feel I'm representing every African-American, and I want my stuff tight. I call it "having it tight." That's why I'm so stressed out, because I feel this pressure to be good, to be excellent, every time I appear, that people are not only measuring me but everybody, and if my stuff is good, then it makes it easier for other people. So if this guy thought that I would go on, and he doesn't know that I enunciate and pronounce things, and I'm an educated woman, to think that I could go on and say, "twenty-nine people are afeared dead."

So I decided to call him, and I called him, and I said, "Can I come upstairs and see you?"

He said, "What about?"

And I said, "Well, it's something that's really bothering me, and I really need to see you now."

And he said, "Okay, come on up."

I walked into his office, I stood at the door, and he said, "Yeah?"

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And I said, "Massa Armstrong, I's afeared I's done sompin' turrible wrong."

And he goes, "Carole, what are you doing?"

And I start shuffling into his office, scratching my head, and saying, "I's afeared I's done sompin' turrible, and I's done embarrassed ABC." [Laughter.]

And he is so angry, and he goes, "What are you doing?"

And I took that memo, and I slammed it down on his desk, and I said, "How dare you? How dare you insult me by suggesting that I don't know better than to say something like this, and to lecture me about racial colloquialisms being inappropriate for our newscasts? What kind of idiot do you think I am?"

And he was just, "Well, IóIóI didn't know what youó"

I said, "You really thought that I would go on TV and say something like that? You wouldn't know? You wouldn't know right immediately that something was wrong?" I was just livid.

So, you know, that kind of stuff continues to happen. It continues to happen.

Moorhus: When was that incident? How recently?

Simpson: This was maybe five years ago. He's gone now.

Moorhus: That takes a terrible toll on you.

Simpson: That's what I'm saying. This was during the period of time when this stuff was happening. One of our graphic artists, a black woman, and she was doing a graphic for the Dalkon Shield. They were doing settlements for women that had taken the Dalkon Shield IUD [intrauterine device], and somebody had drawn, on her desk, and left on her desk, an IUD shield, but it was held by a very Negroid-looking, spear-carrying African caricature, and just left on her desk, and the Dalkon Shield was turned into like some really funny-looking, primitive, African savage holding a shield.

So there were all kinds of things like that that were happening to all of usóall of us. I was working with one of the engineers, and I was at the White House. It was pouring down rain, and I had to do some radio reports, and he said he was going out to lunch, and I said, "Would you mind picking me up a sandwich and bringing it back? Anything. Wherever you go, I don't care where you go, just bring me something back?"

He said, "What do you want, a collard green sandwich?"

It's like, I've never even heard of a collard green sandwich. Why would you sayóand that's why I find myself fighting all the time. As I say, I get really loud, because I can remember periods in my career where I would kind of try to ignore it and brush it off. I don't ignore it anymore. I nail it, and I try my best to embarrass whoever it is, by making them repeat it, and say, "Why would you? How dare you? I don't even know what that is." Just little stuff like that.

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They'll talk to youóI had one of the senior producers on "World News" talk to me, "Well, honey child, don't yu know dat's the way it be?" Or something, "That's the way it bes."

And I'm like, "Why are you talking to me like this? Have you ever heard me talk like that? Why are you talking to me like that, in some ghetto street language?"

So there were problems. There were serious problems, and these were the kinds of things that we told Roone Arledge about, that he justóI mean, he was astounded to hear that this stuff was happening. Well, without having a dialogue with management, he wouldn't know that, so that's why it was important to continue these dialogues.

That led to racial sensitivity training. They hired a consultant to come in, and all the executives spent a whole day in racial sensitivity training. Things got a little better, but again, it wasn't so much the management people, it's kind of all these other people that we're having to deal with.

Moorhus: But they do set a tone. Management does set a tone.

Simpson: They do. They do.

Moorhus: The meeting with Roone Arledge, was that just with him?

Simpson: No, it was with all the executives of all the shows, just like the women's meeting. The minorities demanded the same kind of meeting, because it wasn't enough. We were dealing with shows. Many of us were assigned to different shows, so you needed those executive producers of those broadcasts there, too.

Moorhus: One of the things that interests me is that again, on the minority side, the initiative came from the Washington bureau, not from New York.

Simpson: Right. It's because we are the largest bureau of ABC. Did you know that?

Moorhus: No, I didn't know that.

Simpson: Yes. There are like thirty correspondents here, and in New York there are about ten. This is the real heart of the network, because more network news comes out of the Washington bureau than anyplace else, so it's a strong, powerfulóand you have here some of the biggest names for the company. Other than the anchorpeople, in terms of correspondents, this is your base where the well-known correspondents are. And I guess because we're in one building, you know, it's a little smaller than New York, we see each other more, we have more interaction being in one small building rather than spread all out like they are in New York.

Moorhus: Chances are there were more women down here to form a group, and more minorities to form a group, than there would have been from that smaller population in New York, as well.

Simpson: Probably so, right. But then, it's, again, leadership. It's somebody that takes it on and says, "We're going to do it." The women in New York joined, but the impetus came from the Washington women, and it's the same with the minority group. It started here, but then we had meetings. We went to New York and had meetings with the black employees there to find out their concerns. They [the concerns] were all the same, the women, all of them were the same,

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except the racial slurs, but, of course, the women were getting the sexual slurs, so the issues were all the same, all exactly the same.

Moorhus: Does the minorityóis it MAB? Minorityó

Simpson: Advisory Board.

Moorhus: Advisory Board. Does that still exist?

Simpson: We exist when we have to exist. At this point, we got lots accomplished. There are more minorities now. The same way with women. I mean, there has been amazing progress. There are more young minorities in the pipeline that will be coming on board. We still don't have any minorities in top management, still no minorities on the rim of "World News Tonight." And we understand it's a smaller pool of people to choose from than perhaps the women, but they're still there.

So we, from time to time, will meet, and have meetings in New York, and say, "How are things going with So-and-so? Are we hiring?" At one time, when we started that, we had seven black correspondents, and then we got down to three. Now we're back up to six, so, in an ad hoc kind of way, George and I will meet from time to time with New York, and Sheilah Kast and some of the other women, and Jackie Judd will talk to New York, but a lot has changed. They came down on sexual harassment, more women were hired on the rims, more women are producers of shows, more women are doing all kinds of things. There are three women vice presidents now when there were none when we started. There's been a lot of progress on the female front, and we're beginning to see more of it among the minorities, so we think we've done our job, but now it's kind of a watchdog function. We don't meet often or anything like that, but if some minority has a particular problem, then they'll call George up, or call me up, and say, "I'm having this problem with such and such," we get involved that way.

Same with the women. If something has happened, a woman feels that she's been discriminated against, we'll raise the issue.

Moorhus: Earlier, we were talking about the new correspondent Michelle Norris,* who is black and female. When she came on board here, did you help her?

[End Tape 1, Side A; Begin Tape 1, Side B]

Simpson: To all of the women that come on, and to all of the minorities, I make it a special effort to have lunch with them or have a drink with them after work, to tell them about the milieu in which they come and what some of the problems have been and how we've fought against them, just to understand the political situation that we're in now, also telling them, "If you have any difficultyó" Michelle's very good about, "What do I do about this? This thing has happened."

Some of them are, "I can do it myself," but I still make the offer, "If you have any problem with anyone, and you're not sure how to handle a situation, come to one of us. That's what we're here for." We're here to mentor these younger people coming in.

______________________ * Michelle Norris, formerly a reporter with the Washington Post, now at ABC News.

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I take particular interest in our desk assistants that are all twenty-one. I'm like their mother. I'm like their mother hen. I bring them all in and tell them, "You are going to be judged by a different standard." Whatever we do seems to be more glaring. If it's a mistake that somebody white makes, it's like not as obvious, but God forbid somebody black make a mistake, everybody knows about it. So I tell them, "You're going to have to work harder, come in earlier, stay later, all these other things, to be successful here and to be noticed. It's not enough just to do the job they ask you to do," that you've got to come in hereóand they're here in a short period of time, a year or two, to really make their mark and see where they want to go and make contacts with people, and either leave here and do something else but have good recommendations that can take them for other jobs that they may go to, or staying here and being promoted through the ranks here. But they still have to be twice as good to get half the recognition. So I bring them each in here and sit down with them and talk to them, and "If you have any problems, you come and tell me, any difficulties."

We had a young black woman that is very talented, but she has enormous "gazongas," enormous bosoms, and she's straight out of college, so she doesn't have a wardrobe of blazers and suits and things. She has sweaters, and the men just go ga-ga over her. They're not accepting her; they can't get past looking. So I had to bring her in and talk to her about her wardrobe. "Get a cheap blazer. I'll even lend you some of mine or something, but you're going to have to put something on top of the sweaters, because they will never see you in terms of promoting you. They are seeing you." And I see them. I mean, their tongues are hanging out. And she's so unaware. And she cried. She was just totally unaware. I mean, she's twenty-one years old and just totally unaware that these men are going ga-ga, and she is so shapely. I would die for this figure. [Laughter.] But it's like, "You cannot wear any low-cut things."

I give them really basic information, like a mother. I have to bring them in if they're late, and I'm always checking on them, checking with management to see how they're doing, staying on top, and really telling them tough things. A lot of them sit here and cry in my office, but I want them to know what's being said about them. It may be totally wrong. I may have told you how I got that thing about how I was "lazy," how something gets out there, and you may not be guilty of it, but you need to be aware that this is being said, and you need to take care of it, however it is. So yes, with all of them, we do that.

Ron Allen, who's now in London, George and I took him to lunch. We feel it's real important to have them understand the situation they're in, the personalities involved, who do you trust, who don't you trust, who you might have a problem with, about what you might have a problem, because nobody did that [for me]. I had to knock my head against all these walls throughout my career. I had no one to tell me and guide me. I had to learn it myself. So I said it's the least I can do, to help steer them and give them an idea, and give them the benefit of the experience and the hurts that I have suffered throughout my career, of being able to handle these things.

Moorhus: Have you seen any inclination on the part of management to push women and/or minorities faster than they should be pushed, thus exposing them to the possibility of failure? In other words, not helping them grow and develop appropriately, but putting them out there on a limb and increasing the likelihood they'll fail?

Simpson: They used to do that. They don't do that anymore. Michelle Norris is working with a producer who was assigned to work with young correspondents coming in, particularly those who have had no television experience before, to work with them and show them. In the past, it would happen. You sank or swam on your own doing, with very little help, but they are realizing that

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particularly people coming from another medium don't know television. So she's been working for six months with this guy who will then move to the next new correspondent and work with them on the writing and the television appearance and the presentation and delivery and all that.

But then we have the most recent example of what happened with Emily Rooney, the first woman named executive producer of "World News Tonight." It was something I never thought I'd live to see. I never thought that I would see a woman in charge of "World News Tonight," and it was something we were hoping for, that kind of input, a different perspective on the news, and you see what happened: she lasted seven months. I think she was set up to fail. She came from local news, and while she had been successful in local news, that has nothing to do with dealing with the network news. She had never produced. She was news director. She was asked to put together a national/international newscast every night, and she had neveróshe didn't even know how to do a run-down or how to back-time a show. She had no international experience, no foreign experience, and even though we have foreign editors on the desk, still, the weight of the broadcast and the responsibility for the broadcast, is going to fall on the executive producer.

I think what they did with her is shameful, and she was let go not because of a gender issue, I believeóand I've been asked to comment on thisóI've stayed away from itóbut she really was not up to it. It's like, why didn't they know that? I talked to my husband about it, and the people that hired her should be fired. She was put through an awful trauma, and I feel very sorry for her on a personal level. I had my battles with her, too, but you could see she wasn't given the support. And we had women within the company that could have done that job. Why would you have to go to a Boston affiliate, not even a major market affiliate, and bring in someone to try to control Peter Jennings and run the top-rated network newscast? I mean, we saw from the beginning. She came down here and had dinner with us two weeks after she startedóand I knew this is never going to work. She had no ideas. We're there asking her, "What do you have in mind, or what kinds of stories do youó?" She had not a clue. She hadn't formulated those ideas yet, and so things just got worse and worse and worse and worse, and they had to let her go. They had to let her go. She was hired because she was a woman.

There was a man who had been designated, Paul Friedman, who became an executive vice president, had appointed his heir apparent, and it was a white male who, really, by all rights, should have had that job. He's toiled long and hard for that, but there was some pressure to hire a woman. But it's like, why in God's name would they go outside? She didn't know any of us. She didn't know how anything worked. She didn't know any of the personalities. Why would you hire somebody and tie her hand behind her back and make it impossible for her? And she's a very bright woman, and I'm sure in time, if she had started on the rim and worked her way up after getting some experience, but to put her in charge of that broadcast was ludicrous. It was ludicrous.

Moorhus: One of the people that Deborah Leff talked about as also being on the rim at the same time that she was with "World News Tonight" was Kathy Christensen, who also left about the same time Debby did, and I see that Kathy is back now with ABC.

Simpson: Right. They hired her back when they saw that Emily [Rooney] didn't have the goods, and she apparently was not very happy with the Baltimore Sun. She had to oversee a bunch of [personnel] cuts, and just really wasn't happy, and when she saw that our foreign editor, Linda Matthews, had left to go to the New York Times, she asked, "Are you interested in myóI wouldn't mind taking my old job back." What they ended up doing was making her number two. It wasn't her old job, they made her number two to Emily, because they felt with her there, that Emily would have the support and the expertise that she needed to do the job, but you couldn't

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tell her anything. Emily was somebody that thought she knew, so even Kathy or other people saying, "Wait a minute, I think we ought to do it this way," she wasó

Moorhus: What happened to Kathy, then, when Emily left?

Simpson: She's still in the same position, as number two to Rick Kaplan, who took over the broadcast.* She's still in that number-two senior broadcast producer position, and I think she'll stay there.

Moorhus: Are there any other women on the rim now?

Simpson: Yes, Carol Williams is the domestic producer. Sally Holm has always been in charge of the "American Agenda." She's a senior producer on there. So it's three.

Moorhus: So there has been quite a change in the past few years.

Simpson: Oh, yes. You'd go upstairs, you'd see white guys. [Laughter.] You'd see a bunch of white guys, that's all you saw. We did have Jack White, who was a minority male from Time magazine who was in charge of domestic news for the broadcast, and he only lasted about eight months, too. He didn't know television. It was very hard for him, coming from a news magazine. It's like, why don't they work these people into these positions, or put them in a local station for a little while, or something like that, to learn TV, before they put them in that position? He was frustrated and they were frustrated, so he went back to Time magazine, but for a very brief period, we did have one minority, but now we don't. No more.

Moorhus: In the Phil Donahue talk show that I watched from December of '85, there were seven, eight women on, and one of them was Lesley Stahl, who objected very strenuously to the characterization that other women on the panel were giving about how bad the situation [was], and she said emphatically, "We do not have a problem at CBS."

Simpson: And do you know what happened to her after she said that? [Laughter.] I later found out that she was in the middle of contract negotiations, and that may have been a reason that she said that. The women at CBS called me. They were furious. Women like Rita Braver and Susan Spencer, like, "Are you crazy? What was she?" They felt that she hurt their cause very much, because there were problems and they were experiencing difficulties, and to make it sound like everything was peaches and cream at CBS, they were furious with her for saying that. But as I say, they said she was in contract talks.

But I even talked to some of the white male executives at CBS, who said, "Yeah, good old Lesley, she saved our butts," because they knew. They all knew they had problems.

Moorhus: Do you think the networks are all doing better now than they were in the seventies and eighties?

Simpson: Yes, because we now have Connie Chung. Unfortunately, the ratings aren't that great. I was hoping that CBS's ratings would really go up by adding a woman there so that the rest of them would [add a woman, too]. But that was quite a breakthrough. And then you've got several women with prime time news magazine shows, and, of course, prime time is it. That's your key to

______________________ * Rick Kaplan, formerly executive producer of ABC's "PrimeTime Live."

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a huge audience. So seeing women like Diane Sawyer and Connie Chung and Jane Pauley and Barbara Walters having these important programs is certainly a big breakthrough. You look at all the "tabloidy" shows that I don't particularly like, but they all have women that are part of that, so it is not unusual to see a woman in an authoritative capacity on a news program and on a television program, and that certainly is progress.

I did not think, though, that we would still, in 1990, have basically three white males anchoring the evening newscast, because around the country, everybody at least has a woman or minority. There are much more, if you look at all the local stations around the country, and they're half-hour newscasts, too. Their eleven o'clock news is stillóbut you will see a male/female team.

Moorhus: Yes.

Simpson: So it still is strange to me thatóand you know, the [David] Brinkley Show ["This Week with David Brinkley"], we still got David and Sam [Donaldson] and George [Will] being the bulk of the show, and Cokie [Roberts] brought in to help discuss, which is important, but she ought to be part of that question-and-answer period, too. I just don't think it's possible in this day and age not to have that female point of view represented. It is different, and it needs to be represented in our newscasts and in our broadcasts. "Nightline" still has no woman. Cokie will fill in for Ted [Koppel] once in a while, but they don't have a correspondent that's a female. They need to have a female correspondent on "Nightline."

Moorhus: So there still is plenty of work to be done.

Simpson: There's still plenty to be done, absolutely. Absolutely.

Moorhus: Well, I want to talk about some of the other shows you've done.

Simpson: But I'm going to have to go.

Moorhus: I thought this was probably the case. I was giving you a chance to say, "This is all we can do this time."