link for radio show is below post
....When I was first with NBC News Chicago a couple of things took place that I thought I’d tell you about.
Our news boss was a kind of “strange bird” and wouldn’t fit the mold of a network news director. He’s name was Walt Gresham and I think they still tell stories about him today.
He came to me one day and said
“Major...I understand you have some American Indian blood in you!”
I told him my Mother’s Grandmother was a full blooded Choctaw from Oklahoma. I added “I had lot of relatives named “Barefoot.”
He said he might be able to keep me on staff by moving me into the NBC minorities program.
Never got a shot at that as New York called offering a correspondent’s slot in Saigon which I jumped at.
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There was one very interesting job in that newsroom...the assignment desk. This is the person who has full authority to send the reporters and the news vans wherever there’s a story.
I told Walt one day I’d like a shot a filling in on that desk and he obliged me a few days later. I worked a full shift...finding news angles...searching out newsmakers...sending the crews here and there.
I loved it.
But I was destined for more “fun” in Vietnam.
When I returned from Nam I took my sister Sallee and her husband to lunch and we planned to tour NBC News. My sister actually worked for RCA which was several floors above the NBC studios but she had never been inside NBC.
In our tour I ran into an old friend from Chicago...Ted Elbert.
Ted was manning the world assignment desk...and that is as important a desk as any at NBC News.
He joked for Sallee that he could order up jet planes...helicopters etc at will...anything to get the story and get the film back here.
Even I was impressed by that kind of “power”.
I showed them Johnny Carson’s office which had had a fire some weeks earlier. Carson smoked a lot.
It was a pleasant afternoon...with my sister who would succumb to cancer a few years later. I miss her.
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another WINZ Miami show...the Stan Major first year anniversay...at double digits in the ratings:
stanmajor@aol.com
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