A Voice in the Box: My Life in Radio

All Things Considered

By the mid-1970s, NPR had developed an excellent reputation with a small but loyal and very appreciative audience. We had respect within the industry too, as other networks began luring away our reporters. That was not hard to do, given the salary disparity between commercial and public broadcasting. Something had to be done. We tried forming an NPR Employees Association as a means of taking our concerns about salaries and other grievances to management. NPR insulted us with paternalism, making us feel that merely consenting to a meeting was doing us a favor. We needed some muscle, so we organized. The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) informed NPR that enough of us had signed up to warrant an election. The NPR management of that era didn’t know the Wagner Act from Taft-Hartley, so it got some muscle in the form of one of those law firms that fights workers. The firm had management issue a series of bulletins telling us how good we had it and how a union would make our lives miserable. We were told that unions were anathema to our quaint, nonprofit, public radio “culture.” We were told that a union would demand restrictive work rules that would result in our no longer being allowed to edit our own audiotapes. What they said about salaries at commercial stations and networks was laughable. At a time when Barbara Walters was becoming the first news employee to make a million A L L T H I N G S C O N S I D E R E D 56 A V O I C E I N T H E B O X dollars a year, NPR was telling its employees that our salaries were competitive with commercial broadcasting. In fact, I was cohosting the network’s premier program for $17,000, and our best production assistant was making $6,900 a year. Another ploy by management showed just how much it was out of touch with its staff. NPR insisted that the bargaining unit be expanded to include employees who produced arts programs. This was an effort to dilute the voting strength of the greedy, Philistine news-types by adding sensitive arts-types too noble to want to be paid more for their work. We did not contest the move because, in the event of a strike, NPR would have those very people producing All Things Considered in our absence. Better to get them into our unit and take them with us if we walked. To management’s astonishment, production workers (news and arts alike) voted for AFTRA. Management was able to get only two votes. We had a union but no contract. That took much longer and involved another propaganda campaign in which management tried to drive a wedge between union and nonunion employees. The rancor continued until 1977, when public radio stations decided to upgrade the management of NPR. I suspect the stations acted for reasons other than labor troubles, but their action had immediate positive results. Frank Mankiewicz was the new NPR president, and one of his first decisions was to sign a contract with AFTRA. It was a brilliant gesture that immediately got us on his side. Frank had been a journalist and identified with us. He respected our work and understood our problems . He hung out with us and loved to swap stories with NPR reporters . He had been our fan as a listener, and now he was our leader. Frank was perfect for NPR at that time. He was a public relations dream with many contacts in numerous fields. The son of screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, who won an Oscar for Citizen Kane, and the nephew of legendary producer Joseph Mankiewicz, Frank grew up in Hollywood and graduated from UCLA. Bored with practicing law, he joined the Kennedy administration as director of the Peace Corps in Latin America. As Robert Kennedy’s press secretary, it was Frank Mankiewicz who announced to the world that the senator had died. He wrote books, anchored a TV news program, and then he codirected George McGovern’s presidential campaign in 1972. Newspaper reporters loved him because he was great copy. It wasn’t just that he knew the important people in show business, journalism, and politics; it was how he told the stories. He was (and is) a superb raconteur , a master schmoozer. Journalists didn’t interview Frank...