In 1995, Olive Talley, formerly of 'The Dallas Morning News' joined 'PrimeTime Live'. "The news gathering and reporting isn’t much different (between print and television) but the storytelling is much different. The facts and information have to be there, but the pictures do, too," Olive Talley observed.
Of her work on 'PrimeTime', Diane Sawyer told 'The Los Angeles Times' in 1994, "It's all about balance and proportion. I do about 40 pieces a year on 'PrimeTime,' and 90% of them are a serious investigation of issues that can affect people's lives. I think critics tend to remember the 'tabloid-style' stories more than the work that we spend most of our time on. 'PrimeTime Live' has done far fewer of those stories than some other shows."
Of her work on 'PrimeTime', Diane Sawyer told 'The Los Angeles Times' in 1994, "It's all about balance and proportion. I do about 40 pieces a year on 'PrimeTime,' and 90% of them are a serious investigation of issues that can affect people's lives. I think critics tend to remember the 'tabloid-style' stories more than the work that we spend most of our time on. 'PrimeTime Live' has done far fewer of those stories than some other shows."
August 1991: At "a time when darkness had fallen in Moscow", Mikhail Gorbachev was ousted from power following a coup d'état. Diane Sawyer was the first to arrive in the Moscow government building known as the "White House"
to interview Russian Federation leader Boris Yeltsin. The Russian Federation Building represented "the Soviet Union's hopes for democracy." Former Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze reportedly had forecast dictatorship on the Soviet horizon.
In the early morning hours, ABC scored the first TV news scoop in coverage of the Soviet coup with the taped interview with Boris Yeltsin to be shown on the 'World News Tonight with Peter Jennings' newscast. In those days, "Russia was still part of a dying Soviet Union."
Eight years later in May 1999, Dan Rather flew to Belgrade to interview "the influential Marxist academic", Madam professor, Mirjana Markovic, whose husband was the Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic. At the time, he was regarded "the new Hitler" for his role in the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo which triggered NATO air bombing.
Lesley Stahl introduced the story on '60 Minutes' noted, "Seldom, if ever, does she meet with Western journalists and, as far as we know, has never sat down on camera with an American. But that's what she did this weekend with Dan Rather." However Howard Rosenberg argued, "Sawyer's brief time with Yeltsin was widely hailed as a great scoop, even though it lasted just a few thin sound bites. Clearly, this episode was the gateway to a decade in which TV news interviews of prominent figures were to be applauded merely when there was an interview, regardless of it yielding no news.
"That was surely the subliminal message of Rather's interview with Markovic. It was so empty that the Associated Press - America's news agency of record - began its brief story on the interview with a lead that could have been written without anyone seeing it. '60 Minutes' gave no indication that the interview was censored by the Yugoslavs. Nor was there any mention of what was edited from the videotape because of time limitations, such choices being inevitable when presenting a TV story. You assume, though, that '60 Minutes' went with the best it had.
"Based on what did air, there were several replies from Markovic that cried out for follow-ups from Rather, a serious journalist who has been on the front lines of wars and numerous other big stories. But they never came. One could argue that there was titillating value in just observing the powerful, forceful wife of someone widely accused of being a war criminal ... In other words, the (Markovic interview was the) stuff of 'Entertainment Tonight'."
Speaking to James Endrst of 'Hartford Courant' in 1995, Diane Sawyer made the point network newsmagazines were not going tabloid, "The competition is with each other. I don't think any one of us is driven by those shows ('Hard Copy' or 'A Current Affair'). I think we've gotten ourselves into this corner where we're flaying each other mightily over tabloidization and 'how dare we do a Michael Jackson story' and 'how dare we do a Menendez story'.
"I never understood the idea that topics should be off limits. It's about how intelligently you do the stories and whether you do them out of proportion to what they deserve and if you have news when you're doing them. All this sanctimony about what people should be interested in seems to me so much sanctimony. I think it would be wonderful if all the world wanted to spend six hours learning about the Law of the Sea treaty or learning about population quirks in Central Africa.
"But you show me somebody who's going to watch six hours of that, and I'll show someone who is on barbiturates. It will not happen in our lifetime. I just don't understand, as I say, all the pieties. Sometimes we have not been smart, and sometimes we have been way out of proportion. But to take us to task generally makes no sense. We should just be careful in the specific. '60 Minutes' has been doing it a long time. The rest of us are learning."
Jon Katz, formerly of CBS, told 'The Los Angeles Times' in 1994, "Diane Sawyer is at an interesting place in her career. She can sometimes be cloying when she's interviewing another famous person - she literally swooned in an interview with Mikhail Baryshnikov a few years ago, and I'm not sure what news came out of her interview with Boris Yeltsin after the Soviet coup. But she's established herself as a credible news authority, and 'PrimeTime Live' is one of the most serious of the newsmagazines."
As reported at the time, "Rupert Murdoch, seeking to build a news division for his network, wanted Sawyer to anchor a prime-time newsmagazine following the NFL football games he is bringing to Fox this fall (the 1994-95 season) … Sources say that both the CBS and Fox deals involved more money than what ABC offered." However Diane Sawyer told Jane Hall over lunch, "It was not about the money."
Roone Arledge remarked, "Diane Sawyer is one of a handful of people in TV news - like Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel or Barbara Walters - who are able to make or break a franchise in news ... She is someone whose presence on a news program makes a difference. It's like putting Michael Jordan into the game. You want to watch what she does."
Diane Sawyer continued, "It was about how you're going to spend your working life over the next several years. Each of the networks is trying to figure out how to use the air time that we have on newsmagazines. I stayed at ABC to continue to work with Roone and other ABC executives and with the producers, correspondents and anchors at the network."
Of working with Barbara Walters, "Our shows ('20/20' and 'PrimeTime') have been competitive for interviews and we're competitive journalists. But we're respectful of each other's work, and we'd rather one of us get the interview than have it go to someone at CBS or NBC." In 1994, Diane Sawyer could be seen on 'PrimeTime Live' as well as 'Turning Point' and 'Day One'.
However Diane Sawyer insisted, "It's not as megalomaniacal as it sounds. I'm not the engine; I'm one of the interchangeable parts among the anchors." Diane Sawyer also stressed, "I have a lot of ideas and opinions, but I'm not sure my role is so central. Yes, I have power at the network, but so do Peter and Ted and Barbara and the executive producers of our programs."
In the early morning hours, ABC scored the first TV news scoop in coverage of the Soviet coup with the taped interview with Boris Yeltsin to be shown on the 'World News Tonight with Peter Jennings' newscast. In those days, "Russia was still part of a dying Soviet Union."
Eight years later in May 1999, Dan Rather flew to Belgrade to interview "the influential Marxist academic", Madam professor, Mirjana Markovic, whose husband was the Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic. At the time, he was regarded "the new Hitler" for his role in the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo which triggered NATO air bombing.
Lesley Stahl introduced the story on '60 Minutes' noted, "Seldom, if ever, does she meet with Western journalists and, as far as we know, has never sat down on camera with an American. But that's what she did this weekend with Dan Rather." However Howard Rosenberg argued, "Sawyer's brief time with Yeltsin was widely hailed as a great scoop, even though it lasted just a few thin sound bites. Clearly, this episode was the gateway to a decade in which TV news interviews of prominent figures were to be applauded merely when there was an interview, regardless of it yielding no news.
"That was surely the subliminal message of Rather's interview with Markovic. It was so empty that the Associated Press - America's news agency of record - began its brief story on the interview with a lead that could have been written without anyone seeing it. '60 Minutes' gave no indication that the interview was censored by the Yugoslavs. Nor was there any mention of what was edited from the videotape because of time limitations, such choices being inevitable when presenting a TV story. You assume, though, that '60 Minutes' went with the best it had.
"Based on what did air, there were several replies from Markovic that cried out for follow-ups from Rather, a serious journalist who has been on the front lines of wars and numerous other big stories. But they never came. One could argue that there was titillating value in just observing the powerful, forceful wife of someone widely accused of being a war criminal ... In other words, the (Markovic interview was the) stuff of 'Entertainment Tonight'."
Speaking to James Endrst of 'Hartford Courant' in 1995, Diane Sawyer made the point network newsmagazines were not going tabloid, "The competition is with each other. I don't think any one of us is driven by those shows ('Hard Copy' or 'A Current Affair'). I think we've gotten ourselves into this corner where we're flaying each other mightily over tabloidization and 'how dare we do a Michael Jackson story' and 'how dare we do a Menendez story'.
"I never understood the idea that topics should be off limits. It's about how intelligently you do the stories and whether you do them out of proportion to what they deserve and if you have news when you're doing them. All this sanctimony about what people should be interested in seems to me so much sanctimony. I think it would be wonderful if all the world wanted to spend six hours learning about the Law of the Sea treaty or learning about population quirks in Central Africa.
"But you show me somebody who's going to watch six hours of that, and I'll show someone who is on barbiturates. It will not happen in our lifetime. I just don't understand, as I say, all the pieties. Sometimes we have not been smart, and sometimes we have been way out of proportion. But to take us to task generally makes no sense. We should just be careful in the specific. '60 Minutes' has been doing it a long time. The rest of us are learning."
Jon Katz, formerly of CBS, told 'The Los Angeles Times' in 1994, "Diane Sawyer is at an interesting place in her career. She can sometimes be cloying when she's interviewing another famous person - she literally swooned in an interview with Mikhail Baryshnikov a few years ago, and I'm not sure what news came out of her interview with Boris Yeltsin after the Soviet coup. But she's established herself as a credible news authority, and 'PrimeTime Live' is one of the most serious of the newsmagazines."
As reported at the time, "Rupert Murdoch, seeking to build a news division for his network, wanted Sawyer to anchor a prime-time newsmagazine following the NFL football games he is bringing to Fox this fall (the 1994-95 season) … Sources say that both the CBS and Fox deals involved more money than what ABC offered." However Diane Sawyer told Jane Hall over lunch, "It was not about the money."
Roone Arledge remarked, "Diane Sawyer is one of a handful of people in TV news - like Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel or Barbara Walters - who are able to make or break a franchise in news ... She is someone whose presence on a news program makes a difference. It's like putting Michael Jordan into the game. You want to watch what she does."
Diane Sawyer continued, "It was about how you're going to spend your working life over the next several years. Each of the networks is trying to figure out how to use the air time that we have on newsmagazines. I stayed at ABC to continue to work with Roone and other ABC executives and with the producers, correspondents and anchors at the network."
Of working with Barbara Walters, "Our shows ('20/20' and 'PrimeTime') have been competitive for interviews and we're competitive journalists. But we're respectful of each other's work, and we'd rather one of us get the interview than have it go to someone at CBS or NBC." In 1994, Diane Sawyer could be seen on 'PrimeTime Live' as well as 'Turning Point' and 'Day One'.
However Diane Sawyer insisted, "It's not as megalomaniacal as it sounds. I'm not the engine; I'm one of the interchangeable parts among the anchors." Diane Sawyer also stressed, "I have a lot of ideas and opinions, but I'm not sure my role is so central. Yes, I have power at the network, but so do Peter and Ted and Barbara and the executive producers of our programs."
