Natalie Jacobson - Every Life a Story: Natalie Jacobson Reporting

Contents

Every Life a Story

Every Life a Story

Natalie Jacobson Reporting

By Natalie Jacobson

Peter E. Randall Publisher

Portsmouth, New Hampshire

2022

2022 Natalie Salatich Jacobson

ISBN: 978-1-942155-45-4

ebook ISBN: 978-1-942155-46-1

Library of Congress Control Number: to come

Published by

Peter E. Randall Publisher

5 Greenleaf Woods Drive, Suite 102

Portsmouth, NH 03801

www.perpublisher.com

Book design: Tim Holtz

Cover photo: Reproduced by permission of WCVB Channel 5 Boston.

Printed in the United States of America

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to quote copyrighted materials:

Excerpt from Freedom of the Press, https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech/freedom-press, copyright 2022 American Civil Liberties Union.

Excerpt from I Want a Wife by Judy Brady, originally published in Ms. December 2027, 1971, reprinted by permission of Maia D. Syfers.

Excerpts from WCVB broadcasts reprinted by permission of WCVB Channel 5 Boston. All rights reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all photos courtesy of Natalie Jacobson.

For

Lindsay Dawn

Olivia and James

Your love is the gift of my life.

Acknowledgments

F irst and foremost, thank you to WCVB-TV and the extraordinarily dedicated and talented people who worked there throughout my thirty-five years at the station (19722007). We were a family that argued, cried, and laughed, and together we defined teamwork. Believing nothing was impossible, we scaled the heights of information and entertainment as no television station in the country did before. Be proud of yourselves.

Thank you, Chet Curtis, my best friend, my co-anchor, my husband. For over two decades we lived as one, and while nothing lasts forever, I treasure what we had.

Thank you, Rob Cocuzzo, for our Sunday review sessions in 2020 when I was first writing this book. Your encouragement was critical to my completing that first draft. You kept saying it was interesting! You gave me courage.

Thank you, Dick Flavin, for reading my early drafts. Your knowledge of baseball and Tip ONeill made those chapters sharper. Your sense as both a reader and writer were a constant guide.

Thank you, Alexis Rizzuto, for your attention to detail and flow. As my editor, you asked questions when something needed clarifying. You gave me the incentive to find a word, a phrase, an example, and as a result, you made the book better for the reader.

Thank you, Lissa Warren, for introducing my book to thousands of people through your professional connections and years of experience. I cannot imagine a publicist with a clearer understanding of what it takes to market a book. Your charm and confidence gave me comfort.

Thank you, Deidre Randall, for agreeing to publish my book. None of the agents who work with the major publishing houses was interested and self-publishing was a daunting thought. But you guided me through the process from copyediting to distribution, to design, to finally a book! Every Life a Story would still be sitting in my computer were it not for you.

And finally, and most importantly, thank you to my mother and father, who by example taught me to appreciate all life has to offer, to be kind to people, to believe anything is possible if you work hard, to believe in God, and always to hold country and family dear.

Contents

R ecently, I hailed a cab at Bostons Logan Airport. The cabbie came over to put my bag in his trunk, then looked at me in disbelief.

Natalie?

Yes.

Oh my God. I cannot believe I have you in my cab. I think of you always. Remember me? I took you to the opening of the Seaport Hotel. And I told you I was Russian and you told me about your family. How is your father? I remember we talked about him and your family coming from Serbia. And your daughter. How is your daughter?

Aaron had so many questions. He didnt wait for answers.

Where have you been? Are you living here in Boston?

He told me about Putin and now, when he goes home to Russia, he says he is afraid even to speak to his friends. He said he is very sad.

As he dropped me off, he said, Im so happy to see you, Natalie.

He took my hand.

When I came from Russia, you were my introduction to America. I watched you every night. You were my friend. Since I dont see you anymore, I have been worried. Now, thanks to tonight, I wont worry anymore. But my, he paused looking for a word, I miss you. Its not the same anymore.

I was overwhelmed, and as I reflected on his passion, I felt anxious. He was telling me he felt abandoned. I had abandoned him.

After forty years in broadcast television, I said goodbye in 2007, and to this day I miss the people with whom I worked and the many thousands of people I never met but with whom I felt a kinship.

I experienced a lifetime connection that has nothing to do with celebrity and everything to do with soul.

In March of 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic found me in a condo I rented for a few months in Florida. In what seemed a nanosecond, we went from a normal life with the economy growing and unemployment at an all-time low to a frightening lockdown. Schools closed. Businesses closed. People were out of work. Men and women were dying in nursing homes, alone. Hospitals were desperate for ventilators and masks and gowns. Suddenly we were living in the eye of an invisible storm. What just happened?

COVID-19, Sars CoV-2, happened. The virus took the world by surprise. It seemed to creep in and then explode.

The Trump Administration fast-tracked the development and approval of a vaccine. Operation Warp Speed knocked years off the normal time to introduce a new vaccine, and, by the time the Biden Administration took over in January of 2021, the country was lining up to get the Pfizer, Moderna, or Johnson & Johnson vaccines. Availability has increased, as have the logistics of getting shots in arms. Surprisingly, many people are refusing the vaccine, which adds another dimension to a virus with which we likely will have to learn to live.

In the middle of a crisis, it can be helpful to look for a silver lining. Amid the fear, the quarantine isolated us and gave us time, time with loved ones, time to think about our lives, our values.

All alone, with nothing to do, I decided to use my time to write this book, which I was sure I would get to someday. Someday had arrived.

When I began working in local television in Boston in 1969, news was in its infancy, maybe early adolescence. It was a learning experience, personally and collectively. During my early years, I quickly saw the importance of the connection between peoples lives and the news they watched and read.

Beginning in the 70s, and before cable and the internet, the vast majority of Americans said they got most of their news from television. One could not overestimate televisions influence and, therefore, responsibility.

We took that responsibility very seriously. The medium was young. We were young. There were few rules, few mentors, which left a lot of room for innovation, experimentation, and soul-searching.

Those of us who worked for WCVB-TV in Boston had a unique environment. We were locally owned by a group of successful Boston men who wanted to create the greatest local station in the history of television. They wanted a station connected to the community, a station which produced innovative new programming to benefit its viewers, a station that honored the medium and the people of New England. Boston Broadcasters Inc. (BBI) fought hard and long to gain the license to accomplish that mission. They won the license and quickly surpassed even their most optimistic promises, creating some sixty hours of new local programming a week and making a ton of money in the process. The