Today I read that Gordon Manning, 89, formerly of NBC News, died. Gordon Manning was the man who saw me on TV once and would put me on NBC News shows, and would later hire me as a free-lance consultant for NBC News back in the late 1980s. This was during the times of the hostage crisis in Lebanon and the American involvement in Lebanese affairs--how things have changed, huh? Early on, he tried to change me. He would suggest that I wear ties, and he would suggest that I speak slow. It did not take him long to figure me out, and he stopped trying to change me. I mean, he still would but indirectly. He would tell me: I was on the phone with so-and-so (and he would name a journalist) and he said that it would be better if you did not speak so fast. He was curious to know things about me, and about my culture. Getting to see him up close (he invited me to his New York City apartment once), and to know him, made me realize that the problem of US media is economic agenda (motives of profit) above anything else. They had soft politics, and were willing to bend them for the profit motives--he was quite pleased when I could not be paid by the network for work that I did when I was still on a student visa for example. They were often willing to even bend the laws (US and other countries' laws) to get a scoop. At one point, I remember reminding him and the president of NBC News at the time of US laws about a particular matter. I always felt that he was different from the rest of the people at NBC News. When he would put me at a (very nice) hotel in New York City, he would want to know whether I ate well and drank well--I of course did. I knew him when he was in his late 70s, and he had more energy than anybody else in the NBC building. He never spoke politics with me, but I felt that he felt that Arabs don't get a fair share in US media. Sometimes he would come up with crazy ideas. When NBC News was experimenting with the "news" magazine format (that later became Dateline) (and he was put in charge) he would regularly come up with crazy ideas. Once, he asked me to come up to New York city for an important meeting. I flew there from DC, and I found the top brass of NBC News assembled. The idea was to do a special on the "terrorist of the year", and the plan (when US citizens were banned from Lebanon) was to send me (with a bulky Sony Camera that I would not even be interested in learning how to operate) to Lebanon and to interview Shaykh Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah (who was the "terrorist of the month" at the time) and presumably tell him about the honor that NBC News was bestowing on him. I remember exclaiming: so you want me to take a camera, and to tell Fadlallah that NBC News has selected you as the international terrorist of the year? I of course refused. But his main obsession was to get NBC News (through me) to interview American hostages in captivity. And so many crooks sold them blank tapes claiming that they contained interviews with the hostages. And when he spoke to me while in Lebanon, during very dangerous times, he would sound sincere when inquiring about my safety and welfare, unlike the foreign editor of NBC News at the time, Jeremy Lambrecht--if I remember his name correctly, who could care less if I returned dead or alive. Manning would try to be sensitive to me, but sometimes it went too far. He would sometimes try to assume that my eccentricities were the product of the culture and religion of where I came from. I would affirm to him that, really, I am eccentric by my family's standards too. He was famous for his typed memos, and liked it when I typed memos too. I did not stay in touch with him, and he did not either. But I liked him and I remember him fondly. Early on when I met him, when I was a graduate student in Washington, DC, he watched me as I berated an NBC News executive who said something that I thought was insensitive to Arabs. He became very cautious about how people expressed themselves in my presence, and would sometimes volunteer sensitive remarks to others.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Today I read that Gordon Manning, 89, formerly of NBC News, died. Gordon Manning was the man who saw me on TV once and would put me on NBC News shows, and would later hire me as a free-lance consultant for NBC News back in the late 1980s. This was during the times of the hostage crisis in Lebanon and the American involvement in Lebanese affairs--how things have changed, huh? Early on, he tried to change me. He would suggest that I wear ties, and he would suggest that I speak slow. It did not take him long to figure me out, and he stopped trying to change me. I mean, he still would but indirectly. He would tell me: I was on the phone with so-and-so (and he would name a journalist) and he said that it would be better if you did not speak so fast. He was curious to know things about me, and about my culture. Getting to see him up close (he invited me to his New York City apartment once), and to know him, made me realize that the problem of US media is economic agenda (motives of profit) above anything else. They had soft politics, and were willing to bend them for the profit motives--he was quite pleased when I could not be paid by the network for work that I did when I was still on a student visa for example. They were often willing to even bend the laws (US and other countries' laws) to get a scoop. At one point, I remember reminding him and the president of NBC News at the time of US laws about a particular matter. I always felt that he was different from the rest of the people at NBC News. When he would put me at a (very nice) hotel in New York City, he would want to know whether I ate well and drank well--I of course did. I knew him when he was in his late 70s, and he had more energy than anybody else in the NBC building. He never spoke politics with me, but I felt that he felt that Arabs don't get a fair share in US media. Sometimes he would come up with crazy ideas. When NBC News was experimenting with the "news" magazine format (that later became Dateline) (and he was put in charge) he would regularly come up with crazy ideas. Once, he asked me to come up to New York city for an important meeting. I flew there from DC, and I found the top brass of NBC News assembled. The idea was to do a special on the "terrorist of the year", and the plan (when US citizens were banned from Lebanon) was to send me (with a bulky Sony Camera that I would not even be interested in learning how to operate) to Lebanon and to interview Shaykh Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah (who was the "terrorist of the month" at the time) and presumably tell him about the honor that NBC News was bestowing on him. I remember exclaiming: so you want me to take a camera, and to tell Fadlallah that NBC News has selected you as the international terrorist of the year? I of course refused. But his main obsession was to get NBC News (through me) to interview American hostages in captivity. And so many crooks sold them blank tapes claiming that they contained interviews with the hostages. And when he spoke to me while in Lebanon, during very dangerous times, he would sound sincere when inquiring about my safety and welfare, unlike the foreign editor of NBC News at the time, Jeremy Lambrecht--if I remember his name correctly, who could care less if I returned dead or alive. Manning would try to be sensitive to me, but sometimes it went too far. He would sometimes try to assume that my eccentricities were the product of the culture and religion of where I came from. I would affirm to him that, really, I am eccentric by my family's standards too. He was famous for his typed memos, and liked it when I typed memos too. I did not stay in touch with him, and he did not either. But I liked him and I remember him fondly. Early on when I met him, when I was a graduate student in Washington, DC, he watched me as I berated an NBC News executive who said something that I thought was insensitive to Arabs. He became very cautious about how people expressed themselves in my presence, and would sometimes volunteer sensitive remarks to others.
