A native New Yorker, Lou Young joined CBS 2 in June 1994. He has served
as a broadcast journalist in the New York market since 1981, working at
both WABC-TV (1981-1990) and WNBC-TV (1990-1994).
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LIES & BLOOD
We are talking about the Middle East and the speaker will say, "It's simple." That's when you know he's lying, or at least dead wrong. Nothing is simple in the Middle East and anyone who tells you that really thinks you are ignorant. Once you hear those two words either a lie of omission will follow or perhaps an outright mistruth. If you are physically in the Middle East the speaker may even smile and offer his hospitality as the delusions and fictions are woven into a one-sided tapestry.
Be careful here. Take nothing at face value.
The two sides in this blood-soaked drama live in parallel worlds that vie to occupy the same physical space. They are like brothers—they call each other "cousin" — they eat similar food, listen to similar music, watch TV, drive cars, and they argue; they love to argue. Both sides have "crazy" ultra-religious relatives who they will disavow only in private and never for the record. Palestinians will revile the random violence of Islamist Hamas just as Israeli natives will dream out loud about using their army to drive the ultra-orthodox "crazy settlers" from occupied Arab land.
"Don't ever try to quote me," they'll warn. "I will deny it." They will buy you a drink as they purchase your silence.
A couple of things you can take to the bank as you watch the horror unfold in Gaza:
Yes, Hamas deserves what it's getting now from the Israeli military. It used widespread Palestinian dissatisfaction with the corrupt leaders of Fatah to win an election and gain a foothold of legitimate power. It seized control of Gaza by force, driving out its opponents. It smuggled weapons and fires rockets at Israel hoping to provoke a reaction. It did not count on this large a response.
No, the people of Gaza are not willing participants in this disaster or deserving or their current fate. They embrace Hamas less out of ideology than out of an absence of alternatives. Palestinian leadership has been decimated by decades of conflict with Israel. The local police are routinely killed along with radical militants. They are at the mercy of thugs and criminals, trying to survive in an open-air prison without passports or national identity.
The stakes are extremely high. For Israel to win this it must eradicate Hamas, or at least strip it from power. For Hamas, mere survival will constitute victory.
Beyond that the complexities are endless. Whose land was stolen? Who has blood on their hands? Who has refused to accept the other as neighbor? Who secretly wishes the Israelis well in their battle with Hamas even as they demand a stop to the fighting? Who is already demonizing the more moderate Palestinian leadership on the chance that Hamas will be eliminated?
"It's simple," they will begin.
YEAR'S END: 2008
These New York eyes have seen another year fly by and it seems like too much to process in one sitting. Where do you start?
By one measure I have filed 283 stories this past year. In my field laptop I find 141 scripts in the 2008 file—stories written at "remote" sites and fed back to the station, usually as part of a "live shot." Looking back month-by-month I can almost remember how things seemed when they were still a surprise.
A couple of highlights month-by month:
January 9th: We're in Israel because President Bush has promised a Middle East peace agreement by the end of his term. As he lands, crude homemade rockets fly out of Hamas-controlled Gaza into the Israeli town of Sderot. We are there to experience the terror first hand. We meet New Yorkers with ties to the area—both Israeli and Palestinian, torn by the ongoing conflict.
Back home in February we slipped back onto our nightly routine of documenting the noteworthy events of our town and environs. One story in Mill Basin, Brooklyn stands out for a number of reasons. First, I couldn't get over the feeling that I'd been there before as we "worked" the scene trying to get information. The incident involved the accidental shooting of a child by an off-duty police officer. It turns out the officer was cleaning his gun in an apartment darkened because the electricity had been turned off for non-payment. Just before airtime I found out why the place seemed so familiar: I'd been there three years before on an equally bizarre, but totally unrelated story. Same apartment, two completely separate strange and violent tales.
March had the Spitzer story. Just when you think you'd heard it all, along comes the wealthy reformer Governor who gets caught in a prostitution scandal. When I first got the message to head to his news conference that day I ignored it because I was sure it was joke. Even months later it still sounds like one.
In April, Pope Benedict XVI visited New York and among the stories I filed were his arrival AND departure. I actually got to see him three times during his two-day visit. You could see something genuine reflected in the reaction of our neighbors.
In May, I reported on the near-death accident of my friend and colleague Pablo Guzman. As it turned out it was only a prelude to his really close brush with death: a heart attack months later. He's fine now.
As a matter of fact, when Pablo had his SECOND brush with eternity months later I e-mailed a fake message from the late Tim Russert wondering why he didn't show for lunch.
The sudden death of NBC's star political reporter on June 13 shocked all of us. Russert was admired for his brains and his passion and it is an everlasting shame that he missed this particular election year.
We had crane collapses, power outages due to high winds, muggings caught on camera, and a murderous estranged husband who gunned downed his ex poolside at the YMCA in Montclair.
In late July, a New York City cop got caught body-checking a bicyclist.
August was kind of quiet, although the Russian invasion of northern Georgia gave us all a scare and a local reaction story.
The BIG local news began to unravel in September with the failure of Lehman Brothers and the problems at the insurance giant AIG.
By October 7th my story title, or "slug" as we call it in journalism, was "Financial Meltdown." A few days later I hopefully listed my script as "Worst Week Ends," even though even worse weeks were still ahead.
November was all about the election, of course. I was assigned to the McCain camp election night but was sent to Times Square after Obama's victory was confirmed. The next day I reported on the historic demand for the New York Times' historic Election Day newspaper.
That FELT like history in progress.
December brought us all back to earth with more stories about the deteriorating economy, lagging holiday sales, hate crimes, and more on that stampede death at a Wal Mart on Long Island. On December 10, we got another example of how connected we are to the rest of the world with a vandalism attack on the Greek consulate in Manhattan apparently by the same man who's conducted previous BOMB attacks at other consulates and the US military recruiting center in Times Square.
Looking at this long list of stories, I'm not even sure why these particular ones stand out to me. Years from now I may discover something seemingly mundane that turns out to be world-changing in it's significance. Sometimes you just can't tell until more time passes.
It HAS, after all, only been a year.
THIS CHRISTMAS
A couple of Christmases ago I was neck-deep in anxiety about how commercialized the sacred holiday has become even as I contributed to the shop-fest. This year I see the merchants in my town trying to survive in a recession and I find myself carefully planning how to spend from a diminished budget. The money THIS Christmas has to do two things: buy gifts, and make a positive impact on an ailing economy. I want to keep the local storefronts occupied, but the truth is my attempt at economic triage has an effect of it's own. Every dollar I'm spending close to home isn't being spent at the mall and those credit cards that went into the shredder will not be helping any national chains with their economic recovery.
Last week the big boss at my station announced there would be no holiday party this year, but instead a donation would be made to a food bank in our names. That's a great impulse because I've seen the charity shelves emptied by the new poverty in our midst. It's the responsible thing to do, especially as we see friends and co-workers laid off through no fault of their own. But even that act of charity comes at a price as we envision the restaurant that didn't get the lucrative gig this year: the waiters and bartenders sent home early with thinner wallets of their own.
Yeah, we're all off our high horse this Christmas, measuring our fortunes by what we haven't lost yet; perhaps understanding for the first time that what has been lost we never really needed to begin with. This year, the family took time trimming our tree when in years past I remember everyone quickly getting bored and rushing off to watch some show, or play some video game. The music chosen from the holiday CD collection has tended to be more mellow than festive.
I have also detected a demand for more lights. In years past I was ridiculed for my attention to the glittering decorations placed on the trees and shrubs at my house. This year, when I didn't immediately replace a couple of failed strands I heard protests that we needed more. Everyone had a suggestion. The kids even took strands up to their rooms. The lights are promptly lit at sunset and put out by the last person to retire in the wee hours. The tree is mysteriously plugged without my ever having to make an effort. (It actually looks better with fewer gifts beneath it!) There's been a shift in the family dynamic that I believe is tied to the grim economy. I even hear fewer complaints when I announce on Sunday that it's time to head out to church. Hardly a week goes by that we don't get word of some neighbor who's been laid off, or is "looking for work."
We had two big holiday parties on my block this year. One was a Christmas gathering, the other a Chanukah party. Many of the same people attended both and the hostess at the Chanukah gathering made a touching speech about how we all have to look after one another, and how if we looked around we'd know that we surrounded by friends who care about us, that we are not alone in our difficulties even if it seems that way. In years past she would've done a sort-of instructive re-telling of the Jewish holiday for the Goy-heavy audience. We all "get-it" by now and as it turns out she captured the spirit of the other winter holiday a lot clearer than many of the Christians would have.
Some of us stayed late drinking in the fellowship and the free booze: shields against the deepening trouble in our lives. Someone noticed some of my lights had gone out across the street and I unwisely sprinted coatless up to my front yard reaching into the cold, wet snow to find the appropriate live wire to reconnect. Seeing those lights of mine shining from the warmth of a friend's home made it worth the effort. Bright lights, big hope.
This Christmas is real.
THE SENATOR FROM NEW YORK
Oh, the howls of protest from those who have labored long in New York's political vineyards! An open Senate seat is a wonderful prize, yet a Kennedy, especially THIS Kennedy is almost impossible to resist. Political logic dictates that the prize go to someone who has "been in the trenches."
(Note to Anthony Weiner, Gary Ackerman, and Peter King: sometimes New Yorkers like to think outside the box, especially in their choices for the US Senate.)
There is, in fact, something about a Senate seat from New York that defies the political logic of everywhere else. Caroline Kennedy asks now to represent the state her uncle Robert once represented in the years between her father's murder and his own. It is the same U.S. Senate seat about to be vacated by the former First Lady from Arkansas who would've been regarded as a carpetbagger anywhere else.
The record shows this is the same state that elected Republicans as divergent as Jacob Javits and Alfonse D'Amato as Senators and once even sent Conservative Party candidate James Buckley to that venerable upper chamber to debate in our behalf. Maverick liberal Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan represented us in the Senate for 24 years even though his lofty logic often seemed impenetrable to many of us at street level and he did NOT always gravitate to the TV camera when summoned.
A man who DOES seem to like the cameras spoke in Caroline Kennedy's behalf the very day she phoned in her intentions. Rev. Al Sharpton, who almost single-handedly ended the political careers of former Brooklyn DA Liz Holtzman and former state Attorney General Bob Abrahms in a Senate race free-for-all years back, warned the state's other politicians not to take the Princess of Camelot lightly.
Caroline Kennedy is an attorney and a Constitutional scholar we could easily imagine rising to debate on the Senate floor. She is a powerhouse fundraiser by virtue of her energy and her name, who campaigned energetically for Barack Obama evoking her father's ability to inspire. She is also the sole survivor of a star-crossed family that lived in the White House, a physical connection to JFK and Jackie and her late brother John.
If Governor Paterson chooses Caroline Kennedy as our next U.S. Senator it will not be a gift it will be an opportunity. She will have to stand for election in two years, and then for re-election to a full term two years after that. The voters will have a chance to evaluate her performance and decide for themselves if she is qualified. The fighters in the political trenches will have their chance to campaign. Besides, the whole idea is so entirely out-of-the-box New York that you can't help but love it. Where else would it happen? What fun.
CAPITALISM 2.1
OK, So there's more. I'm intrigued by this "Car Czar," thing—the guy (or gal) that comes with the money we'll be lending to the big three automakers. Appointed by the President, this person will hold the strings that are attached to the billions of our tax dollars the automobile giants want to borrow.
Presumably, the Car Czar would've flagged as unwise the decision to build giant gas-guzzling domestic Hummers and huge super-sized SUV's. You know, the kind of cars that don't exactly fly off the lots anymore. The Czar might also have tagged as excessive some of the UAW programs that pay idle workers and foot the bill for health care far into retirement, some of the very costs that made it less profitable to build human-sized vehicles giving Toyota, Honda et al, a leg-up in that department.
The details are still in flux, but an empowered federal Car Czar is the type of thing only a desperate businessperson would agree to. That things ARE that bad should give us all pause.
Monday night I was assigned to tell the auto bailout story for the 11 o'clock news and needed an image to open the story with. "Let's find a recently closed dealership," I suggested. It took all of five minutes.
"Pick one," came the answer.
As I read through the wire reports and sifted through the day's video, we sent the crew out to Bellville, New Jersey to Bigelow Motors, a closed Chrysler/Jeep dealership. There were the unsold vehicles still on the lot and the building sitting darkened and empty of people. You couldn't see the salespeople and the mechanics, who lost their jobs, or the transport truckers who would make no more deliveries to the lot, or the customers who have decided to hang on to their old car out of frugality, fear, or plain poverty.
Earlier in the day a different crew took shots of UAW workers demonstrating out in front of a Manhattan GM dealership on 11th Avenue demanding the federal money.
"It's either turning a wrench or flipping burgers at McDonald's," one mechanic offered. No one expressed any fear about a Car Czar.
This is NOT just THEIR problem. It is ours. It is mine.
The business I work in lives off car advertising. The tens of thousands of people in our area alone involved in the sale of motor vehicles all make salaries and spend money and pay taxes. The question we need to ask: Are those companies able to survive? That's why the Car Czar comes with the money. But a Car Czar who answers to the President of the United States raises some new potential problems.
Will the government instruct the industry on what type of cars to build, they way they order-up tanks in wartime?
Will the car industry become the engine for a new national energy policy?
Is this a step toward nationalization?
How will foreign car makers react?
And one particular question of intense self-interest for this reporter: How large an advertising budget will the Car Czar allow?
