Audition (101 page)

Diane and I struggled to figure out what to do, especially when we were competing for the same newsmaker or celebrity for our respective newsmagazines. We each had a booker to help pave the way with a potential guest’s lawyers, press agents, and other handlers. Then we would come in for the last round of phone calls or meetings. Our bookers were notoriously competitive. Diane and I were more polite. We would say something like this to the press agents: “I hope you will do the interview with me. If not, I hope you will do it with my colleague [Barbara or Diane],” whatever the case might be. We were out for the kill ourselves, but if we didn’t get the interview, we didn’t want one of the other networks to get it.

We were both so successful on our newsmagazines that, although most people don’t remember this, in September 1998, the year before Diane started to appear on
GMA
, ABC put us on as cohosts on a Sunday-night edition of
20/20.
The network figured if one of us was good, two would be better. But although we enjoyed working together instead of competing, our hearts weren’t in it. We were keeping our best stories for our own programs. The Sunday program died within a year. It was also decided that instead of
Prime Time
and
20/20
being two separate newsmagazines, they would merge into two nights of the more successful
20/20.
The staffs would also merge, but Diane and I would each still anchor on our own night. It was an awful time. The producers couldn’t figure out which pieces should go on which nights, and in spite of having the same name, the programs were still competing. We hadn’t taken lemons and made lemonade. We’d taken lemonade and made lemons.

The dual
20/20
s lasted just two years. When David Westin took over from Roone as president of the News Division we went back to two separate shows,
Prime Time
and
20/20.
By that time Hugh Downs had retired from
20/20
to live in Arizona. When Hugh left, I had a new partner, John Miller. John was ABC’s crack investigative reporter. He also, among all of us, was the only person to have interviewed Osama bin Laden. I adored John. He was so smart and funny, but our partnership was short-lived. John gave up the fame and money of broadcasting to move to Los Angeles and join the L.A.P.D.’s chief, William Bratton, as bureau chief for the Counter-Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau. Currently John is assistant director of public affairs for the FBI in Washington. After John left, I was fortunate to have another John, John Stossel, as my new partner. John and I had worked together for so many years on
20/20
that it was an easy transition. But usually neither John nor Charlie, Diane’s partner on both
Prime Time
and
GMA
, went after the “gets.” Those were left more often to Diane and me.

There was one more wrinkle. Roone, in his ever-expanding desire to hire all the best talent, had persuaded Connie Chung to leave CBS, where she had been paired with Dan Rather on the evening news. Their duet in 1993 was as big a failure as the combination of Harry Reasoner and me years before. Roone promised Connie an anchor job, which put her in the position of competing with not one but two other female anchors, Diane and me.

I was and am very fond of Connie, and it couldn’t have been easy for her. Whenever she wanted to go after a “get,” she was told that Diane or I had first dibs. Connie’s big coup was the first interview with Gary Condit, the congressman alleged to have been involved in the disappearance and presumed murder of Chandra Levy, an intern in Washington. But she had to struggle to get any other important interviews and she was understandably unhappy. Soon after her Condit piece, CNN offered her a job. David Westin, with great relief, I think, released her from her ABC contract.

So Connie left, but that didn’t really help the situation between
GMA, Prime Time
, and
20/20.
Finally, in desperation, Westin assigned a conscientious arbitrator named Kerry Smith to make the choice as to who should go after which interview. It was a thankless job for her, and a particularly difficult setup for me. Kerry Smith’s theory was that whoever seemed to have been working on the story earlier should be the one to whom it would be assigned. Diane not only had her bookers on
Prime Time
but another whole set of bookers on
Good Morning America.
They booked both short-term and long-term. I also knew that in the early-morning competition, it was more important for the daily
GMA
to score a big “get” than for the weekly
20/20.
I was running as fast as I could, but it seemed to me it was an uneven playing field.

Moreover, Diane could offer a guest a package of two or three appearances on
GMA
as well as a more lengthy appearance on
Prime Time.
I didn’t have that option. To make it even more difficult, the
Today
show was doing the same thing. The competition between the two programs was fierce. And my lighthearted daytime program,
The View
, was just not in the league of
GMA, Today
, or the other newsmagazines.

Today, when Diane and I no longer compete, we have a relationship of good humor and affection. I mean that sincerely. Diane is a wonderful reporter, the best. Back then, however, we often found ourselves in that hated competition, and as much as we wanted, there seemed to be nothing we could do about it. We never criticized each other in public or in print, but the conflict was well known inside ABC.

So that was more or less how things stood in 2003. I complained to Jackie about the show almost every time I talked with her. “Why don’t you leave, Mom?” she would say. “You’ve been doing that program for twenty-five years. What else do you have to prove? Leave now while you still feel good about it.” Maybe she was right, I thought. I also sought the advice of Monica Caulfield, my trusted assistant. She, perhaps more than anyone, knew what my schedule was like. I remember her saying, “It’s a great big world out there and it will set you free.” Still, I wasn’t sure. That summer I walked the beach with two wise and close couples, Elizabeth and Felix Rohatyn and Louise and Henry Grunwald, and discussed over and over again my feelings about wanting to give up
20/20.
Felix had been the U.S. ambassador to France. Henry had been, for years, the editor in chief of Time Inc. Both men knew what it was like to leave extremely important and influential positions. Their wives were also very informed and understanding. I could fully explore my conflicted feelings with the four of them.

The View
, then, was like dessert, fun and not hard to do. The
Specials
took time but were in general also fun. Working on
20/20
, on the other hand, seemed debilitating and exhausting. But would I miss it? Would I miss the rare interview with the president or a head of state? Would I, now that I was not on a major news program, miss being seated at some black-tie dinner next to a visiting prime minister? To that I said no. It is usually much more fun
not
to be seated next to a prime minister, especially when he or she speaks no English. But I might not even be invited to the party. As an agent I knew said of one of his clients who had retired, “I love you—and I will miss you.” Moreover, and more important, I realized that I was ending the major part of my career and might have trouble filling my days. Oh, well, I told myself, I can finally learn Spanish, go to museums, travel, and stay in a foreign country for more than one day. I kept walking the beach until I was sure.

Then, in the fall of 2003, David Westin called and asked if he could come to my office and talk. He wanted to tell me of a new plan to make the booking competition between Diane and me less difficult. He was as unhappy with the situation as I was. But by then I had made up my mind. Before he could describe his plan, I stopped him. “No need to tell me,” I said. “Don’t be upset. But I’m leaving
20/20.
” He was stunned, and I realize now that I never did hear what his plan was. But I did tell him
my
plan and my reasons. I asked him to please keep my decision a secret from everyone until I had decided how and when to announce it. I asked him not to tell even Michael Eisner. This was a big thing to ask, but David understood. I think the world of David Westin. He is a man of his word, and his word was all I needed. Then he said, “Whatever you want to do, I just can’t afford to lose you. You are an icon. [Nice to hear, I thought, but there are a lot of icons these days.] You will stay in News. We will work something out.”

And we did. As I had no agent, I asked a brilliant entertainment lawyer, Allen Grubman, to represent me and meet with David to discuss my future at ABC News. True to his word, Westin offered me a new long-term contract and asked if I would agree to do four to five prime-time
Specials
a year. These would include the two very popular hours I had been doing for so many years,
10 Most Fascinating People
and the Academy Award
Special.
The others would be mutually agreed to. As it has turned out, in the years since I left
20/20
, I have also done three extremely highly rated and controversial noncelebrity
Specials
—one on transgender children who consider themselves born into the wrong bodies, and two others, one on the question of the existence of heaven, and the other on the new science of longevity, leading to the search to live to beyond a hundred
.
(I am planning to do that myself. Where are my vitamins?) David also asked me to continue to contribute commentary when a president, head of state, or important celebrity whom I’d interviewed, died. From time to time, he said, I might also be asked to do an interview for a
Special
if it was deemed very important. (This would be the case for my interviews in France with the doctor of the woman who had the first face transplant after her dog mauled her, and the hour with Terri Irwin in Australia.) I also contributed to the coverage of the funerals of Presidents Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford.

I agreed to continue to do this kind of reporting and signed the contract. Forget the language lessons, forget the museums. I would still have a full plate but, on the other hand, I would be out of the daily competition. What a great relief that has turned out to be.

We decided that although I would make the announcement of my leaving
20/20
a few months later in January 2004, I would continue on the program until September so that I could launch the person who would take my place. David Westin chose Elizabeth Vargas, a fine reporter.

When January came I called Bill Carter and said I wanted to speak to him confidentially. Bill had done quite a few stories on me in the past, including a 1992
New York Time
s
Magazine
cover story. I wanted to release my statement in the most dignified way, so I gave my news to him as an exclusive. The day before the article was to appear, David Westin told Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Schneider, the ABC News vice president who oversees communication.

The next morning, Carter’s column appeared on the front page of the
New York Times
Business Section. When I finally saw my words in print I felt both scared and relieved. My twenty-five years on
20/20
, the mainstay of my career, were over. I had done the deed, and I was on to a new and uncharted course of my life.

I thought my colleagues would not be surprised. They knew how heavy a workload I had and how I struggled over the “gets.” Certainly, I thought, my executive producer, David Sloan, knew. I would really miss working with David. He was my friend as well as extremely talented at his job. But, as it turned out, neither he nor anyone on the staff had any idea. As soon as I arrived in my office, I hastily called the staff together. Some were in tears (perhaps because they were also concerned about losing their jobs; David Sloan and I assured them this would not happen). Most just hugged me and asked that I do my last story or any future stories with them. I loved my producers. We had worked very closely together, preparing and editing. I was very hands-on. Some of them had worked only with me all these years on the program. I promised to keep my hand in and do stories for
20/20
now and then. It was an extremely emotional meeting.

That fall ABC News presented a two-hour retrospective
Special
of my work called
25 on 20/20.
It was painstakingly produced by Martin Clancy, who had worked with me on so many interviews and reports for so many years. Martin chose highlights from each of the twenty-five years and each category of interview. There were the heads of state, the politicians, the human interest stories, the murderers, alleged or convicted, the celebrities, the famous and the infamous. It was a list, culled from hundreds of interviews, that even surprised me. I was very proud of the program, which aired September 17, 2004.

After I left
20/20
, the show underwent somewhat of a change. My departure made it even more difficult for the program to attract the big “gets.” The format often turned instead to theme programs, with one subject being investigated or analyzed for an hour. John Stossel did a whole series of programs looking at myths about things we fear but shouldn’t. There were also hours on subjects like hate, lust, happiness, and greed. The program still ran important interviews but less often with big stars or world leaders. Those super “gets” more and more went to Oprah or to Diane for
Good Morning America.
Even so
20/20
still continues and is an important and valuable program.

Once I announced that I was leaving, I was deluged with requests for interviews and invitations to be honored by this or that organization. It was like reading my own obituary. I hadn’t retired from television, but it looked as if I had. I turned down all the so-called honors and most of the interviews. I thought the “exit” interview I had done for the
New York Times
said it all. The interviews I did do were with Oprah, one for her magazine
O
and one for her television program. As I have written, Oprah is one of the people I could interview again and again. Now the tables were turned and she wanted to interview me.