"Jane Pauley was 25 in 1976 when she was plucked from relative obscurity to replace Barbara Walters on 'The Today Show' - winning the 'female sweepstakes', as she referred to it at the time. She grew to become one of the most beloved figures in American broadcasting, someone who seemed to embody the hopes, dreams and 'Can I really have it all?' anxieties of a generation of women in the wake of the feminist movement," 'The Los Angeles Times' noted.
At 67 in 2018, Jane Pauley told 'The Hollywood Reporter', "If I can give my younger self a piece of advice, 'You'll grow into it, Jane. Don't worry. You'll grow into experience. You'll grow into confidence." Rand Morrison added, "My younger self would never have believed that. I would never, at that age, would believe it's all going to fall into place and work out because I was totally not the kind of person who would believe that."
Between 1992 and 2003, Jane Pauley co-anchored the 'Dateline NBC' program. In separate interviews, Jane Pauley reflected on her times as a working mom, "I was once invited to give a commencement speech to new graduates and my topic was failure, 'Don't be afraid of failure.' As a parent and a role model, the best thing I ever did for my kids was to tell them mom was going to try something. I haven't done this before and that I might not succeed and the odds were pretty long and I did and it was hard and it didn't succeed but I am delighted that I've got a little bit of failure on my résumé.
"But that's my advice, 'Don't be afraid.' 'But what if I fail?' ... Please do not fear failure. Embrace it. Be proud of it … With every failure you're learning a bit more about … What you're learning is, 'that didn't work because?' … As long as you are learning from your choices, you have not been thrown for a loss on a play - a football metaphor that I don't know why I used. Anyway but the bottom line from experts is, 'Do is more important than think.'"
Philip Galanes, 'The New York Times', January 2017: Let’s go back 40 years (to 1976). You’re a pioneer, one of the first women behind the anchor desk of a national news show. Were you getting a million production notes from men about how to be a woman on TV?
Jane Pauley: I would have appreciated notes. I felt like a girl, and I had no idea how to be a woman. Remember, I was replacing Barbara Walters. I don’t think Barbara was ever a girl. She was grown-up and confident and an actual pioneer.
Samantha Bee: I’m sorry to tell you, Jane, you’re an "actual pioneer" too.
Jane Pauley recounted, "NBC sent me all over the world - an audience with the Pope at the Vatican, the Great Wall of China, the Sydney Opera House, waving at the Queen, Royal Wedding, and I never wanted to go. I had small children at home - and so I allowed myself to torture myself (for being away from them)." By 2014, Jane Pauley's book, 'Your Life Calling' was published, "There has never been a better time in my life to pack my bags and head out on the road."
Jane Pauley: But, wait. Barbara was a self-made woman; Sam is a self-made woman. They created their opportunities. What I give myself credit for is when opportunities presented themselves - and many did - I always said yes. And I made it work, even if it was scary or I didn’t feel quite ready. But that’s different. About a dozen years ago, NBC showed me my audience research for the first time. For years, the quality most associated with me was authenticity. I thought, 'Yeah, I believe that.' I would have argued if they’d said anything else. But somehow, through the fear and learning and work, some authenticity broke through.
Tom Brokaw told 'The Daily Beast', "From the moment I first met Jane - before we were twinned on 'Today' - I was deeply impressed by her grounded Midwestern sensibilities. As a pioneer of her gender and generation in the white hot environment of the rapidly changing demands of broadcast news and morning television she had an inner compass that got her through difficult passages and win the hearts and minds of viewers."
Philip Galanes: Let’s take a look at authority in the news. First, there was just news: stuff that Jane and Tom Brokaw told us. Then there was cable news that often comes with an ideological slant. Then satirical news, like 'The Daily Show' and 'Full Frontal', which aims at the absurdity of news and newsmakers. And now (in January 2017), fake news, just outright lies and the scourge of our past election season. Did you see any of this coming?
Jane Pauley: Not at all. Sometimes I feel like an ambassador from the 20th century. For me, everything changed when they started putting that crawl beneath the anchor, as if to say: 'Pay no attention to the man on the screen! Ignore him and read this instead.' I’m still quavering over that, and it was a generation ago.
Speaking to 'The Hollywood Reporter', Jane Pauley expressed, "The media doesn't lead cultural shift. We are actually in a way kind of way behind. If the media has caught on to the story, it means the culture is galloping way down the road and we’re catching up." Rand Morrison believed, "On some front here we are reflective of the larger culture ... We've been part of the story … We reflect the larger culture, what's going on in the larger culture. We're a microcosm of the larger culture. So we cover it but sometimes we also reflective of what's going on in the larger world."
Jane Pauley maintained, "There is no 'we' in the media. We are one entity at CBS News, that is in competition with all the other television networks, cable, entities that you can think of. So to say 'the media' as if it was some monolith, as if we all get together and decide, how or what our take on this is going to be, we, inevitably, there is a bit of a herd mentality, as there is in any corporate, you know, business. But nonetheless there isn't 'the media'. But that said all of us humans in the media are looking up and seeing what's going on, not anticipating it."
On reflection, "You know the Baby Boomers - of which I am one - arrived on the scene in the work world just as I was leaving college and, boom, women in the labor force - generation before, that was not the norm. But we all left college taking certain things for granted. Maybe things we shouldn't have taken for granted. But in television, you know, I was, not just because I was extraordinarily, ridiculously young and inexperience, I was offered first. I was the first of the youngest and often, you know, the only female on the set, or in the room, the meeting, whatever.
"I recognize fairly young I was going to have opportunities that most women who came before me would not have and did not take that for granted. You know, young women are probably more cognizant of the possibilities that they might have. So a young woman today (in 2018) might truly be inspired by countless examples of, you know, men or women, who, you know, 'I hope I can do that', 'I like to do that', 'How could I do that?' So the idea of being inspired has more currency now than it might of have had for me when things were just unfolding."
Speaking to 'The Los Angeles Times', Jane Pauley acknowledged, "Everything that happened (being a trailblazing woman) seemed like a magic carpet to me. I didn't make it happen." As Jane told Meredith Blake, for a long time, "I only talked about my 'job.' I didn't have a 'career'. I aged into the confidence: You've had a career all along, you should respect it more. Maybe you didn't make it happen, but you made it last."
In 2016, Jane Pauley became only the third anchor in the history of the 'Sunday Morning' program. The Sunday breakfast TV institution, first went on air in January of 1979, was the most wide-ranging news program on American culture. Jane Pauley reasoned, "The audience sometimes is ahead of things. America doesn't need there to be a guy to be comfortable. As a matter of fact, particularly in the morning, women are comfortable with women. So it shouldn't come as a big shock." The TV newsmagazine was watched by some 6 million viewers each week.
'The Los Angeles Times' observed, "Jane Pauley was 65 when she started the job. 'Hello!? That's unprecedented.' She's made few attempts to tamper with the 'CBS Sunday Morning' formula. But she has left her mark." David Rhodes of CBS News remarked, "She was already a familiar figure to America. She's someone who had done this before. For the audience, there's instant recognition and instant comfort, and a lot of 'Sunday Morning' is about comfort."
Between 1992 and 2003, Jane Pauley co-anchored the 'Dateline NBC' program. In separate interviews, Jane Pauley reflected on her times as a working mom, "I was once invited to give a commencement speech to new graduates and my topic was failure, 'Don't be afraid of failure.' As a parent and a role model, the best thing I ever did for my kids was to tell them mom was going to try something. I haven't done this before and that I might not succeed and the odds were pretty long and I did and it was hard and it didn't succeed but I am delighted that I've got a little bit of failure on my résumé.
"But that's my advice, 'Don't be afraid.' 'But what if I fail?' ... Please do not fear failure. Embrace it. Be proud of it … With every failure you're learning a bit more about … What you're learning is, 'that didn't work because?' … As long as you are learning from your choices, you have not been thrown for a loss on a play - a football metaphor that I don't know why I used. Anyway but the bottom line from experts is, 'Do is more important than think.'"
Philip Galanes, 'The New York Times', January 2017: Let’s go back 40 years (to 1976). You’re a pioneer, one of the first women behind the anchor desk of a national news show. Were you getting a million production notes from men about how to be a woman on TV?
Jane Pauley: I would have appreciated notes. I felt like a girl, and I had no idea how to be a woman. Remember, I was replacing Barbara Walters. I don’t think Barbara was ever a girl. She was grown-up and confident and an actual pioneer.
Samantha Bee: I’m sorry to tell you, Jane, you’re an "actual pioneer" too.
Jane Pauley recounted, "NBC sent me all over the world - an audience with the Pope at the Vatican, the Great Wall of China, the Sydney Opera House, waving at the Queen, Royal Wedding, and I never wanted to go. I had small children at home - and so I allowed myself to torture myself (for being away from them)." By 2014, Jane Pauley's book, 'Your Life Calling' was published, "There has never been a better time in my life to pack my bags and head out on the road."
Jane Pauley: But, wait. Barbara was a self-made woman; Sam is a self-made woman. They created their opportunities. What I give myself credit for is when opportunities presented themselves - and many did - I always said yes. And I made it work, even if it was scary or I didn’t feel quite ready. But that’s different. About a dozen years ago, NBC showed me my audience research for the first time. For years, the quality most associated with me was authenticity. I thought, 'Yeah, I believe that.' I would have argued if they’d said anything else. But somehow, through the fear and learning and work, some authenticity broke through.
Tom Brokaw told 'The Daily Beast', "From the moment I first met Jane - before we were twinned on 'Today' - I was deeply impressed by her grounded Midwestern sensibilities. As a pioneer of her gender and generation in the white hot environment of the rapidly changing demands of broadcast news and morning television she had an inner compass that got her through difficult passages and win the hearts and minds of viewers."
Philip Galanes: Let’s take a look at authority in the news. First, there was just news: stuff that Jane and Tom Brokaw told us. Then there was cable news that often comes with an ideological slant. Then satirical news, like 'The Daily Show' and 'Full Frontal', which aims at the absurdity of news and newsmakers. And now (in January 2017), fake news, just outright lies and the scourge of our past election season. Did you see any of this coming?
Jane Pauley: Not at all. Sometimes I feel like an ambassador from the 20th century. For me, everything changed when they started putting that crawl beneath the anchor, as if to say: 'Pay no attention to the man on the screen! Ignore him and read this instead.' I’m still quavering over that, and it was a generation ago.
Speaking to 'The Hollywood Reporter', Jane Pauley expressed, "The media doesn't lead cultural shift. We are actually in a way kind of way behind. If the media has caught on to the story, it means the culture is galloping way down the road and we’re catching up." Rand Morrison believed, "On some front here we are reflective of the larger culture ... We've been part of the story … We reflect the larger culture, what's going on in the larger culture. We're a microcosm of the larger culture. So we cover it but sometimes we also reflective of what's going on in the larger world."
Jane Pauley maintained, "There is no 'we' in the media. We are one entity at CBS News, that is in competition with all the other television networks, cable, entities that you can think of. So to say 'the media' as if it was some monolith, as if we all get together and decide, how or what our take on this is going to be, we, inevitably, there is a bit of a herd mentality, as there is in any corporate, you know, business. But nonetheless there isn't 'the media'. But that said all of us humans in the media are looking up and seeing what's going on, not anticipating it."
On reflection, "You know the Baby Boomers - of which I am one - arrived on the scene in the work world just as I was leaving college and, boom, women in the labor force - generation before, that was not the norm. But we all left college taking certain things for granted. Maybe things we shouldn't have taken for granted. But in television, you know, I was, not just because I was extraordinarily, ridiculously young and inexperience, I was offered first. I was the first of the youngest and often, you know, the only female on the set, or in the room, the meeting, whatever.
"I recognize fairly young I was going to have opportunities that most women who came before me would not have and did not take that for granted. You know, young women are probably more cognizant of the possibilities that they might have. So a young woman today (in 2018) might truly be inspired by countless examples of, you know, men or women, who, you know, 'I hope I can do that', 'I like to do that', 'How could I do that?' So the idea of being inspired has more currency now than it might of have had for me when things were just unfolding."
Speaking to 'The Los Angeles Times', Jane Pauley acknowledged, "Everything that happened (being a trailblazing woman) seemed like a magic carpet to me. I didn't make it happen." As Jane told Meredith Blake, for a long time, "I only talked about my 'job.' I didn't have a 'career'. I aged into the confidence: You've had a career all along, you should respect it more. Maybe you didn't make it happen, but you made it last."
In 2016, Jane Pauley became only the third anchor in the history of the 'Sunday Morning' program. The Sunday breakfast TV institution, first went on air in January of 1979, was the most wide-ranging news program on American culture. Jane Pauley reasoned, "The audience sometimes is ahead of things. America doesn't need there to be a guy to be comfortable. As a matter of fact, particularly in the morning, women are comfortable with women. So it shouldn't come as a big shock." The TV newsmagazine was watched by some 6 million viewers each week.
'The Los Angeles Times' observed, "Jane Pauley was 65 when she started the job. 'Hello!? That's unprecedented.' She's made few attempts to tamper with the 'CBS Sunday Morning' formula. But she has left her mark." David Rhodes of CBS News remarked, "She was already a familiar figure to America. She's someone who had done this before. For the audience, there's instant recognition and instant comfort, and a lot of 'Sunday Morning' is about comfort."
