Every Life a Story: Natalie Jacobson Reporting

Every Life a Story: Natalie Jacobson Reporting
by Natalie Jacobson

Natalie Jacobson was a household name in greater Boston, with a 35-year career as a reporter and news anchor at WCVB, channel 5. For two decades the husband-and-wife team of “Chet and Nat” anchored the 6:00pm and 11:00pm weekday newscasts. This memoir includes stories of her personal life, career, colleagues, significant news events she covered, and some of the people she met. She also shares her views on the decay of broadcast journalism.

Channel 56.

Jacobson’s first job in television was at Channel 56 in Boston. Jim Thistle hired her to research community needs, a requirement for FCC license renewal. “I could have never known Jim Thistle would be the driving force of news at WCVB-TV not too many years later. I doubt even he could have known how extensive his influence would be, as he would come to lead all three Boston network-affiliated stations as news director.”

“Also, at this fledgling UHF station, I met the dean of Boston news, Arch MacDonald, who taught me the basic tenets of news reporting: ‘Be curious, be skeptical but not cynical, double check your facts, be fair. When in doubt, don’t.’”

“Arch, who many people thought of as the Walter Cronkite of New England, was a wonderfully warm, kind and decent man, and to my mind the very epitome of what a newsperson should be: honest, inquisitive, factual, and caring. He was WBZ’s first anchor in 1948. I was blessed to meet him at the beginning of my career and will always remember his nightly sign-off, ‘For your hospitality, thank you.’ How civil.”

Channel 4.

Later Jacobson worked for WBZ, channel 4.

“The late 60s were pioneering days of television, when TV news was defining itself. And I still had not made it into the newsroom. Ok, I thought. I’ll lift from the newsroom and create a news show called For Kids Only. I asked schools to send me four smart sixth-graders who would form a panel and ask questions of an expert in any particular field. We had three segments, the news topic of the week, sports, and whatever else came to mind. Each segment was introduced by a clip from the newsroom that had aired that week. The powers [that] be liked my idea but insisted I add an adult to the panel to shepherd the discussion. Bruce Schwoegler, one of our meteorologists, was assigned. He was great. The kids were perfect and asked the questions adults would be embarrassed to ask, such as, ‘What is Dow Jones?’”

Channel 5.

“Across town, the Herald Traveler Corporation, which owned a television station, radio station, and newspaper morning and afternoon editions, was in a fight for its life” for the renewal of its license for WHDH, channel 5. A new locally-owned startup called Boston Broadcasters Inc (BBI) eventually won the license, with new call letters WCVB. “BBI promised local programming, the quantity and quality of which no one believed they could deliver.”

“Early in 1972… I was invited to interview for a job as a news reporter with this fledgling station that was still waiting for the go-ahead from the FCC.”

“What an interview. It lasted several days. I was grilled on a variety of topics by the news director, Larry Pickard; programming director Dick Burdick; and two reporters they had already hired, Mike Taibbi and Jim Boyd. I was asked to argue for and against a controversial issue of my choosing. I was given a set of circumstances and told to have a story ready in fifteen minutes. It went on and on.”

“I thought if a company was going to such lengths to hire a reporter, they must be gathering some really good people. In the end I got the job and would start when they got the license, whenever that might be. I can’t help but think, TV news today would be so much better if candidates today were put through such a rigorous interview.”

BBI president Leo Beranek “was an acoustical genius; his book on Acoustics is still considered the Bible on the subject. Bolt, Beranek, and Neuman was the firm hired to investigate that eighteen-minute gap in the Nixon tapes after Watergate.”

First-time jitters.

Jacobson’s first time in the news anchor chair was Thanksgiving Day 1972, after less than a year as a reporter. “‘You will anchor our 6 and 11 PM newscasts tomorrow.’”

“Oh my. I was not an anchor. I was just learning to be a reporter. Tomorrow came and I sat in the anchor chair, petrified…

Cameraman Tony Towa peered around his big studio camera. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I can’t talk.’ I muttered through clenched teeth. ‘I’m scared.’

Tony smiled and said, ‘You read a story every day for this newscast, don’t you? … You know Natalie, you can only read one story at a time.’

With that I heard the announcement, ‘And now, NewsCenter 5 with Natalie Jacobson substituting for Jack Hynes.’ My mouth opened and words came out. God bless Tony.”

Teamwork.

“I never took a journalism or television course in college. And perhaps it was just as well, as covering news for television was an evolving experience. I learned it was the reporter’s job to take charge of the content, make the calls ahead of time to gather information, set up interviews, get approval for shooting in private places, and sharing the mission with the photographer so he or she knew what to shoot. Producers and the assignment desk were an important part of the process. Teamwork.”

“The photographers have a tough assignment. They need to adapt to a different reporter on each assignment and understand the reporter’s vision. ‘Talking heads’ are easy enough, but so many of these stories we covered involved creativity and nuance. A good photographer can make a story live.”

“So too the editors. The edit room is where the story comes together. Choosing just the right sound bite, the right ‘cutaway’ (picture of someone listening or reacting to what is being said) is critical to the integrity of the piece. Marrying what is shot to the reporter’s script or vice versa defines the story itself.”

Bill Harrington “was among the many more experienced people in the newsroom from whom I learned a lot. I remember his noticing me fidgeting in front of my typewriter, getting more nervous as I kept looking at the clock.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

‘I have so much information, I don’t know where to begin.’

Bill calmly advised, ‘When faced with a myriad of facts, think: Why is this a story? The answer leads you to the peg. The rest supports it.’ God bless him.”

60 Minutes.

“In 1974, CBS News president Dick Salant, invited me to New York… I couldn’t believe I was talking to the president of CBS News, the home of Walter Chronkite… Mr. Salant talked with me about working for CBS and specifically 60 Minutes. Don Hewitt created the show and was giving Americans an entirely different form of TV news—investigative journalism.”

“So, what to do? While working for CBS was an incredible opportunity, I did love my job at WCVB. I was comfortable there. I knew Boston. New Hampshire was part of my life. I found myself thinking I could combine career and family if I stayed local.” She declined the offer.

“Now every Sunday night, I allow myself sixty seconds to remember, and even allow myself to wish that I had accepted, not because I didn’t have a wonderful life as a TV anchor and reporter in Boston, but because if I had taken that job, I’d probably still be working at CBS. Local news changed but 60 Minutes retains its in-depth reporting. And, unlike most of television in the country, the network values the experience of its 60 Minutes staff.”

How the sausage is made.

“Time constraints can ask you to call upon your deepest reserves. I remember one day getting back from covering the anniversary of the game Monopoly made at the time by Parker Brothers in Beverly, Massachusetts. We were still working film then. One camera shot pictures and sound, another just pictures. I had a script in my head as my film editor Dick Molinari and I cut and hung the pieces for him to splice in an order I dictated to match the words in my mind. No time to write a script. I raced to the studio, again wind-blown, no make-up, and prayed my memory matched Molinari’s, and my speed of speaking matched the number of frames we had designated. In other words, match pictures and stories to the second. Miraculously it worked. You have to be a little nuts to think afterward, ‘That was fun.’ … You have to love the challenge.”

What is news?

“I would come to learn the crux of news is how it is defined and reported. What is news, what isn’t? To answer that question, we considered relevance. Who cares? Should they care? Why is this important, and to whom? Is the information honest, factually correct? Can you trust it?”

“During our morning meetings we would ask ourselves and each other, what do people NEED to know? Today that question often has changed to ‘What will they watch?’ The change in question changes the content. They need to know their taxes are going up. But would they rather watch a tiger maul his trainer?”

“The better you know your viewers, the better your decisions. And the more curious you are, the better chance you have of asking ‘Why?’—often uncovering information one might not have guessed.”

“Time can play a defining role in decision making. I think you could say the basic definition of news is that which is new. Not everything new, however, it newsworthy. A television newscast is limited in time… There is a timed program that precedes and one that follows. So clearly judgments must be made about what is to be included and what cannot. Relevance, importance, accuracy—all play a role in decision making. Logistics can play a part. Do we have enough time to cover this well? Will it hold until tomorrow? Back to the central question, what before us do the people need to know today? As you might imagine, arguments, often heated, were a critical part of the dialogue, as they should be.”

“Of course, just as important as to which topics to include, is the way they are treated. Most important is accuracy. Is it honest? Do we have the whole story? What’s missing? Can we trust what we know or we think we know?”

Breaking news!

“Reporting live! Breaking news! Alerts used so often they have lost their urgency. Everything is breaking news these days, breathlessly breaking. We didn’t use the phrase breaking news in my earlier days. We came close with ‘this just in.’ In my first year at WCVB, I had learned that covering news as it broke can change on a dime, as it did during the Hotel Vendome fire in Boston.”

“I had been sent to cover the fire on Commonwealth Avenue. It was June 1972… While I was there, midafternoon, firemen evacuated the building and around 4:30 indicated it was under control and allowed a nearby canteen to reopen. I went back to the station in Needham with the film. At that point it was a story with a good ending. I reported, ‘Thank goodness, no one was hurt.’ As we were broadcasting live, I got word the hotel had collapsed and firemen were hurt or killed. How could this be?”

“We quickly were back on the scene at the corner of Commonwealth and Dartmouth. A few hours earlier I had seen the building standing, intact. Now the building was gone, demolished, firefighters desperately trying to save their own. In the end, nine firemen lost their lives, while eight others were injured. It was the worst firefighting tragedy in the history of Boston.” [With the possible exception of the Cocoanut Grove Fire, November 28, 1942.]

End of an era.

“While contemplating the changes in news, I put together a proposal for ideas that I thought better used Hearst’s enormous resources. The company owns television stations across the country, as well as radio stations, newspapers, magazines, and internet sites. I thought, for example, if all the Hearst TV stations coordinated with each other on topics of mutual interest, we could have local news lead a more national scope.”

“On important issues, such as school vouchers and charter schools, we could report back and forth on how one city’s system was handling it, what was working, what wasn’t, and what did parents think? We might all learn something about the issue and also get to know our fellow Americans in other parts of the country.”

“I hoped my ideas would make the company money while producing innovative and newsworthy programming.” Jacobson flew to New York to present her ideas to David Barrett, the president of WCVB’s parent company, Hearst Broadcasting.

“Mr. Barrett was gracious and for three hours listened, questioned, and seemed intrigued. At the end he said, ‘You have some terrific ideas for our company.”

“I was excited. ‘Great, which one do we start with?’

‘None of them… Natalie, it is a lot easier for me to write a check for a syndicated show than to deal with ideas and personnel and all that goes into the kind of programming you are talking about.’”

“The ride back to LaGuardia was emotional me. I was fighting anger and disappointment. We had so many talented and intelligent, energetic people at WCVB. I knew we could produce new, good programming and make money for the station as we always had.”

“By the time I got back to Boston, I had forced myself to accept that my time at WCVB was coming to an end. The days of innovation were over. The golden age of television was on its way to the morgue.”

Jacobson laments that the station was no longer run with the same ideals and commitment to original programming it had under Bob Bennett, WCVB founding general manager, 1972-1982.

Time to blow this clambake.

“The year 1990 was the first of my ‘At Home’ interviews.” These were conducted in the home of political candidates with the goal of getting to know them better. “In short, what defines their character?” In 1990, Boston University president John Silber was running for governor against former federal prosecutor Bill Weld. The At Home interview may have been the turning point that lost Silber the election. Chris Reidy wrote in the Boston Globe, “Never mind Silber’s comments on day care. The image of an angry man at home seemed to be his undoing.”

“Bill Fine [WCVB general manager, 2005-2020] informed me that I would no longer be doing those ‘At Home’ interviews with the candidates unless I could deliver them in a two-minute piece. Well, that wouldn’t work; what can you learn about the character of a person in two minutes? Also, we wouldn’t be doing the live programming we had done for years… Innovative news programming, such a traveling to New Hampshire to understand the voters, or documentaries as I did with Tip O’Neill, live interviews during newscasts, town meetings—all off the table. They would do shorter, headline-type stories, cut back on sports, increase weather. Reporters would not be given days to work on a story.”

“It is true that local stations have more competition and therefore less income from advertising than they once did. Even so, local news is perhaps more needed than ever in this globalized world, as people can relate best to their locality, their schools, their government, their sports teams, their potholes, and their weather.”

Natalie Jacobson retired on July 18, 2007. See video clips below of former WCVB news director Emily Rooney interviewing Jacobson on the WGBH program Greater Boston, July 19, 2007.

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Jacobson, Natalie. Every Life a Story: Natalie Jacobson Reporting. Portsmouth, NH: Peter E. Randall Publisher, 2022. Buy from Amazon.com

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Books mentioned:

Portfolio Life: The New Path to Work, Purpose, and Passion After 50 by David D. Corbett (2006)

WCVB TV Boston: How We Built the Greatest Television Station in America by Robert M. Bennett. (2013)