Yoko Ono

[calimary]

26. One of the guys I was working with got into a shouting match with me in the middle of the newsroom

about it.

I was at NBC at the time. I said the loss of John Lennon was EPIC. Ranked up near or AT the top of the "loss of the century" category. This dude on the assignment desk vehemently disagreed. We were actually yelling at each other. And I have to admit - it affected how I regarded him, professionally, from then on. In the negative, that is.

I also felt the same toward the veteran newsman Edwin Newman, who had one of the daily one-minute featurettes that fed out to radio affiliates with the feature package that was made available several times a day. I remember sitting at my desk - and literally GAPING at the little closed-circuit monitor whose sound I had turned up, because I was listening for a couple of items I needed for my shift that day. Edwin Newman spent that day's 60-seconds complaining that too much had been made of John Lennon's murder, and questioned the reasoning for so much airtime given over on radio and TV to the death of the former Beatle. I'll NEVER forget it as long as I live. Somewhere in there, Newman opined that "granted, Lennon had SOME talent..."

"SOME talent?????" WHAT THE FUCKIN' FUCK???? "SOME talent?????????"

Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?????? I remember just staring at the monitor, stunned, with my jaw falling toward the floor. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was literally in shock. And from Edwin Newman? Someone I'd watched covering the Kennedy assassination, the space program, all those political conventions at which he was one of the star floor reporters along with such legendary heavyweights as John Chancellor, Sander Vanocur, Cassie Mackin, and Frank McGee - and their anchors of eminence - Chet Huntley & David Brinkley? I idolized those people! Every last one of 'em. Wanted to grow up and be like them, and maybe even do that thing they were doing for the Nightly News every dinner hour! Edwin Newman was one of my idols - until that day. I never felt the same about him after that. All I could think of was "shame on you, Mr. Newman. SHAME on you!"