Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC studios in Soho. Thanks for spending part of your Wednesday with us. I'm really grateful you are here, and I'm grateful that I get to see some of you in person tonight for our sold-out Get Lit with All Of It book club event at the New York Public Library with Taffy Brodesser-Akner and Suzanne Vega. If you don't have tickets, follow along at home. Check out wnyc.org/getlit for more information.

On today's show, we'll talk with director Paul Schrader about his latest film Oh, Canada. We'll hear about the pets in the city exhibit that's now on display at the New York Historical Society. Plus, we'll mark Truman Capote's 100 Birthday with novelists Jay McInerney and John Burnham Schwartz. That's the plan. Let's get this started with some important news about the 6:00 PM news.

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Alison: Recently, Anchorman Chuck Scarborough of NBC News made an announcement.

Chuck Scarborough: Guys, tonight finally, I'd like to break some personal news, the time has come to pass the torch. 50 years, eight months, and 17 days after I walked into the door here at the headquarters of the National Broadcasting Company, I will step away from this anchor desk. My last newscast is going to be on December 12th, three weeks from tonight. I'll have more to say to you and to my extraordinary colleagues at NBC4 then. For now, I'll offer a simple, heartfelt thank you for allowing me into your living rooms and trusting us to bring you the news.

Alison: Scarborough is signing off the NBC airwaves after more than 50 years of broadcasting. Chuck joined the WNBC in 1974 and earned the reputation of a straightforward, serious anchorman, the kind of guy who will give you just the facts. He found his longtime co-anchor Sue Simmons a perfect partner. Chuck and Sue, as they were known, broadcast together for more than 30 years. The two were beloved for their on-camera chemistry.

Chuck Scarborough's final broadcast will be on December 12th during the six o'clock news, and with me now to reflect on his career and take your calls, is Jerry Barmash broadcaster and author of the book, Here Now the News: An Inside Scoop Into New York's Best-Loved Anchors, which now has an audiobook available. Hi, Jerry.

Jerry Barmash: Hi, Alison. Thanks again for having me.

Alison: What was your reaction to the news of Chuck's retirement after 50 years on the air?

Jerry: It's a sad moment. We're all happy for him, but it's a void for sure for New York not to have him here. It's amazing. It's a run that we've never seen, 50-plus years.

Alison: Can you put into perspective how rare it is to have that career as a news anchor for 50 years?

Jerry: There are so few that have gotten 20, 30 years, 40 years. To reach 50 years is unprecedented. It's something that is not just in New York but in any market. You just don't see it. It is such a business that is so changeable between the ownership and news directors. There's always people coming in and they want to bring in different talent for any reason. It's always an issue that happens. In this case, to be able to stay for five decades is remarkable.

Alison: You think about the role that local news has had in our lives and how it has changed dramatically from when he started it in the 70s to his retirement now, and how much technology has changed because of it. Why do you think he was uniquely positioned to last this long?

Jerry: It's true, with technology-- In the old days, they had what was called the Mickey Mouse film reels, which were these big ears looking like Mickey Mouse-- For film now, of course, it's digital and everything is changed. You can't have longevity without having talent. The longevity is great, but you have to be there to last. They don't just hire you and say, "You're there for 50 years." Obviously, many things have to happen, many factors. He had many skills that afforded him this family feeling with the audience. That's one of the reasons that he became this stable figure for viewers.

Alison: Listeners, we want to hear from you how have you reacted to the news of Chuck Scarborough's retirement? Did you grow up watching him on the nightly local news? Give us a call. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can text that number as well. What do you think were his best qualities as a news anchor? Did you watch him from the seven days all the way up until now? Any memorable stories that he covered? 212-433-9692. Of course, there was his co-anchor for 30 years, Sue Simmons.

What did you enjoy the most about watching Chuck and Sue? We're taking your calls and reactions about Chuck Scarborough's retirement from TV after 50 years on WNBC. Our number is 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. My guest for this segment is Jerry Barmash, broadcaster and author of the book Here Now the News: An Inside Scoop Into New York's Best-Loved Anchors. You've met Chuck before and you quoted him in your book. What were your impressions of him? Let's start with him as a regular guy.

Jerry: I met him at the New York Emmy Awards several years ago. Although I didn't do a long interview specifically for the book, I certainly used it for the book in talking about his start in New York, and at that point, I guess he was 40 years or so and how he's lasted and he thanked the audience because if, obviously, you don't get the viewers, you don't get the eyeballs, you don't last no matter how good you are. It's sort of the tree falling in the forest. You don't know unless people are watching. He was not aloof. He was a decent person. We weren't buddies, but he stopped. We chatted a few minutes and he was very pleasant, I would say.

Alison: Let's learn a little bit about Chuck Scarborough. He came to WNBC in 1974. Where did he get his start in TV journalism?

Jerry: He went to the University of Mississippi and then worked in Biloxi. He, by the way, is from Pittsburgh. Then, the first major market was really a very brief stop. For two years, he was in Boston. He turned heads. He became very popular there, and within two years he was in New York.

Alison: In your book, you report that before joining NBC, Chuck Scarborough was recruited to join Eyewitness News on Channel 7, where two other notable anchors were working Grimsby and Beutel. How close did Chuck get to joining WABC?

Jerry: It's a revelation that I didn't know about. It's not new, of course, because it's from 50-plus years ago, but it really would've changed the trajectory of not just Chuck, not just WABC, but really the landscape of media in New York City. Obviously, when you're talking about major players in media, in local news, that really would've changed everything and it came close.

Al Primo who created Eyewitness News in New York in 1968 and then had Grimsby and Beutel together in 1970, went to Boston three times to interview Chuck and it didn't happen. I think it more didn't happen because of Chuck from what Primo had said, that he realized that you had the two stalwarts there, Grimsby and Beutel, and it would've been harder for him to fit in. He was only 28, 29 years old at that point, Chuck.

Alison: Was he always Chuck? Was he ever Charles?

Jerry: At the very beginning, he was Charles. I believe in Mississippi, he was, not in Boston, but he was early on. Yes, that's a good point. [laughs]

Alison: Let's talk to Harold, who's calling in from Midtown. Harold, thanks so much for calling All Of It.

Harold: Thank you. Growing up a native New Yorker, Chuck and Sue, watching two professionals, top of their game, it was like a mixed marriage that was so important on national television, the female-male aspect, the African American-white aspect. They were so perfect together and so important to watch their perfect ambiance together.

Alison: Love that. Harold, thank you so much for calling in. We're asking you your reaction to the news of Chuck Scarborough's retirement. Did you grow up watching him just like Harold did? What do you think were his best qualities as a news anchor? Did you enjoy watching Chuck and Sue? Why did they work as partners? Give us a call. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Jerry, his first broadcast on WNBC was March 25th, 1974. Since then, he's won more than 30 Emmys. What reputation did he begin to earn as a New York anchorman?

Jerry: Very quickly, he became known as someone who was quality journalism, who was-- He became well respected, I think, even before he got to New York. Very quickly, his bosses and the viewers, they realized they had something special here. Also, they brought him in creating a brand new newscast, a news format, if you will, in News Center 4, which was the first two-hour newscast in New York.

They had started it at the O&O in LA at KNBC just before that. He was hired for that expansion of the news and it worked. They actually started to take viewers away from the vaunted WABC Eyewitness News, and it was in large part to Chuck Scarborough's work at WNBC.

Alison: What was special about how he delivered the news on a nightly basis, his professionalism?

Jerry: You don't find mistakes with him. He was just a solid, well-prepared newscaster. If you go back and look at stuff on YouTube or whatever, you won't find flubs. I don't even remember doing newscasts in the last 10, 20 years even getting older. He was always so well prepared where he just knew his stuff, as they say, being well-read-in. He knew what he was talking about. He knew the information. He was just a knowledgeable journalist, a knowledgeable newsman and it came through. There was an immediate trust between him and the viewers. Like I said, he was well respected and there was trust that was there from the get-go.

Alison: Got some great texts here. "I remember Chuck for a marathon broadcast he anchored during either a blizzard or blackout in the 70s." Here's another text, "In 1983, I was an eighth-grade girl in Queens. We had a social studies assignment to interview someone who had an influence on society. I decided to write to Sue Simmons and Chuck Scarborough. To my immense surprise and delight, they both responded and gave me half an hour out of their busy lives. I got an A, then I went to work for NPR and ABC." That's a great text.

Jerry: Wow.

Alison: Let's talk to Sharon. Hi, Sharon. Sharon's calling from Queens. Hi, Sharon.

Sharon: Hi. I remember Chuck as not the news guy. He was like your teacher was like, telling you what was going on, didn't want to scare you like, "This is the news." It was more, "There's something going on. I'm going to give you as many details as I can, but it's not alarming because you're going to have the information and I'm feeling the same thing you are about it." Just a great guy, always polished hair, always combed, cool guy. I was like, "Oh, my God." He was the best because that's when I just started watching news. Usually, watching news for my 7-year-old granddaughter, it's alarming and I don't let her watch it. Him, I used to watch. I used to be in the house by myself, and I wasn't scared.

Alison: Thank you for calling. Let's talk to Maria from Verona, New Jersey. Hi, Maria. Thank you so much for calling All Of It.

Maria: Hi, Alison. Thank you. I remember when I was six years old, my dad was working at NBC, and I remember Chuck Scarborough being hired and my dad and the other old timers there, they looked at him, blonde hair, handsome guy, and they were like, "Oh, he's just a pretty boy. He's never going to last." As time went by, I was, "Do you still see Chuck on TV?" I thought, "There he is. He's still there." 50 years later, my dad and all the other oldtimers were certainly wrong about Chuck Scarborough.

Alison: Love that. Thank you so much. This is a text that goes along with what she said, "Completely shallow observation, but he was a good-looking dude. He had the reporting skills to back it up, but he looked fantastic on camera." A little heart emoji. What did you learn about his good looks? They worked for him to his credit, although he was talented, we have to say that.

Jerry: Absolutely. You don't stay for, never mind, 50 years. You probably don't even stay five years if you're just, as the caller said, a pretty boy. I almost had a laugh because Pia Lindstrom who worked with Chuck and the others at WNBC for 25 years or so said he was a pretty boy, but you don't stay because you're a pretty boy. There has to be talent. Clearly, as we've been saying, there were many skills that Chuck brought. Sure, it's a visual medium and he had a nice look. I do know that there were reports done internally. Women reacted very positively to Chuck, and I'm sure many still do. That was the case. He was beloved. It's that line, men wanted to be him, women wanted to be with him. He was professional. He was not there because of his looks. He was there because of his abilities.

Alison: We are talking about the retirement of WNBC's Chuck Scarborough. Did you grow up watching him? What do you think his best qualities were as an anchor? Do you have a story about Chuck Scarborough delivering the news? Our phone lines are open 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. We'll take more of your calls and we'll speak more with Jerry Barmash after this quick break. This is All Of It.

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Alison: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. We're speaking about the news that longtime NBC New York News Anchor Chuck Scarborough is retiring this month after 50 years on the air. His last broadcast will be on December 12th. We're taking your calls. Our guest is Jerry Barmash. He's a broadcaster and author of the book Here Now the News: An Inside Scoop Into New York's Best-Loved Anchors. I want to play a clip for you, Jerry. In New York, there's been breaking news that Chuck has had to cover over the years. Let's listen to an example from December 1980 when news about John Lennon being shot.

Chuck Scarborough: We have a rather startling story that just came in here, a man who has been tentatively identified as John Lennon, the former Beatle, has been shot on Central Park West outside the Dakota, where John Lennon lives. Police rushed him to Roosevelt Hospital. We have no word on his condition right now, but police say they do have a suspect in custody. He is a local man. They won't say much more about him. They say there is no apparent motive. Again, the identification of the victim is tentative at this point, but police are saying they believe it is John Lennon. If we have any more information on this story this evening, we will certainly bring it to you.

Alison: That is a difficult thing, breaking news like that. What do you hear in that delivery that represents how Chuck Scarborough handled breaking news?

Jerry: He was a master of breaking news, Alison. Look at how he did that. That person that we had on before saying about he delivered the news almost as a teacher, where he was telling you stuff and not panicking, and you could hear it. It was serious. You knew it was serious, but he didn't give you a scare. It was almost conversational like, "I'm telling you this. You need to know this. We'll get more information.", and did it without a flub. It's a masterclass by Chuck Scarborough.

Alison: Let's take a few more calls. Nancy is calling in from Westchester County. Hi, Nancy, thanks for calling All Of It.

Nancy: Hi. I'm calling about him, Chuck Scarborough as a person. I was running the Westchester Half Marathon and he was out in the spectator group. When I got to him, I said, "Oh, I love you. You're the best." He said, "Oh, no, you runners. You're the heroes today."

Alison: Oh, what a great response from him. Thank you so much for sharing that. Let's talk to Steve in Greenwood Cemetery. Hi, Steve.

Steve: Hi. Great show. I was a regular viewer of Channel 7 Eyewitness News until February 9th of 1978. There was a blizzard in the city, and I randomly tuned into Channel 4 and the first time I had seen Chuck Scarborough, he had come into the studio in just a dark sweater and open shirt, and he said he had to walk several miles through the blizzard to get to the studio. Ever since then, I watched him regularly.

Alison: Thanks so much for calling. Let's talk to Brian from Springfield, New Jersey. Hi, Brian.

Brian: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I'm old enough to remember when News Center 4 debuted, and it was so different because it was this two-hour block of local news. It was very unique. They filled a lot of time with it, and it was hard to anchor, I think, two hours straight like they used to do. Some other callers mentioned it, the handsome white guy with a nice voice is certainly the stereotype, and a lot of people were comfortable with it and are still comfortable with it, but he backed it up with a lot of talent.

He bridged the gap between the very serious no opinion news when you just gave the facts and what became 'haha' personable news where every news story had to have a comment after it. He was able to survive these different eras to fit in. Really a lot of talent to be able to do that, to transition at a time when news gathering was much more serious in his time, and much more personable as it became, and it speaks to his talent and his adaptability to the different styles of news.

Alison: That's a really good point, Brian. Thank you so much for calling in. That actually brings me to his co-anchor Sue Simmons. Now, initially in your book, you write that he wasn't really sure he wanted a co-anchor. What's the story there?

Jerry: Yes. I think as I interview a lot of people in the book, all of the great anchors or people who knew a lot of the anchors, when you're a solo anchor, you don't necessarily want to relinquish that when you've been doing it for some time. Chuck was the same way. Sue Simmons had told me that it was an ego. You don't want to have to give that up because you are getting all of the airtime. [chuckles] She said, "It all worked out because I'm fun." Which is all you need to know there about Chuck and Sue together.

Alison: Yes. So many people in the New York metro area grew up with Chuck and Sue in their home for more than 30 years. Why did New York audiences love Scarborough and Simmons together?

Jerry: They were the perfect match, because somebody said, white, Black, man, woman, that's fine, and that's all true, and that's the perfect demographic of New York City. Together, they were the yin and yang. He was the more serious one, and, of course, Sue could be, whenever it was warranted, but she was able to have more of the laughter when there was the softer or lighter story or when they could joke around a little bit with sports, with weather, whoever, Marv Albert, Len Berman, Frank Field, Al Roker.

She could bring that out, not just in her and in the other colleagues, but of course with Chuck. It was genuine and they absolutely loved it, not just the people at the station, but of course, the viewers. They gravitated to the both of them together. It makes you wonder did that help Chuck survive for as long as he did? Obviously, she retired in 2012, but it makes you wonder if the two of them weren't together for 30-plus years, would Chuck have made it to 50 years? I don't know. He certainly had reason to, and he certainly had many skills that he brought, but it makes you wonder.

Alison: Got some great texts here. This says, "Hey, Alison, I became a Chuck Scarborough fan when he reported on the donation of a woman who gave her life savings to University of Mississippi. It wasn't breaking news, but an important human interest story. I'll miss him." This text says, "I was in labor back in the 90s with our daughter Sophie, and Chuck and Sue helped keep me calm. We always joke that she was live at 5:00." This one said, "I had such a crush on Chuck's Scarborough growing up. I think it started during a snowstorm, remember those? When he wore a sweater instead of his usual suit. Many years later, he was a customer at a store where I was working, and I was positively giddy. Alas, I was not his salesperson." We don't know that much about Chuck Scarborough off-air. Was that deliberate? I can't think if he had a partner.

Jerry: Chuck has been married. He's married, I believe it's his second time. He has children. He lives in Montauk or out in the Hamptons, I should say. He was a pilot for many years. He would be piloting. He wrote a couple or three books earlier on in his career. I think he went out of his way to keep his news, his on-air world separate from his private life. Having said that, you would see him at many functions in the city and certainly out east. His private life, he has kept to himself. His private life, he's kept private, I guess.

Alison: I have a question. He was a local news legend. He chose not to go national. Why do you think he chose not to go national, to become a national news anchor? It's WNBC, not NBC News.

Jerry: I don't know that he necessarily chose-- I uncovered an interesting quote from him only two years after he came to New York in 1976, very early in his career in New York that he had said he wanted to become the NBC News anchor when at that point it was John Chancellor and David Brinkley and he said, "Hopefully, the evening Anchor at NBC when they leave." It was already in the back of his mind then. He would do some network stuff. He would do the weekend nightly news.

He would do the NBC news digests or updates in prime time, those little one-minute headlines in the 80s. Ultimately they stopped those. I don't know why. He certainly had the talent because New York City is one and one [unintelligible 00:26:36] between network and-- When you're in New York, you qualify to be in network anchoring and reporting. I don't know, but it certainly-- I don't know that it was something that was a void for him, but I thought it was telling that in just a couple of years, he had already put that as a long-term goal.

Obviously, it didn't happen to that extent. It's just something that most of these if not all of the local anchors of that era never got. Network notoriety a little bit here or there, some network morning shows or things like that, or filling in, but nothing really major of high profile assignments.

Alison: Before we go, Jerry, I know your book is now available in an audiobook format. What is one thing we'll learn about Chuck Scarborough from reading your book or listening to your book, I should say? [laughs]

Jerry: Yes, and I did it all myself, which was fun four hours. I think people will understand that he was a great, legendary anchor. I give that respect. As I say in one of the chapters that I titled-- Lou Young, a former reporter, was asked to fill in as an anchor with Chuck once at WNBC, and he said, which I used as a chapter title, "Do I want to play catch with Mickey Mantle?" It comes across, that love that everybody is feeling and wishing him well. That's what comes across about him.

Alison: Jerry Barmash is a broadcaster, and he's the author of the book Here Now the News: An Inside Scoop Into New York's Best-Loved Anchors. Jerry, thank you so much for your call and your conversation.

Jerry: Thanks so much, Alison.

Alison: I do want to read this last text, "I recall a time years ago when I was at FAO Schwarz with a friend. We saw Chuck Scarborough. We weren't sure it was him, but when he noticed our quizzical looks, he nodded his head, and he waved."

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