November 11, 1999: Brokaw battles 'Baby'

November 11, 1999
New York Post

Neal Travis’ New York

INTERVIEW TAB-LED

WHILE network news organizations have adopted many tabloid-TV practices, they don't like to admit it - and certainly don't want anyone getting air time to talk about the way standards have changed. Burt Kearns, in town to launch his book, "Tabloid Baby," just learned the power of establishment television.

Kearns was scheduled the other evening to do John Gibson's MSNBC show, talking about the way the tab stars of "A Current Affair" outperformed traditional news anchors - including NBC's Tom Brokaw - at the tumbling of the Berlin Wall 10 years ago.

Kearns was pre-interviewed and the cable channel arranged a limo to take him to their studios over in New Jersey. Just an hour before the car arrived, they canceled him. He was told Brokaw - who has his own memoir to plug and who regards the news very seriously - was taking his place.

NY Times: A Current Affair at the Berlin Wall

The New York Times solicited readers' photos and recollections of the fall of The Berlin Wall. Among them was the encapsulation of the groundbreaking and singular tabloid television coverage by the producers and host of A Current Affair, as recounted in the book Tabloid Baby:

"Brandenburg Gate, East Berlin — On the night of Thursday, Nov. 9, a contingent of producers and correspondents from A Current Affair boarded a rented jet at Teterboro Airport bound for Berlin, where we crashed the network party. Maury Povich borrowed Peter Jennings' perch to report live from the Brandenbeug Gate while Dan Rather flew around in a cherrypicker above him. The next day, Maury reported from the Eastern side of the Brandenburg Gate. Then we commandeered a Mercedes and drove into the forests of East Germany to reunite two brothers, one who owned a small sugar plant there, and the other we had 'kidnapped' the night before from a tavern on the Upper East Side. As told in the chapter "Achtung, Baby!" from the book, Tabloid Baby."

EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT! "ACHTUNG, BABY!" TABLOID TELEVISION AT THE BERLIN WALL ... READ THE ENTIRE CHAPTER HERE

Tabloid Baby excerpt: November 9, 1989

"Thursday, November 9, 1989, was a pretty rough day. I went home without hitting the bar, ordered some Japanese food from Obento Delight around the corner and was settling in to watch some television when the phone rang. It was Wayne.

"'Get down to the Fortune Garden, mate. They're tearin' down the Berlin Wall! Communism's over and the place is going fackin' nuts...'"

That night, a group of Germans made history and a group of tabloid television foot soldiers from A Current Affair changed the face of television news.

In this exclusive excerpt from Tabloid Baby on the tenth anniversary of its publication, you will see how.

Click the page images to enlarge each page.