Pioneers of Thirteen

The ’60s

Chie Witt — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 18:30:28 +0000

Find out how it all began 50 years ago. This is the first episode of Pioneers of THIRTEEN, a very special documentary chronicling the history of THIRTEEN, starting with our inaugural broadcast in 1962.

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Frank Jacoby & Doris Storm

Chie Witt — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 19:19:43 +0000

In 1948, Frank and Doris Jacoby were hired to put Channel 13 (then commercial station WATV) on the air. One year later, Frank Jacoby left to become a network director at NBC, and in 1954, he went on to run the Metropolitan Educational Television Association’s (META) educational television facility, WNET’s precursor. Frank helped build a studio and produce programs such as teaching sessions for languages like Russian and French; a program on the history of theater, and one on linguistics. His work at META earned him the coveted Sherwood Award. META ran out of funding and decided to close down in 1959 until more could be raised. After META closed, Frank joined the United Nations to film for Alistair Cooke. In 1965 he founded Jacoby/Storm Productions in Westport, which still produces TV documentaries and films for major corporations.

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Jim Lehrer

Chie Witt — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 18:09:00 +0000

Jim Lehrer began working with PBS in the early 1970s, where he helped bring controversial programs like VD Blues to air. In 1975 helped develop and co-anchored The MacNeil/Lehrer Report with Robert MacNeil, first covering the Watergate Hearings. The news program became the Jim Lehrer NewsHour in 1995 when Robert MacNeil left the program. In 2011, Lehrer announced he was stepping down from his post as anchor but would continue to moderate the Friday news analysis segments and be involved with the show’s production company, MacNeil/Lehrer Productions.

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Sam Pollard

Chie Witt — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 18:37:50 +0000

In 1972, Sam Pollard attended the WNET Training School, where he learned the ins and outs of filmmaking and editing. Since then, he has produced numerous films and documentaries for public television, including The Children’s Television Workshop’s 3-2-1 Contact; Style Wars; American Experience: Goin’ Back to T-Town; and American Masters films John Ford/John Wayne: The Filmmaker and The Legend and Marvin Gaye: What’s Going On. A long-time collaborator with Spike Lee, Pollard has won multiple Emmy Awards, George Foster Peabody Awards, the George Polk Award, and more.

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Bill Moyers

Chie Witt — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 21:04:51 +0000

Bill Moyers worked with the Kennedy and Johnson Administration as the White House Press Secretary and was present when the Carnegie Commission was created and when the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 was signed into law. When Moyers stepped down from his position at the White House, Fred Friendly approached him to join public broadcasting – Moyers agreed and hosted the news program Bill Moyers’ Journal from 1971 to 1981. Other public affairs series that Moyers and his production company Public Affairs Television have produced includes Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth, Healing and the Mind, and NOW with Bill Moyers.

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Richard Heffner

Chie Witt — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 20:58:56 +0000

In 1961, Richard Heffner played a leading role in the acquisition and activation of Channel Thirteen, New York’s first public broadcasting station. He was the station’s founding General Manager until 1963, when he left to establish Richard Heffner Associates, Inc., a communications consulting firm. Heffner is also the founder, producer, and host of Richard Heffner’s Open Mind, which first broadcast in May of 1956. Heffner was present for the Thirteen’s opening night broadcast strike and the origination of the station’s “wise old owl” logo, created by Academy Award-winning animator John Hubley.

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Robert MacNeil

Chie Witt — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 20:53:33 +0000

One of the first issues Robert MacNeil covered for public television was the Senate Watergate Hearings in 1973 with Jim Lehrer – they produced live and uninterrupted footage of the hearings for 47 days and nights. The success of this coverage led to the creation of the Robert MacNeil Report on NET in 1975, which later became the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour in 1983. This was the country’s first full-hour evening news program. The program has won numerous awards, and in 1999 MacNeil was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame. MacNeil retired from the NewsHour in 1995, but continued working with MacNeil/Lehrer Productions and has appeared on-air in various PBS segments, including reporting on the September 11th terrorist attacks and hosting America at a Crossroads.

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Stuart Sucherman

Bijan Rezvani — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 14:33:59 +0000

In his time at the station, Stuart Sucherman helped arrange the merger of WNDT and NET in 1970, was involved in issues of New Jersey public television coverage (which led to the production of the New Jersey Nightly News program), and co-produced 51st State. Sucherman later helped create PBS as a distribution organization, was the Director of Business Affairs for Public Television Broadcast Laboratory and Sesame Workshop, and was involved in the inception of the Fred Friendly Seminars where he co-created, wrote, and produced more than 100 hours of programming on public policy issues for PBS. Previously, he worked at the Ford Foundation and fought for the concept of block grants, which allowed stations to create programs using their own creativity, sensitive to their own communities.

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Eugene Aleinikoff

Bijan Rezvani — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 18:47:02 +0000

Eugene Aleinikoff was the first General Counsel of WNET. He was there at the inception of THIRTEEN, which started off as a commercial station in Newark, NJ, owned by a department store. He was involved in the formation of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and the Educational Broadcasting Corporation (EBC). Aleinikoff was also present for the merger of WNDT and NET in 1970, which eventually became WNET.

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William Ellinghaus

Bijan Rezvani — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 22:14:52 +0000

After retiring as President and Chief Operating Officer at AT&T, William Ellinghaus served as the Chairman of the WNET Board of Trustees from 1984 to 1990. During that time, he was also the Executive Vice-Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. During his time at WNET, the decision to hire Bill Baker as President was made and programming such as The Brain, American Masters, Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth, and Art of the Western World were created. When he took on the role as Chairman of WNET, his friends looked up to him because he “took the time to help one of the finest public television stations in the nation.”

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