Al Primo & His Eyewitness News Revolution takes you back to the early days of television news to hear the behind-the-scenes stories of its revolution from the people who were there. I highly recommend the film to everybody, especially those in the TV news business.
Everyone who’s made a living in local TV since the 1960s owes a debt of gratitude to Al Primo, who transformed local TV news and made it a successful and profitable business.
In a new hour-long documentary, Al Primo & His Eyewitness News Revolution, by Brian Calfano, a journalism professor at University of Cincinnati, Calfano traces the seismic changes Primo made in local TV news when he came on the scene in the 1960s.
Primo’s revolution, branded as Eyewitness News, is still the foundation of how local TV news has been practiced since, to one degree or another.
“Eyewitness News set a national standard that still stands today,” says John Johnson, a reporter who Primo hired at WABC New York in 1972. Johnson did the voice-over narration for the documentary. “It is very accurate,” Johnson says. “I enjoyed watching it myself.”
In the 1960’s, what viewers typically saw when they watched local TV news was older white men sitting at an anchor desk in the studio. What viewers didn’t see? Women doing the news. Or Black men, Black women or Hispanics doing the news. Or reporters in the field doing the news.
Marciarose Shestak says back then she was told, “A woman will do news over my dead body. They are not authority figures, and they don’t have good voices.”
Then came Primo, and Shestak became the first woman news anchor in a major market. “Al Primo was my news director and he revolutionized television news reporting for all time,” Shestak says.
“You can never underestimate the impact he had in the integration of television news,” says Geraldo Rivera, a reporter at WABC in New York that Primo put on the news.
“Primo had an extraordinary idea that changed television news forever,” says Pat Ciarrocchi, a former anchor for Primo at KYW Eyewitness News, who also co-produced the documentary with Calfano.
He had two extraordinary ideas that changed television news. One was the diversity Primo brought to local TV news viewers.
“One of the great things he did at WABC was he hired people who reflected America,” Johnson says. “And this was one of the things about Eyewitness News that was so historic. It brought about integration in the television news industry. You have to give him credit for that.”
And the second extraordinary idea Primo brought to local TV news?
It might seem so obvious to news viewers today, but Primo “sent reporters out into the field and let them tell their stories on the air,” Shestak says.
“When the Eyewitness format came around, it put that reporter out in the field to see first-hand and report first-hand back to the viewers,” says Chuck Maulden, Griffin Media’s VP of content. “That is so valuable because when they report on the air what they see, the viewer gets a first-hand look at everything.”
In the early days of local TV news, everything was shot on film, including reporters’ stories in the field and it took some doing to get the film back to the station so it could be developed and edited.
“You had to have a courier rush the film back to the studio,” Johnson says. “I can’t tell you how many times I got on the back of the motorcycle with the courier and sped back to WABC.” Without a helmet, he adds. “Exciting, but a little dangerous.”
The documentary began as an idea for an academic article when Calfano contacted Primo in May of 2022 to interview him on camera.
After that interview, Calfano realized the importance of Primo’s story and that he should make it into a documentary because “no one’s ever done anything about him and his story and his contributions,” he says.
Primo was thrilled with the idea, Calfano says.
Calfano needed a second interview, but Primo had cancer and “and I never had a chance to do anything more with him except that [one] interview.” Primo died in September 2022.
NOTE: If you’ve never heard Al Primo’s story or even if you think you have, Al Primo & His Eyewitness News Revolution, takes you back to the early days of television news to hear the behind-the-scenes stories of its revolution from the people who were there. I highly recommend the film to everybody, especially those in the TV news business.
Al Primo & His Eyewitness News Revolution, debuted at WABC’s studio on May 2. After the film, John Johnson and Geraldo Rivera, key players in the revolution launched by Primo, held a short Q&A.
The film has been shown at various film and documentary festivals, where it’s winning awards for best documentary.
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