Story Frame 44 – Hey Mikey!

After the success of my work on The Face, Anne and Lisa, the program marketing team at WNET, decided to give me another project they didn’t want to work on themselves.

Who Cares was a one-hour special produced by the Fred Friendly Seminars, a production team housed at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. Founded in 1912 by Joseph Pulitzer, it’s one of the oldest journalism schools in the world.

In 1966, Fred Friendly, former president of CBS News, was appointed to the tenured faculty at Columbia as the Edward R. Murrow Professor of Broadcast Journalism. For the next thirteen years, he pioneered the university’s threadbare broadcast journalism program.

Inspired by his classroom discussions, Fred had the thought to create seminars on media, law, and public policy. These eventually evolved into PBS's long-running Fred Friendly Seminars, a collection of more than one hundred PBS programs. Using the Socratic method, a dialogue based on hypothetical situations was created between individuals in order to stimulate problem-solving conversations.

The Seminars invited PBS viewers to ponder solutions to hypothetical dilemmas drawn from real scenarios facing Americans., from affirmative action to health care and end-of-life issues, energy policies, bioterrorism, and ethical issues. Fred was famous for saying that the only escape was to think your way through these problems.

The latest one, titled Who Cares, was moderated by journalist John Hockenberry and featured a group of individuals, each of whom had experience in some aspect of chronic illness – from doctors and insurance professionals to patients and caregivers. Through a series of hypothetical scenarios in which each panelist was asked to play a particular role to get conversation going and people thinking, the program was written to raise provocative questions about the way America's fastest-growing health care challenge was financed, managed and delivered.

Are you still with me?

Who Cares was a wonderful opportunity to work on an iconic series with a legendary production team. Especially for someone currently unemployed, it was a dream come true.

The problem was I nearly fell asleep watching it.

I wanted to work with everyone involved and I certainly needed the work, but the program (in my mind, at least) didn’t have the compelling energy needed to capture a television audience’s attention.

I was not alone in my opinion. Nobody on the WNET staff was in a hurry to jump on the phone and ask their colleagues at PBS stations all over the country to air this. So, they passed it down the metaphorical table to me.

In 1972, Quaker Oats Company came up with a commercial designed to re-energize sales for “Life” – the little brown squares of cereal they’d created eleven years earlier. In the commercial – now considered a classic of American advertising – two little boys are discussing the cereal in a bowl set in front of them.

“What’s this stuff?” one asks.

“Some cereal,” his brother responds disparagingly. “It’s supposed to be good for you.”

“Are you going to try it?” the first brother asks.

“I'm not gonna try it!” the second brother responds. “You try it!"

They push the bowl back and forth, each refusing to eat the cereal. Then they come up with an idea.

“Let’s get Mikey to try it!” one says, as he passes the bowl along to the youngest of the three, thinking he won’t eat it either. The two watch closely as, to their great surprise, little Mikey begins spooning the cereal into his mouth.

“He likes it!’ they shout. “Hey Mikey!”

I could just imagine Anne and Lisa watching Who Cares and saying back and forth to one another, "I'm not gonna promote it—you promote it!"

At some point, a light bulb went off and one of them said, “I know, let’s give it to Kristin!”

I had the feeling I had become “Mikey.”

I had no work or income at the time. The mortgage and all my other monthly bills were due. I needed this project, and I very much needed it to be a success – not only for the program itself, but also for my fledgling consulting gig in public television.

And so, I said, “Sure, I’ll give it a try.”

Then I got to work.

The content was important and being offered free of charge (as many programs are) to all the other PBS stations. It was also coming from two reputable sources: WNET & the Fred Friendly Seminars.

The previous FFS seminar, however, had reached just 18% of the US – a low bar indeed. I figured I could at least improve on that number, even with this program.

But what would it take to pull that off?

Mulling over potential strategies, I reminded myself of advice I’d given to the film school graduates and others who occasionally called or showed up at the documentary workshop, wondering how they could break into the business.

“Forget about the degree,” I told them. “I don’t even have one. There’s a quicker and much less expensive way to work in film & television.” (Of course, this was based solely upon a study of exactly one person (me) – but still, I had a lot of confidence in it.)

“And forget the want ads and job openings. There will be dozens if not hundreds of people applying for the same job. Instead, decide first where you want to work. Is it at the BBC? Discovery Channel? National Geographic? Whatever it is, go there and ask to be an unpaid intern. Then, in your off hours, pick up a side hustle bartending or working as a barista, a server, whatever, so you have money to pay your bills.

“Once you’re on the inside of the organization you want to work for, figure out what nobody else wants to do – and do that task, even if you don’t like it. Then, do a very good job at it!”

“This teaches people to rely upon you. Eventually, when a job opening does come up, you’re already on the inside of the organization and at the front of the line of applicants. It’s an added bonus that the ones hiring already know what it’s like to work with you.”

I have the feeling that most did not take my advice. That’s okay. I had tried to live it myself with the whole “Kissing the Leper” thing and, so far, it had worked.

And now, here I was again, being asked to work on another PBS project no one else wanted to work on. Ironically, it was called Who Cares?

What it would take, I soon realized, would be for the decision-makers at PBS stations not to watch the program.

From previous project marketing experiences, I was already well aware that many programmers, faced with more programs to air on their stations than they actually had room for in their schedules, often made a decision based on screening just the first five minutes of a program.

That could work to our advantage, I thought. But not the first five minutes of this program. I had my work cut out for me. But I also had an idea.

I suggested to the team that rather than sending out the usual copy of the actual program on a VHS tape to all the PBS stations, we instead produce a special screener. One in which the first five minutes would be carefully crafted to be more interesting than the program itself.

I don’t know what Anne and Lisa actually thought of my idea, but they supported it enough to set up a meeting with the production team. I was introduced to Fred Friendly Seminars’ husband and wife team – president Richard Kilberg and executive director Barbara Margolis – as well as Ruth Friendly, Fred’s widow and the director of the Seminars.

Outlining my concept, I suggested the producers bring the show’s moderator, John Hockenberry back into the studio to tape what is called a “stand-up.”

Stand-up is when a reporter appears on camera and delivers information speaking directly to the audience. (Although this is a normal television term, I tried to use it as tactfully as possible, given Hockenberry would actually be doing it while sitting in the wheelchair he’s used ever since an automobile accident at nineteen left him unable to walk.)

I also suggested he break what is called the “fourth wall” by looking directly at the camera, therefore appearing to speak directly to each PBS programmer. It’s a technique often used to engage and connect to an audience (one that would be used very effectively in future productions of the American version of “The Office.”)

In this case, Hockenberry himself would appear to be speaking directly to each PBS programmer, telling them why the content of this special was vitally important to their viewers.

Following his appeal, Hockenberry would then invite PBS programmers to let the tape role in order to see a compilation of the highlights so they would get a quick idea of the content. Strategically, these would be the best and most engaging bits carefully culled from the program. But of course, we didn’t say that.

“If you’d like to watch the full program start to finish,” Hockenberry would then say, “you can fast forward ahead to minute 7:35 and watch from there.”

I was betting few people would do that and would instead watch just the highlights.

To my surprise, the production team agreed to the plan. They asked me to write the Hockenberry script and come up with an edit plan for the highlights complete with the relevant time codes.

Both pleased and nervous they were going with my idea, I wrote a draft script. Hockenberry came back into the studio for the taping while Ruth and I worked on the highlights reel. Eventually, everything was edited together in the new format. VHS tapes were produced and sent out to PBS stations all over the country and Who Cares was launched.

Two weeks after the tapes went out, I held my breath as I picked up the phone and began calling PBS stations to see how the program was being received.

“Well, if that isn’t the most appropriate title for a public television show,” a program director in a top market responded sardonically when I called to ask his thoughts on the program.

Others were kinder, however, and despite its lackluster title, the unusual presentation and format worked. To my great relief, I was able to get Who Cares on the air throughout more than 65% of the US – a huge improvement on the previous FFS program’s 18%.

Key to this success was making it about others, however, not myself. In addition to what I thought was a more effective strategy for the film, uppermost in mind for me was having the producers’ backs. The strategy had to be more than just a good idea, it had to be one that would support their vision; one that would make them – not me – look good. After all, it was their names on the broadcast, not mine.

Paying attention to my own instincts and having the courage to voice them resulted in a successful national roll-out, which in turn led to more work with both WNET and the Fred Friendly Seminars, as well as long lasting personal friendships with Barbara, Richard and Ruth.

Unlikely as he was as a role model, little Mikey has stayed in my head ever since as a reminder to try projects nobody else wants and find something tasty and appealing in them.

Even at the age of three, Mikey had his own opinions. I wasn’t three, but I was the most junior person experience-wise involved in this project. And like Mikey, I had my own thoughts and opinions. Had I not voiced them, it’s quite likely this program would have under-performed and my career in public television would have ended with it.

What to read next … Story Frame 45 – The House in Teakettle Village & Other Adventures on the Mosquito Coast

[Who cares? I do. And because I don’t have a better photo to illustrate this story, here’s a tongue-in-cheek photo of me “giving a fork.” Taken at Corsier-sur-Vevey on the Swiss Riviera in Switzerland, 2009]

Kristin Fellows is a published artisan writer, a world traveler, and a well-seasoned documentary film consultant. This tale comes to you from a small farming village in Portugal, where she is still surprised to find herself living.

When not writing, Kristin can often be found listening to someone’s story or behind the lens of one of her cameras.

More about Kristin @ kristinfellowswriter.com