The Giants of Broadcasting & Electronic Arts luncheon happened in New York November 14, as Caroline Beasley, CEO of Beasley Media Group; Wolf Blitzer, The Situation Room anchor, CNN; Juju Chang, Nightline co-anchor, ABC News; actor and singer Tony Danza; David Kennedy, CEO of Susquehanna Media Company; Eric Shanks, CEO and executive producer, Fox Sports; Valari Dobson Staab, chairman, NBCUniversal Local; and Nina Totenberg, legal affairs correspondent, NPR, were honored.
Bill Whitaker, 60 Minutes correspondent, hosted and The International Radio & Television Society Foundation produced the event at Gotham Hall.
Beasley called it “a privilege and an honor” to be named alongside her fellow Giants.
She noted how she and her late father George, the company founder who was named a Giant in 2012, are the first father-daughter duo to receive the honors individually. “I am sure he is looking over my shoulder and grinning from ear to ear,” Beasley said.
Blitzer credited the CNN founder for bringing him into television. “A man named Ted Turner changed the trajectory of my career — and changed my life,” Blitzer said.
Blitzer mentioned that Turner told him, “The news comes first.”
“I remember those words every day,” he said.
Chang has emceed the Giants of Broadcasting luncheon for years, but could not as she was being inducted. She said she was “disoriented and deeply intimidated to be on this side.”
Chang spoke of getting into television in the ‘80s. “I had big hair — and big ambitions,” she shared.
She spoke of her “fully formed” identity outside of work, as a mother and wife and volunteer. She called husband Neal Shapiro “my North Star.”
Up next, Tony Danza saluted his late father, who used to drop him off at school in Brooklyn, he said, in his garbage truck. It is his father’s 102nd birthday.
Danza shared about being asked to give acting a shot while boxing at Gleason’s Gym in Manhattan, and getting a call from Norman Lear’s camp about three roles he might consider: a rough, tough helicopter pilot, a rough, tough cop, and a live-in housekeeper. He took the housekeeper gig, and mentioned the “wonderful experience” on hit ‘80s comedy Who’s the Boss?
He said the competition for roles played by older men is thinning out. “I’m just gonna keep doing push-ups and outlast everybody,” Danza said.
Kennedy, also co-founder of Aspire Ventures, said it is “truly an honor to have your name mentioned by Bill Whitaker … unless he’s doing a 60 Minutes expose on you.”
Shanks spoke of his failed efforts in being a deejay, where he played “Love Hurts” by Nazareth for two hours after his girlfriend broke up with him.
He singled out Bobby Knight, John Madden and former Fox Sports chief David Hill for shaping his career in television, and spoke about how the medium “can move people on a scale that is unmatched.”
Staab said local TV continues to have a unique relationship with viewers. “Never has what we do been more important,” she said.
Finally, Totenberg spoke about the growing role females have played at NPR, and in the media in general. She mentioned how she gets to “watch in awe as the newest generation of NPR women somehow manage to do everything — even reading to children on a cellphone during stakeouts.”
