Description
What if television news reports presented their own reports on camera directly to the audience viewing at home? It was a radical idea in August of 1965. That's when KYW-TV Channel 3, Westinghouse Broadcasting in Philadelphia experimented with this concept. Today, it's the industry standard but it all started with Eyewitness News and a man by the name of Al Primo, the station's News Director. Al looked into the AFTRA contract and discovered there was nothing to prevent the station from using journalist on air with his own story and no talent fee be paid above their regular salary.Veteran Philadelphia broadcaster was anchor and to give the broadcast a young, uptempo feeling Al selected a cut from the movie soundtrack "From Russia With Love" to use as the theme.
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Creator of Eyewitness News and Peabody Award recipient Al Primo has authored a dynamic book that looks at the television news business from the inside. Eyewitness Newsman chronicles the history of the Eyewitness News concept, showing how one man with a vision challenged the journalistic establishment to create a newscast format that is the industry standard to this day. The New York Daily News said that Primo Almost single handedly changed the face of television news.Primo literally worked his way up from a Pittsburgh television station mailroom to the position of network executive. Along with way he turned the white male dominated news business on its ear, creating a beat system that featured a culturally diverse news team. Along the way he discovered people like Geraldo Rivera and helped turn Tom Snyder into a household name. Eyewitness Newsman takes you behind the scenes and offers a unique look at broadcasting legends like Peter Jennings, Howard Cosell, Frank Gifford, Roger Grimsby, Bill Beutel, Frank Gifford, Bill Burns and Rona Barrett.
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