WNET/THIRTEEN just celebrated a half-century on the air, the last seven years of them with Neal Shapiro at its helm. And he came out fighting: One of his first projects was 2007’s acclaimed “The New York War Stories Project,” which included a website in which WWII vets uploaded videos and stories about their experiences during the war. Shapiro’s own battles were at NBC News, where, he says, “If the entertainment division had a hard time, the news division had to pay for it.” Before that, he worked at ABC. Does he ever miss the networks? “Maybe on busy news days, for an eighth of a second,” he concedes, “but I don’t miss having a pit in my stomach twice a day when the ratings come out.” Here’s what’s in this newsman’s library.
The Cocktail Waitress
by James M. Cain
Drafts of this book were found after Cain died. It’s about a young mother whose husband dies and who works as a cocktail waitress to make ends meet. She’s sexy and men come on to her. It’s what makes film noir interesting: people forced to make tough decisions.
The Women Who Wrote the War
by Nancy Caldwell Sorel
I love reading about WWII and books about journalism and my wife [ABC’s Juju Chang] is a reporter, so it’s everything I’m interested in. These women were incredibly gutsy. Many were pushed aside by editors who said, “I don’t need a girl to cover this story.” But they got scoops men didn’t. When Hemingway decided he wanted to cover the war, Martha Gellhorn got to Normandy before he did.
A Wilderness of Error
by Errol Morris
It’s the story of Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald, the Green Beret physician accused of killing his family. I remember reading Joe McGinniss’ book about it, “Fatal Vision,” but Morris shows what doesn’t fit and takes [that book] apart. I now think MacDonald didn’t do it.
Cronkite
by Douglas Brinkley
I started at ABC the year Walter Cronkite retired from CBS. Even then people talked about him with awe. Brinkley’s a fabulous writer, and though I knew a lot about Cronkite, there were surprises. He once lost a job because he didn’t want to go with a story with only one source: He wanted all the facts. As good as the current crop of anchors are, there’s no one of his stature.