The New, the True and the Unexpected

Mike Wallace who may have had more to do with shaping the public perception of a CBS News TV Show, "60 Minutes," as the television version of Christians to the Lions, died this past weekend, out of the spotlight in which he had lived and worked for many decades. He was 93 years old.

I never met Mike Wallace, and I've never been to Spain, but I had a chance to watch him work many decades ago when American TV news was still intoxicated by the idea of satellite coverage and, during sweeps week (rating periods that measured viewership and, in turn, dictated advertising rates) they'd fly their high profile reporters to the ends of the earth (or someplace from which they could see the ends of the earth) basically to prove they could do it and to attract viewers who'd tune in to see familiar faces in out of the ordinary places.

Wallace and a 60 Minutes crew ended up in the International Departures lounge of the Frankfurt Flughafen for reasons that if I knew, I've long since forgotten, but I'm pretty sure that's not the important part. The chance to be a fly on the wall, from a not inconsiderable distance while he improvised, then rehearsed and finally recorded the bridges, stand-ups and closes, was amazing.

As everything is digital now, in the time of this tale, TV news/features were recorded in the field on videotape cartridges (I'd learned (loose definition) field reporting on Sony Rover decks, portable reel to reel half inch black and white tape machines that weighed about as much as a boat) sealed and self-contained, fully threaded that were loaded into a portable recorder connected to a camera.

Wallace and his 60 Minutes crew had come of age in TV news when everything was SOF, sound on film. Ten years after tape had replaced film, Wallace, force of habit still clapped his hands to conclude a countdown, because in the days of film, that on-camera hand clap had been used to synchronize the audio and the visual on the Steenbeck edit table.  What followed was magic, but very hard work as well.

He spent close to a half hour working on the phrasing, the language and the intonation of what was, perhaps at best, no more than twenty seconds total of on-air material. He had discussions with the cameraman and the lighting grip on sitting versus standing versus walking versus camera movement. He was completely absorbed in the process and an active participant, not a "star" but the guy whose job was being on-camera. He was oblivious to those of us watching him and driven to produce the best possible story elements to put on the air.

And then just as intently and intensely as he'd been working, the segment was concluded and a smile as bright as the sun and as wide as the horizon broke out over his face as his crew packed gear for the drive from Frankfurt to Bonn for a stop at the US Embassy, located in the then-capital of West Germany. He made small talk with the gallery, asking those of us in uniform where we were from in the US and how we liked Germany.

He wasn't so much marking time as listening for clues and motivations, it seemed to me, cocking his head slightly to his left side as if his right ear were stronger, eyes looking straight ahead and fixed on nothing but trying to see what you were saying, and tightening his jaw slightly as you spoke to him, taking it all in.

Just as suddenly as he had arrived-he was gone. And our concerns, battling the traffic back to Bertramstrasse 6 where the A3 became Miquel-Adickesalle and who had charge of quarters duty and who was available to log tape for whatever it was we had been shooting when we returned to the station. Not that our encounter didn't provide us with a terrific story to tell everyone back in the AFN HQ building that afternoon, including people who claimed not to care, when we finally got there.

Remembering all of that (from about thirty or so years ago) I wondered not so much if there is a Heaven (pretty much beyond my paygrade and control) but, rather, if the reaction up there were any different than in these parts so often when it was announced "Mike Wallace is here."
-bill kenny