Transcript
Responding to Westin
April 21, 2001
BOB GARFIELD: We asked all the networks to comment on Av Westin's allegations. CBS declined but news executives at ABC and NBC agreed to talk to us. Joining me first is Victor Neufeld, the senior executive producer of news magazines at ABC. Mr. Neufeld, you heard what Av Westin had to say. What do you think of his allegations?
VICTOR NEUFELD: It's totally ludicrous. There's nothing even close to that. It's ludicrous. It's silly.
BOB GARFIELD: You know Av Westin told me that his research on this subject -- and admittedly anecdotal --he didn't audit anybody but he did talk to 137 people in the news business, and he said he started asking this question when he first encountered it at 20/20.
VICTOR NEUFELD: You're, you're assuming that because there's no documentation you have to make an assumption that he actually spoke to all those people. You have to make an assumption that all those people said all those things.
BOB GARFIELD:Well he spoke to that number of people. He didn't, he didn't tell me that 137 people said this, but some substantial number of people, maybe it was 10 or 12, started talking about this business of, you know, which is a story-casting-redlining basically. Can we go backwards a little bit? Evidently there was at ABC News a handbook put together to help producers find more black and Latino experts when an expert interview was required. Do you have such a thing?
VICTOR NEUFELD: Yeah, I heard about it. I think it's around somewhere, but--
BOB GARFIELD: Is anyone using it? Someone told Av Westin that it was quote "a place to rest your coffee cup."
VICTOR NEUFELD: I don't know what happened to that. I heard about it once. You know this is a very important subject and a very crucial subject, and what we do, and an issue. It is so upsetting and outrageous and ludicrous that this issue is seriously considered by you as an issue; these conversations never happened. Just think of it logically. Minority viewers are a major part of our viewership. How stupid it would be -- how idiotic it would be to even discuss it as something that's, that's a good thing to have or a positive! I mean it doesn't make sense!
BOB GARFIELD: What if your ratings were dipping every time some black face came on when a white face would have served?
VICTOR NEUFELD:It's-- [LAUGHS] think about - think about the logic of that. You mean - you think ratings dip and go up based on a face that appears on the screen? This -- it's fantasy!
BOB GARFIELD:Tell me about the minute by minute ratings. Aren't you able to determine how your audience is reacting minute by minute during a broadcast?
VICTOR NEUFELD: Well, your assumptions are -- it's -- it's just too conspiratorial. You know whether we have minute by minute ratings and how we make judgments are not that precise and not even--and, and-- nowhere near that diabolical.
BOB GARFIELD: Victor Neufeld, thank you for joining us.
VICTOR NEUFELD: You're quite welcome.
BOB GARFIELD:Victor Neufeld is the senior executive producer of news magazines at ABC. In the interest of full disclosure ABC News is one of my 3 media employers in addition to Advertising Age and of course On the Media. Neil Shapiro is executive producer of Dateline NBC; he joins me now. Mr. Shapiro, is there any truth to Av Westin's charges?
NEIL SHAPIRO: You know I hope not. I mean I have a l--great deal of respect for Av. He's a friend of mind, and I know part of his research came out of speaking to people anecdotally, so I am discouraged to know that anybody on my show would think that, and since I've spoken to Av I even had staff meetings and reiterated one more time that I want diversity in all aspects of the show, and I'm doing my best I can; I try to say very explicitly that's not what we want to do.
BOB GARFIELD: Well you've got the ability to track stories minute by minute--
NEIL SHAPIRO: Mm-hm.
BOB GARFIELD:--whether you're doing a story about -- and I'm, I'm coming from your story list --amnesia or botched surgeries or sleeping on the job or ovarian cysts or kids with too-heavy backpacks, we react to people most like ourselves, and if the audience is mostly white, they're inclined to react best to interviewees most like themselves, and with your minute to minute ratings, you should probably be able to see that!
NEIL SHAPIRO: I've never -- I'm not sure that's true, cause I've never looked at it that way. I'm, I - I mean I don't - I'm not, I'm not sure I even believe that! I mean most Americans are not serial killers. They don't feel comfortable with serial killers. But they'll watch serial killers. Most Americans don't have conjoined twins, but they're fascinated by the issue and will watch it. On the other hand some of the least successful shows -- there was a show at NBC News called Real Life, and the premise of the show was let's just experience the kind of real life stories that we go through -- people like us -- and it was a disaster! Because that's not what people want to watch!
BOB GARFIELD:Well [RADIO INTERFERENCE] where do you think this criticism is coming from then? Why is Av Westin being told the things that he's being told, which sound quite explosive on the face of it?
NEIL SHAPIRO: The fact that some people might feel that disturbs me, and that's why I spoke to them about it, but I don't think it reflects -- it certainly does not reflect the attitude of the people who run the show. Now I say no to a lot of stories, and I think sometimes people wonder why I say no, trying to figure out why, why I say no to things.
BOB GARFIELD: You mean if you've been told no for a story that you are quite fond of, you, you start looking for reasons elsewhere.
NEIL SHAPIRO:I even try to tell people - we have meetings -I - some people are my seniors - send people computer messages about here's why we said no to this story. I mean I, I - all I know is I - you know in the, in the past week I've just thought about the stories I've screened one of which is a story about a woman who gives a kidney to somebody el-- to somebody else, and it turns out that she's black, she's a black teacher and he's a white student or the other way around. One is a story about somebody undergoing diabetes treatment and one of the women undergoing it is African-American. There are 3 or 4 stories I looked at where they're just stories and some of the characters happen to be African-American.
BOB GARFIELD: Well I know what we're going to do.
NEIL SHAPIRO: Mm-hm?
BOB GARFIELD:We're going to start taping Dateline NBC and ABC's 20/20 and 48 Hours, etc, etc, etc and we're going to do an audit and try to figure out whether the evidence of the next few months' shows supports Av Westin's charges. Are you going to do anything like that yourself?
NEIL SHAPIRO: You know I didn't do it, but there was a diversity council here at NBC News and they have at, at times just taken a certain group of time - looked at all the shows within NBC -and done just precisely what you've said --evaluated who's on, and we generally come out pretty well in that! But you know having spoken to Av, I've done, I've done some looking myself. I'm just not - haven't done it in a systematic way and that's when I want to talk about it.
BOB GARFIELD: All right. Well Neil Shapiro, thank you very much for joining us.
NEIL SHAPIRO: Thank you.
BOB GARFIELD: Neil Shapiro is the executive producer of Dateline NBC.