Catherine Crier:
from Judge to Television Journalist
 |
 |
|
For all her talk of being a Texas girl, loving her horses and critters and the 30 acres her house sits on, Catherine Crier's manner tells of a New Yorker who has found her way home. The walk is quick and purposeful. The talk is full-bodied and to the point. Tall and thin, with a dusty halo of sculpted brown hair, she struts out of make-up and instantly dominates the room, tissues still poking out of her blouse's neck like a Victorian collar. "Hi, how are you?" she says in precisely the same voice recognized by news junkies around the world. Extending a well-bejeweled hand and flashing a quick smile, she says, "Look forward to talking to you after the show," and is gone as quickly as she appeared, making a beeline for the studio next door. With a mother from the East Texas town of Dangerfield and father from Abilene, Catherine split the distance, born and raised in Dallas. She entered The University of Texas at Austin at age 16, was a Tri-Delt and was named one of the "Ten Most Beautiful" in 1972. After earning her BA in 1975 in political science and government, she went on to Southern Methodist University for her JD in 1977. From 1978-81, she served as assistant district attorney and felony chief prosecutor for Dallas County. From 1982-84, she handled business and corporate cases as a civil litigation attorney for Riddle & Brown. Her next five years were spent as state civil district judge presiding over 162nd District Court in Dallas County. In 1984, at the age of 29, she became the youngest elected state judge in Texas history. She also had waged the most expensive campaign in Dallas County. (Though she was re-elected in 1988 on the Republican ticket, she insists that a small ceramic elephant on the coffee table of her interview set is not a subliminal advertisement for the party.) While she was a trial lawyer and judge she served on a lengthy list of legal institutes, committees, and councils. She also helped judge the UT Law School Mock Trial Finals. In 1987, she was voted one of 10 outstanding working women in America by Glamour magazine. Then, in October 1989, she shocked both the legal profession and the journalism world, chucking it all for an anchor position at CNN, which quickly showcased her sure tongue and fine features on multiple programs: Crier & Co., The World Today, and Inside Politics. Now a national figure, Crier began raking in the accolades: in 1990 alone, the American Bar Association's Barrister Magazine named her one of 20 young lawyers who make a difference; T.V. Guide named her one of its "Dynamite Dozen"; and The Texas Exes (Ex-Students' Association) dubbed her an Outstanding Young Texas Ex. Frustrated at not being allowed to report stories from the field, she left CNN after three years to report for ABC's 20/20, where her examination of nursing home abuses won a 1996 Emmy for outstanding investigative journalism. Her ABC contract included fill-in anchoring of World News Tonight and Nightline. Crier followed Phil Gramm and Lamar Alexander along the 1996 presidential primary trail. In September 1996, Crier left ABC News after three and a half years and joined Fox News as host of The Crier Report, a nightly, one-hour interview program. By summer 1998 it was all Crier all the time; in addition to The Crier Report, she was co-anchoring the nightly news and co-hosting Fox Files, a news magazine aired on the Fox Channel. She spoke in her office high above Midtown Manhattan. So you came to UT at age 16. What was your first impression of it? My grandmother lives in Round Rock, my aunt and uncle live in Austin. Both my parents and my aunt and uncle went to The University of Texas, so I grew up bleeding orange. There was little question, really, where I was going to school. 
Predestination? Yeah. I may have tried to discuss it on occasion when I thought I had another idea, but it was summarily rejected. (Laughs) What did your dad do? He was in banking for years. We've been raising horses for years and my mother has been running the horse operation. It used to be outside Dallas, but now, we're surrounded by housing developments on three sides of the farm. So we'll see how much longer it will survive. Is that a love of yours also? Oh, yeah. I've got three horses here. I live about an hour north of the city so I can have some room, which a good Texas girl needs. Promptly built a barn and brought my Arabians up. I ride as much as I can. I'm in the barn every morning drinking coffee and checking on "the kids." Where did you live when you were going to school? There's an old house right across the street from Dirty's, on Nueces. It had been converted into some institute last time I was through town. Big old porch on it. I had an apartment over on Leon. I started out at Jester Dormitory the first year, then moved out. So I made my way around student housing. Do you still keep in contact with college friends? Sure. They're scattered all over the country. I think Texas did a pretty good job of preparing us to meet the world. Why did you decide to go into law? I think it was decided for me, and I don't mean by any individual. It was my passion from the time I was three or four years old--politics, law--I always knew what I wanted to do. There was never really any question. Is your current career an extension of that? Absolutely. A lot of people thought it was strange, but a lot of what I do is what a lawyer does. You take a trial lawyer who's questioning, interrogating, a judge who's trying to sprinkle social public policy over a particular case or an event, that's exactly what a journalist does. It was a passion for issues, a desire to understand the world, to bring justice to the world, that got me into the law, and it was the same sort of thing that propelled this move. I feel like I utilize the law degree. The same motivations apply. It hasn't changed much. Do you get the same sense of satisfaction after a show's over as you did before? Yeah. I think the limitation of television is a function of time. It tends to skim the surface. I have the luxury of an hour a night on The Crier Report to talk to anybody in the world about anything I want to talk about, and I appreciate that. But there are times, even after half an hour on a subject, you feel we haven't really gotten into it, which, of course, you could in a court of law. You could take days or weeks or months to pursue a particular subject. But you also have this extraordinary audience and ability to influence. And if I can be a conduit for information, for people to make up their minds to learn about issues and events and people, then that's a wonderful opportunity. I trust the American people, if given information, to make correct decisions. It's a thrill, and it sounds corny, but an honor to participate in that. I take the responsibility very seriously. Do you miss the bench? At those moments when I think, there's more here, we need more time. I miss the substance at times. What sorts of cases would you typically hear? I started out as a criminal prosecutor so I tried rapes and robberies and murders. I was a felony chief prosecutor with the Dallas County DA's office, and when I left that I went into civil litigation, so I was doing all business and corporate litigation and the bench I took was a civil bench, so it was everything from an S&L crisis to brain surgery gone awry to a plane crash to a real estate deal, all the business end of things. Ted Turner, liberal billionaire. Rupert Murdoch, conservative billionaire. Do you see that those personalities permeate their organizations and do you sense a different corporate culture in the two different networks? Actually, that's great fun, isn't it? Because people are always going to put labels on you. So I say, "Fine, go ahead. See which one will stick to me today!" Not really. Part of that may be that I don't focus on those things. If they occur, that's not a concern of mine because I'm going to do what I think I need to do and listen to my own voice. I must admit Ted Turner never came down and told me to do some story or how to do another story. Rupert Murdoch has never injected himself in the stories I do, as far as I know. No one has tried to come down to direct my activities. I really believe our slogan here, fair and balanced, "We report, you decide." It was a conversation I had with Roger Ailes before I joined the network, because that is critical to me, personally, that that's the approach we take--any organization I work for. At least that I am free to behave in that fashion. When he told me that was the mantra here and that he would see that it was enforced, I said, "Great, I'll sign on." And it has been. In what ways are CNN and Fox News similar? It's interesting. The CNN that I joined was still young enough that there was a real entrepreneurial effort, if you will, going on. It had been around more years than now Fox has. But there was still this energy and spirit and excitement about the process. By the time I left, I could feel the influence of the business end of all of this. The people who worried about the bottom line were having more influence in programming, the ratings, the stories you were covering. So I was excited to come to Fox, which was still getting its feet wet, and everything was exciting and new and challenging and you could be as creative as you wanted to be and push the envelope a bit in what you were doing. And I find that much more exciting than when everything is all figured out and it's just a business. I found that a little disconcerting by the time I left CNN. I have not felt that here at Fox, and I hope I don't. What about ABC, as a broadcast network? How does it differ from the other two? Well, much more so a business. Very much a business. Very much driven by the bottom line. And that's not a criticism; it's just a fact. It's that way at NBC, with CBS, with any major corporation with shareholders like it's got, that's been around as long as it has. It's the nature of the beast. But there were a lot of institutional pressures, if you will, on everyone. And I don't think there was the encouragement, enthusiasm, creativity, and obviously, not the time to cover the news like I wanted to. Entertainment is first and foremost. Fighting to get, say, an hour documentary on when you're having to steal away an hour of entertainment, is virtually impossible. It's like pulling teeth. Here at Fox, depending on the story, we can blow out the rest of the day's coverage and follow one issue, which is a real luxury and something I missed terribly when I went to ABC. Did you go from CNN to ABC to do more field reporting? Absolutely. I was doing three shows a day behind an anchor desk and I didn't feel I could ever truly call myself a journalist until I got out in the field and learned to produce pieces, learned to crash pieces, long-form, learned about editing, about lighting, about every aspect of putting pieces together that you just don't learn behind an anchor desk, even though I think there's plenty of creativity because I didn't work in a field where you simply read the TelePrompter. During Crier & Co. or Inside Politics, there were a lot of interviews, a lot of just free-for-alls with guests, which I loved. But I really wanted to put in the groundwork so I could call myself a journalist. And wonderfully, now, I not only have gotten back to doing the long-form interviewing programming, but with Fox Files, I'm now able to bring my magazine experience on a new show. What was the impetus to move from ABC to Fox? I found I really missed what a cable operation allows you to do. To try and put my energies into a 90-second piece for the evening news or once every six weeks a 12-minute piece on 20/20, it wasn't enough. I got spoiled by doing three shows a day at CNN and a lot of free-wheeling debate, political, national, international affairs. And that's my real love--it's my passion. So when Roger said, "Do you want to come do that again here? We'll give you an hour a night, five nights a week," I said, "Where do I sign?" So if ABC was the most business driven, in part because they've been around the longest, and CNN is going that direction because they're a little bit older, is this just a matter of time for Fox News? That's a good question, because all organizations now are feeling the effects of ratings, shareholders, business environment, so it's a constant battle for any of these to keep the focus on news and one's responsibility to a viewing audience. It will be a constant battle for any organization from here on out. I think this business, this company has its head in the right place. I'm excited about it and I hope it doesn't change. What do you see as the future of the medium? Do you see something else on the horizon past cable? Of course I think technology will have a tremendous effect on what we're doing. I, like many, think that the 6:30 newscasts are dinosaurs. They're on their way out. When was the last time you sat down and watched one of the networks' 6:30 newscasts? We're leading extraordinarily busy lives, we're not sitting around the dinner table then. I get an enormous amount of my news off the internet. I watch all of the various cable sources, constantly absorbing, so that by the end of the day, been there, done that. That's why here, when we go into a lot of long-form shows in the evening that are analysis and debate and discussion of what's happened during the day, I think that's the way to take news in the evening, when you're trying to put the day's news in context, give it some meaning. But, sure, it's got to change. I think you're going to see personalized newscasts, where you can program in the kind of stories you're interested in, what you're looking for, that will be delivered to you on your set at evening's end. It's going to be very interesting to see how it all shapes out, but it will be very different. Do you think cable channels will keep proliferating, or at some point will television start to collapse back on itself and consolidate and get back down to a manageable number of channels? I don't know. Niche marketing has demonstrated its viability. You no longer have to get half the homes in America to be successful. You can find your little group that relies on you for what you provide. And it may be a gardening channel and it may be Chinese calligraphy, but if there are enough people who are interested, you can make a living with it. So I don't see any reason the number should back down. The powerhouses will continue to merge, but you see NBC now talking about wanting another outlet to merge with an organization that can provide more programming, more entertainment vehicles. There are interesting permutations going on, but I don't think they'll decrease the number of channels available. Do you worry about the bone density of some of this 24-hour programming? The constancy of it spreading the matter too thin? We have to learn how to fill the time with relevant, meaningful information. Simply repeating the same things all day long or having another three talking heads to argue the same point all day long, doesn't do much. What I am hoping, as the evolution takes place, is that we use the time to reach into stories that aren't getting told, to reach out to parts of the world that aren't getting covered. We've got this enormous amount of time in which we could do a lot of good. But there's the other side, where the executives say, "Well, people aren't watching international coverage or don't care about certain issues." That's where a journalist has to make it viewable, make it interesting. I don't mean change the story, but we can tell stories well, and it's our obligation to do so. Sometimes it takes a little more time, a little more money, to get out there and make the effort, and I hope that's the direction things go, because it's easy to go in the reverse, and that is, slap on another soundbite and have three more people argue about it. But I'm an idealist and an optimist, and news organizations can really make themselves valuable by understanding how much is out there that doesn't get covered and do it well. What's your favorite form on the show now? Panel or one-on-one? I prefer the one-on-one. Like the show today--to have a half hour to talk to Richard Butler about Iraq is heaven to me. To really get into the substance, to try to put ourselves in the shoes of a man who is negotiating with Saddam Hussein over an issue like nuclear proliferation, which can mean the future to all of us--to have that opportunity is extraordinary to me. I don't want to convince people of my opinions during that period. I want to understand whoever is sitting across from me. I want to understand the issue or the event. I want to hear what they have to say. Sometimes I bring on someone who's very political, and I will certainly play devil's advocate, but I want people to walk away understanding that person's point of view, even if they don't agree with them. A couple of days later I'll do the opposing point of view. At times I do the debates, but I think that if you really listen to what you're getting in debate formats most of the time, it's yelling and screaming. And people drowning one another out. I really want people to feel like they've walked away with an understanding of an issue and what each side is trying to promote. That, to me, is a real success. How far out do you plan your shows? What's the process of putting one together? It goes both ways. A lot of the celebrity guests relating to films or novels we book further in advance, and then we do a lot of day-to-day bookings. This morning we were booking the Clinton issues. Oftentimes, a couple of hours before we go on the air we're putting together things we're dealing with on the show. What's your staff structure like? Right now we're between producers on the show. We'll do anywhere from two to five segments a night, and with the interview you've got pictures, video, soundbites, all sorts of things around that make up a single interview that someone has to be working on and helping produce. So it's a major effort, and we could use a few more people. We have seven or eight associate producers and bookers. What's a typical day like? Usually we'll have a weekly staff meeting to look ahead to stories we want to cover, then we just talk all the time. I'm sending down ideas, they're calling up about things, we're meeting and visiting and it's just a continual process after that. But nobody has time for set meetings around here, so you catch as catch can. Are there sources that you'll look to all the time? We have a lot of sources for new books and new films and we pick and choose the things that we think are particularly interesting. We have a lot of fun with it. Sometimes it's very different from the rest of the show. When I first got into journalism, I was one of these with a bit of arrogance, that I want national and international affairs and why would anyone want to talk to these celebrities? But I came to realize the extraordinary influence that the media, the film industry, books, have on the issues that I thought were of utmost importance. Once I realized that, I began to open up the conversation. Unless we understand culture, we can't understand the direction society's going. Do you do much bumping of guests? As little as possible. But not a week goes by that we don't have to move or shift somebody. When you've got breaking events, you've blocked the show, and you've got to clear two or three segments, then you call very apologetically and see if you can reschedule. Is there one that stands out as the toughest interview? The toughest ones generally are people who are not conversant in a subject, who may have a pat answer for two or three things, and you get off their page and they have nothing to say. They just won't get out of the box. To me, that's boring, and when you've heard the answer 15 times on other programs or you know this is coming from a memorized script, you roll your eyes and say, "What are we doing here?" It's a challenge then to try and get somebody out of the box. It's not that you're trying to skewer them or embarrass them, but just to get an understanding of what they're saying, and sometimes that's hard. How do you prepare for interviews? Read. Read. I'm a little bit of a fanatic about that. There are those like Larry King--and Larry has told me this story; I'm not speaking out of turn--he says, "I don't really prepare, because I want to ask the question that everybody at home would ask. So I don't want to know too much." My failing sometimes is having read so much that I'll jump to some small point that bothered me or intrigued me and I'll forget to ask the big general question. But I'm a student for a living. I get to study nuclear proliferation one day and Janet Leigh's career the next and it's great fun. It's almost like being on the bench. One day was the airplane crash and the next day it was brain surgery and you become this mini-expert in a bunch of different areas. The brain room gives me research on every subject that's coming up. I read the books and watch the films and do the homework. So with this new magazine, you'll be going out into the field again? Oh yeah. I did the first special on Diana over in London, and it will be the same as the magazine show I've done in the past. I like breaking it up and challenging myself in different ways. Also I think that different forms of journalism give a variety of things back to the viewers. It's wonderful to have a chance to produce pieces so that you can present a story from start to finish. Oftentimes in an interview program the conversation goes 15 different ways and you wonder at the end, "Okay, did anybody make a point and did anybody learn something from that?" But you have obviously much more control with a magazine piece. What are some of the farthest or oddest places you've found yourself? Once, we were walking along the edge of a minefield in Bosnia. At one point in Guatemala, we had a situation where villagers had beaten an American woman very badly back at the time they thought Americans were kidnapping children for organs. And some said it was in fact the Guatemalan military that was behind the rumors because they wanted to get rid of peace-keepers from other countries; they wanted people out of the way so that they could take care of politics as they saw fit. I went way back in the jungle to talk to this one comandante, and it was a very confrontational interview. And there was no way in or no way out but by his troops. There are moments like that when you say, "What am I doing here and why am I asking you these questions?" And the interpreter is back there waving her hands, going don't ask him that question! She's not wanting to interpret the question. It was a trip with Hillary Clinton so I assumed we were relatively safe, but when you fly in in this military helicopter and you see the troops around you on the ground with guns poised, looking into the bushes as you head in, there are a few gulps. How did you meet your husband? This good Texas girl came to New York and was fixed up with the usual suspects by various well-meaning friends. I thought my life was over. There is nothing wrong with New Yorkers. They're lovely people. But a good Texas girl who likes camping and fishing and hiking and horses and critters, to be spending too much time with New York financiers and stock brokers and these sorts, it really wasn't a good mesh. So at a dinner party here in the city in 1994, I met Christopher (Wilson) who's from Australia, who was raised in the Queensland outback in the deep north on a big sheep property, grew up on the back of a horse. Then he found civilization, was sent off to boarding school, did his term in London, so he can actually hold a conversation. But there are no people on the planet more like Texans than Australians. I call Australians "Texans with manners." I'm going to get killed when you write that, but it's true! They're just a little more genteel; maybe it's the British influence. But they're also frontiersmen, independent spirited, gregarious, hospitable. I fell in love with Australia before I ever met Christopher. We met and we've been together ever since. He used to be in international shipping, but then he saw the light. He was only here three years before we met, but now he figures he's stuck here. We've started an Australian import business. Everything from crocodile goods to furniture to Aboriginal and New Guinea artifacts, jewelry, painting, all kinds of things. We have a showroom about 10 minutes from our house. We're just having the best time. So now he can get back two or three times a year on business and we have this wonderful, creative, artistic side of our lives. Besides horses, do you indulge in any other hobbies? I'm a passionate golfer and I don't get to play often enough, and I wish Harvey Penick was still with us because I'd be going back to school. I paint. There are a lot of things I like to do but don't have time for. You've lived in Dallas, Atlanta, and now New York. What do you see as the main difference between those three? I think Dallas and Atlanta are as much alike as two big cities can be. Atlanta is greener. It was quite interesting because when I first moved there I couldn't figure out what was bothering me. Then I figured out I was claustrophobic, because Atlanta is sort of down in a deep, green bowl, and everything's overgrown, and everything is named Peach Tree, and you're winding your way through streets and can't see the horizon. And once I realized what was bothering me, I was okay. I wanted to see the next county like I could at home. It was actually a good stopping point for me because upstate New York is also very green, a little more open than Atlanta, but now I find it beautiful and comfortable. And New York is such an exciting city. On a good note, I found it's much more people friendly. Yeah, you've got to get used to the cabs and honking and all this business, but it's very exciting. I feel safe walking the streets at midnight, you can get around easily, and you get 30 minutes out of town and there's some of the most beautiful countryside you've ever seen. I love where I live. I've got space, I can breathe, I've got the room I need. Is it pretty much home to work and back home, or do you hang out in the city much? Back home! Dragging him into the city for something is like pulling teeth. I have to stay in every now and then and do something in the evenings and if it's late, I'll just stay in town overnight because it's an hour-and-a-half commute in any sort of traffic, so I just get a hotel right down the street. I don't care how long it takes me, I prefer driving in that driveway. The raccoons are there, the deer are there, the birds in the morning, and it keeps my sanity. Do you take the train or drive? I drive! Me! Behind the wheel! I'm one of these who gets carsick if someone drives me around too much, so I couldn't read in the back of a car. And too many people on the train in the morning is not my idea of how to start the day. I like my quiet time, and once I discovered books on tape, which are the greatest things since sliced bread, I'm perfectly content. I keep four or five books in the back of the car and just listen. Do you get stopped much out and about? No, but when you are it's lovely, because people usually come up to say they like something that you did. It's hard to get upset about that. When you first went to CNN, was it a shock when that started happening? It was interesting because at CNN, I would have more people stop me overseas in international airports, because that was their source of American news, than I would here at home. So if you ever needed an ego boost you'd just go overseas. That's right! Walk into the Singapore Airport and everyone would recognize you! Do you think you're in New York for the long haul? Yeah, I think so. Usually once a day I say I'm going to Montana to raise horses, but other than that, yeah, I love what I'm doing. I love my home. I've re-created my bit of Texas up there. Everything's great. By Avrel Seale,
|
||
 |
 |