My friend, Julius Hunter, a former anchor and reporter for CBS News, has written a new book in which he gives me a mention and used several of my photographs. The book, TV One-On-One, his fourth or fifth, was published in October 2008. It presents a behind-the-scenes story about some 100 interviews he did over 33 years with famous people, including Milton Berle, Colonel Sanders, Oprah Winfrey, Jimmy Hoffa, Ike Turner, Barack Obama and presidents Ford, Carter, Regan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II.
My tie to Julius, and the story in his new book, was the death of Pope John Paul I and our trip to Rome in 1978 to cover the funeral and selection of a new pope for CBS News.
Hunter and I both started our journalism careers in 1970 at NBC affiliate KSD-TV in St. Louis, my home town. I was fresh out of the University of Missouri (Columbia) journalism school with a degree in broadcast journalism. I became a freshman news writer for the joint radio and TV news operation at KSD - a dream job straight out of college. And he was the first African American reporter hired by the station.
A few years later we both ended up at the CBS owned and operated station, KMOX-TV in St. Louis. It was one of five such CBS owned stations in the US. By then, Hunter was the prime anchor and I was the 6 pm news producer.
Hunter had traveled to Rome with another field producer in September 1978 to cover the death of Pope Paul VI, and to follow the St. Louis Cardinal, John Carberry, who would cast a vote for the new pope.
The new Pope, John Paul I, held the office for only 33 days before dying at the age of 66 of a heart attack.
I got the call to be the field producer for Hunter for his second trip as we went back to Rome to follow Cardinal Carberry and his peers as they selected the new Pope. It was an exciting opportunity for a 31 year old writer/producer with a three-month old daughter, Alexis, who, along with my wife, I had to leave for ten days.
Hunter's book recounts our adventures in interviewing Cardinal Carberry on tape multiple times to gain insights on his votes for the new Pope, as well as some feature stories on Rome and the locals who took full advantage of the search for a new Pope by selling all types of buttons, pins and other memorabilia commemorating the event.
It was a highlight of my journalism career to travel to Rome to cover a Pope's funeral. I documented the trip with more than 150 color slides, some of which Hunter used to illustrate his story.
On our last day in Rome, we traveled to the Colesieum and sat in about row 42 from the "stage" and chatted - Hunter, the videogapher and sound man and me. I took a bunch of photos. Only when I got home did it become obvious that not of those shots turned out because the film had not threaded properly on the take-up reel.
Hunter's book, TV One-On-One, is available from Gashouse Books. He mentioned me by name on page 238.
Jim Thebeau
jthebeua@hrb-ideas.com
www.hrb-ideas.com