News Stories & Startups: How Mary Alice Williams Changed The News

FMC Fast Chat takes you inside the news so you can be in the know in 30 minutes. Hosted by Fair Media Council CEO and Executive Director Jaci Clement, Fast Chat features notables in news, media, and business.

We are very fortunate to have joining us not only a news pioneer, But a News Legend with Mary Alice Williams. She has so many accomplishments, it's far too much for me to put into a show that's only 30 minutes long. So I'm hoping you'll get to know more about Mary— Mary Alice over the next 30 minutes without me boring you with the formal intro, as we want you to get to know her in a way that, you know, reading that stuff listed on Wikipedia just doesn't do justice to. So Mary Alice, thank you so much for joining us today.

Happy to be here, Jaci. Thank you for including me.

Well, how has life in the pandemic treated you?

Well, it certainly has been, um, a watershed for me. It really forced me to decide to retire after 52 years in American television, ah, which I've been doing since I was 16. Um, and, uh, but it was one of those things where I had a death in the family, and March 13th, the curtain fell, and the kids, the young people who I'd been working with all that time, had taken over, and they were doing such a great job. I thought, you know, this is God's way of telling me it's time, because they're terrific and it's their turn.

Isn't that rewarding to see that happen?

Yeah.

Good for you. Well, I want to begin— I mean, there's so many things I do want to talk to you about, but I think what we should probably start with is the most topical and timely. So no one can accuse us of burying the lede somewhere. You were at CNN. You played a huge role in developing CNN. You built their New York bureau. I'm wondering, back then, what was the promise of CNN when you were working on it? I want to compare that with what it's become. So wherever you want to start in that timeline.

I'm going to start a lot earlier than that. I was a 10-year-old. It was my turn to do the dishes. We had a little black and white TV set on the kitchen counter, and PBS was airing the Adolf Eichmann trial. And I hadn't heard of the Holocaust. None of us born at that time. I think that our parents didn't know how to talk about it. So we weren't really being taught as little ones about that. And I was horrified, ran to my father and said, why didn't you stop it? And he said, we didn't know it was happening. I said, but if you didn't— if you did know, you would have stopped it. Right? And he said, yes. And I dedicated my life to get— letting people know what's happening so that bad things can't happen. I know that's the childish view of a 10-year-old, but I adhere to it today. When we started CNN, it was going to be 24 hours a day. Everyone was telling us we couldn't do it all over the world. How do, how do you change languages like that? But I wanted people to see What— that what problems over here were being solved over here, so that you— so journalism is not just shining a spotlight on problems, not just what's wrong. Its job is to show what's possible. And I wanted people all over the world to see what is possible in the human condition that we can change.

Okay, okay. And how long were you there?

I was there 10 years.

In that 10-year span, do you, do you feel you were able to fulfill that promise?

Absolutely. We had camera crews, as you know, all over the world. Those first 10 years were really radical. No one said no. Everyone from other countries, everybody was so thrilled to have this outlet where we could all talk to each other, where leaders could talk to each other, where educators could talk to each other about what was going on in the world, to share arts, to share concerns about the environment. So it was— we were telling stories. We were not doing opinion, surmise, conjecture, conjecture, guesswork. None of that. We were actually showing you. stories of what was happening around the world.

Yeah, and yeah, it actually changed how war coverage—

It did, because it was real-time war. You know, when I started here as a teenager, um, we had, uh, the— we waited for the— I think it was called, um, the 4:01 feed. Uh, Pan Am would land at 4:01 in the afternoon at Kennedy Airport with all the film, I repeat, film from Vietnam. And so we were looking at things 2, 3 days after the event. Now we were showing what was happening in real time.

Okay. So I'm curious, when you look at CNN today, what are your thoughts?

Well, I think that there's a practical— I hesitate to say anything that makes me sound like I'm saying, well, in my day, you know, because— Because things change, and the speed of television and information has so changed. The way people get their information has so changed. And back in 1980, when we went on the air, we were the first television network that had to succeed as a business, the first news operation that had to succeed as a business. The broadcast networks had entertainment revenues that they could draw upon when they had to cover a big story or, Have a big expenditure. We weren't going to have that. It is still true that CNN has to operate as a business. And I get— and it's a lot cheaper to have people sitting in a studio in panels talking about things than it is to send a crew out. That is very expensive.

Yeah. And I would also imagine part of that too is when you have people sitting around talking and offering opinion, you don't have to worry about checking facts so much. As you do with news stories, right?

Well, right, I guess. Um, it's been— but they've been through a tough time, all the networks, not just CNN, in terms of how carefully to talk about things. So I remember it took a couple years for people to start calling a lie a lie, because it didn't seem like the right thing to do when you're talking about people in the highest office.

Um, yeah, and that's another thing that, um, I'm glad you brought it up— the tone of the media today. Because as you mentioned, there was a time where you would say it was a falsehood, where it simply wasn't true, but you wouldn't say lie, even though in journalism you're taught to use the smallest word possible, right?

Right.

That takes up the least syllables, the least amount of space if you're writing it. Um, how would you describe the tone of the news media today versus when you started?

Well, the broadcast networks and certainly PBS are down the middle, good, solid reporting. The cable networks have a different challenge. And they, they're the ones who are engaging mostly in the talk. And it's a question of not, not only Partisanship. You know, we know there's, there's partisanship in, for instance, Fox.

Mm-hmm.

But there is a tone of, I think, unkindness, um, that, um, permeates it. Some snarkiness, you know, that maybe is a ratings winner. Uh, I don't want that kind of talk in my house. So, so I try not to watch it when people get snide because there's no reason ever to be uncharitable. But there, I didn't finish that thought, I guess.

Okay. Well, okay. So that's broadcast versus cable. Let's look at— because your career went full circle. So you started local, you went national and international. And you came back to local with New Jersey News.

Right. So, well, it was, it was not so much it was national or local. It was a startup.

Mm-hmm.

That's what I have always done. I started as a reporter for NBC when I was 16, when I was still in high school. And then my news director would fire me every September, forcing me to go to college, which I did not want to do. And the Jesuits would let me report stories instead of being in class, which I did want to do. So it all worked out really well. But then the day after I graduated from college, having been a reporter for, what, 6 years, they asked me to be the executive producer of news at a local station that was just starting something brand new. From there, I went to WPIX in New York as the executive producer when I was, what, 22?

Mm-hmm.

And then, when I was 23, Channel 4 in New York, WNBC, was starting the first 2-hour newscast and asked me to come and help. So I did that. CNN was a brand new startup. And NJTV was a startup as well. It had been on the air, but sort of like the local C-SPAN, you know, a state-supported C-SPAN. And then sort of had a lot of problems. And they asked me to come in and— see what I could do to fix it. And we just had a wonderful time.

Yeah.

We grew from a handful of people to, I think, 90 when I left. And remember, and it was really fun because Benjamin Franklin at the Continental Congress said New Jersey would be a mere apostrophe between New York and Philadelphia. And from a media perspective, it was, wasn't it? Nobody, you know, it was South Jersey got Philadelphia stations and North Jersey got New York stations. And who are we? And we decided to cover New Jersey as though it was, I don't know, a state, an actual standalone state with its own issues regarding policing and education, the environment, the arts, all of it. And that's what we— and that's what they're still doing. It's great.

Yeah. Now I'm wondering, what kind of stories did you get the most feedback on from the public? Yes, I'm kind of wondering what the public appetite is for news, because when we look online, If you look at what gets the comments and the clicks, it's the crazy stuff. It's not the serious issues. It's, you know, the McDonald's that just opened around the corner or, you know, the new spa opening. It's not the issues and the things that we would say are important that need to be covered. So I'm wondering, with a public television station that's local, you know, what did your— what did your audience really key into? What did they feel was important?

The things I've just enumerated.

Yeah.

Their schools, the safety in their towns. You know, I was so struck when the terrible Minneapolis situation with when Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, that nobody mentioned Camden. When we started that, NJTV, Camden was the most dangerous city in the United States. The murder rate was astronomical. The high school graduation rate The graduation rate was under 25%. It was really a catastrophe town. And a young man, a young 41-year-old—

Wow.

Walked in as the new captain, fired all the police departments, created a new police force that was basically countywide police force, and started community policing. What he did was he walked into the squad room the first day And up on the board, it had a bunch of pictures of guns. And it was captures and kills. It was guns and handcuffs.

Mm-hmm.

And the next day, everybody walked in for the next morning shape-up, and it was ice cream cones and bicycles. How many free ice cream cones did you hand out on the street today? How many kids did you see riding their bikes? How many people were sitting on their front stoops? Get in the neighborhoods and figure it out. They moved the basketball courts behind the schools and behind the Y to the front. So when you're walking down the street, you can see the pickup basketball games going on. They gave homeless people in the park uniforms and rakes and brooms and paid them a minimum wage and fed them to keep the parks clean where they lived. And suddenly, within a year, the, the high school graduation rate had gone to Just under 60%. The unemployment rate had plummeted. People felt good about themselves. They had a stake in their lives. It lifted the whole town. Community policing that way lifted the whole town, and nobody reported on it at the time, and I was surprised because it is the gold standard. Yeah.

All right. How much of a role do you think the local news played in that?

I don't know. I mean, we sure covered it a lot, and I'm sure that the local Philadelphia stations as well covered it a lot.

You know, it's one of the things we hear about is the term news deserts and how local news is drying up, which makes things like NJTV even more important when you look at what's happening around the country. But I'm wondering, though, Do you really think it's true? I mean, part, part of when you say something is dying, you're implying it has no value anymore or it's obsolete.

I don't think it's true. I mean, I'm old enough to remember when they said, is the theater really dead? Remember that?

Yeah.

I mean, what was that, the '70s or something? Um, yeah, no, things change. It doesn't mean they're dying. And the delivery system for news has changed. My daughters, one of whom works for CBS News, they don't get their information from television news. They get it online and as it happens all the time. And they're very— it doesn't mean that local news is dying. It means the delivery system is just changing. And you have to reach them.

Yeah.

You know, by being that fast. So the streaming services for NJTV, we raised the ratings a lot. But we had millions and millions of people every day online, the streaming services. It's a much bigger, um, and more accessed operation.

Yeah. How influential are you on your daughter's career, would you think?

Oh, I had nothing to do with it. Nothing.

Even though she grew up in the house with her mother being Mary Alice Williams?

I just said that because she don't— people say, oh, she's a chip off the old block, and I always say, do not say that in front of her. She But she does, she has said publicly that when I was a single mother and I had these 3 little, littles. And so sometimes when something happened and I had to go in at night, I would take them in with, with knapsacks and they would sleep on the floor. And Laura says that she, she, it was, it must have been on election night, maybe at CBS News. And she said, I can do that. I could do that. And that was— and she must have been 8, maybe. So, yeah. So it had an influence.

Yeah.

And definitely your daughter, that it happened so young. You were 10, she was 8. I see that, you know, I see that happening there.

But I will tell you one story about her. When she was in California covering some protests that turned into a riot very quickly, I saw it as it was happening and knew she was there. And I texted her, are you okay? And she called me immediately and she said, Mom, this is great. So I think you kind of have to, you know, like that kind of thing.

Yeah. But while we're talking about women, though, I want to, you know, get your insight into— because you were in news for over 50 years, I imagine, I imagine there weren't many women in the beginning.

There weren't. There were Barbara Walters and Marlene Sanders, God bless them, who were my mentors. Um, Pauline Fredericks, uh, who worked at the UN when the UN was really something. Um, she was great. And that was about it, um, when we came in. So yeah, it was— it's kind of the first wave. But I didn't, um, I didn't play the card, you know. It never— I guess I was too young, but it never occurred to me that they'd hired me because I was female. Although I suppose in retrospect I could Acknowledged that it was about, you know, 5 minutes after the— it wasn't 5 minutes, it was 4 years after Title, what, 7 of the Civil Rights Act had passed, and stations had to start hiring women. So, yeah, okay, I was an EEOC hire, but—

Now, were you treated as one of the guys once you were inside the newsroom?

Yes.

Yeah.

Treated as one, and I acted like one of the guys. I was not, you know, I didn't play the female card. And they were great. And I was so young that they were all, they were all helpful. You know, if, when I was an executive producer, when I was 22, I would be 30 seconds loose on a show where I had to fill this hole, and reporters would just jump in and write stuff for me. And I mean, these guys were so wonderful to me. So. Well, that's really been my experience virtually for all of television is that the team, you know, this is the ultimate team sport. And no one is more important or less important than anyone else.

Mm-hmm.

I really believe that. I mean, these hotshot million-dollar anchors can't do a thing without everybody else in the newsroom working at it. So, it's really, I really had great teams to work with. I'm very lucky.

Yeah. Were there any moments in your career where you said, you know, I've really made it?

No. I mean, I don't think that would have been very helpful. Do you?

I don't know.

I mean, I was able to witness wonderful moments in history, and that was amazing. But it was a— I consider myself a pass-through. You know, I was helping you witness these wonderful moments in history, these amazing moments. I always say, you know, when I teach my students about journalism, I always use Meryl Streep. When you go to a Meryl Streep film, you don't see Meryl Streep.

Right.

You see Margaret Thatcher, or the— by the— or whoever Meryl Streep is playing, she never stands between the camera and the story she's trying to tell. And I don't like reporters standing between the camera and the story they're trying to tell.

Okay, got it. Now, how about your father? You know, when you told him what you were going to do for a living versus what you became, did he have any reaction to your career?

Um, I— he, he died very young, but, um, I, I think I had made vice president when he died, uh, so he did know that. But, um, I think at first he— I gotta think he was proud. He was always supportive. Um, he was a psychiatrist and very busy in his own right and stuff. I think he was proud of all 5 of us.

Yeah.

And my baby brother came when I started CNN in New York. My baby brother came out to be my chief cameraman. So he was with me for the first 2 years.

Oh, cool. Okay. That's great. So tell me, I mean, since you teach college, but there's also the other part of the equation, which is the news consumer is always trying to figure out, you know, what is news? And I think it's a definition that changes according to the person and according to the day. You know, so to your mind, though, what makes a good news story?

It's about people. You can talk about the Affordable Care Act or President Biden's Build Back Better plan, but unless it's about people, it goes right past their ears. You know, I think you have to show— in fact, when President Biden went out to, was it Ohio? And the bridge collapsed when he was talking about rebuilding bridges. Show the problem. Show the problem and then help people understand why it's important that these bridges be shored up.

Yeah. So with your perspective in news, I'm wondering, and I bet a lot of other people are wondering, where do you get your news from?

Um, every place. I, I read the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal every day. I mean, we get them delivered here. This is— I call this the house of papers because they pile up. But I also read magazines like The Atlantic, which always has such interesting articles. I watch all the networks. Yes, ma'am, all of them.

Okay.

MSNBC and CNN and Fox and the networks. We watch 60 Minutes and CBS Sunday Morning are still 2 of the best shows on television. Speaking of never standing between the camera and the story, they're really showing you the stories. So, yeah, I'm a huge news consumer and so is my husband. So, the two of us are— whenever we do turn the TV set on, which is not daytime, that's what we're watching.

Okay. How do you think the news covered the pandemic?

I think it's not a monolith. I think some people did a good job and some did not. I think the criticism of the CDC and Anthony Fauci and that because the science was changing. Oh, well, they don't know what they're doing. They're telling you stuff. But the science was changing. My earliest memory was standing at my father's elbow as he handed out the first polio vaccine in the basement of St. Mark's Church. My father was a doctor and he was in the public health department, among other things. And I know how that How the vaccine process works. He and I have talked about it a lot. I've worked with Jonas Salk when I was back in the '90s, I guess. So I spent a lot of time thinking about and talking about how rolling out a vaccine works. And I think this thing moved— this coronavirus, novel as it was, morphed so quickly that it was really tough for everybody to keep up with it. Did they make mistakes? Yeah, we're human. Did people make mistakes in reporting on it? Yes. Not all of them. But I think being snarky about it and saying they don't know what they're doing, so do what you want, was probably a dangerous and maybe even lethal piece of advice for people.

Okay. All right. Do you ever get on news overload?

Sometimes.

And what do you do? How do you decompress?

Um, well, I read, I sing, I talk to friends, my sisters and brothers, and I have a big Irish family. And my daughters who are all over the country, and I check in with them every single day.

Okay, fair enough. Now, I know you say you're retired. But you have far too— far too much energy coming through the screen here to have totally retired. So I'm wondering what your definition of retired will be.

Well, I'm not sure. I was just talking to my big sister about that about 20 minutes ago. I'm doing something— I have been doing things for PBS stations around the country. I'm doing one next— the week after next for WNET on aging. So I'm doing sort of specific projects on issues that are important.

Yeah. Do you have any topics that are particular favorites of yours that you like covering?

Well, health, always. I was a health reporter for, what, a decade at Discovery Health when Discovery had a health channel. That's a favorite. But there are— and my husband's a doctor, so we do a lot of thinking and talking about Public health.

Okay. Okay. We actually almost have to wrap up. That's how quick this half hour goes. I'm wondering if you have any advice for the journalists that are just in college or starting out. What kind of advice would you give them?

It is really a hard job. It is— there's very little glamour associated with this. But it is so satisfying to be able to do that trick I told you about, being the pass-through to show people what's happening in their world. It is our job. Remember, I know you know this, Jacqui, that Thomas Jefferson said, were I to have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I would eminently prefer the latter. He— this is codified in the— journalism is codified in the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution. We are the watchdog on the other 3 branches of government, and we have a responsibility to get people in who care about that and who want to do an honest, clean, non-snarky, truthful job at it.

Okay, one last question for you. Are you ready?

Okay.

It'll be the hard question of the whole process here. What is the best part about being Mary Alice Williams?

I have had so many extraordinary experiences in my life and been given so many people to love, and that sustains me no matter what. That I've worked with extraordinary people, that I have seen the world. I've traveled all over the world. Um, I feel like, you know, being bookended. I started in '68, when the year that everything changed. Martin Luther King was assassinated, and Robert Kennedy, and the Tet Offensive, and my class going to war in Vietnam, and, uh, the rock festivals, the campus riots. And then I left in 2020, when the whole world changed one more time. So— I was able to be in Japan to cover the funeral of Emperor Hirohito, the last of the living World War II leaders. And then, and now we're here.

Yeah.

Oh, I hope not on the verge of another world war, but, but I do care about history. I care about the fact that I got to experience so much of it and share so much of it.

The Fair Media Council is a 501 nonprofit organization advocating For quality news and working to create a media-savvy society. For more information about the Fair Media Council and upcoming Fast Chat shows, check out fairmediacouncil.org.

Thank you.

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