ALVIN SNYDER

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I began my career in broadcasting as a desk assistant at CBS News in New York. I was a "gofor," going for coffee on the overnight shift, changing paper in some 15 teletype machines, and writing practice news scripts to hopefully impress CBS News editors, correspondents and management. One morning a snowstorm delayed anchorman Harry Reasoner from getting to work on time, and I wrote most of his morning news broadcast. That led to my being hired as a vacation replacement news writer, and several months later I was put on staff. For the next several years I worked with two of the top editors at CBS News, Ed Bliss and John Merriman, during heady times, when CBS was known as the "Tiffany" network.

I wrote TV and radio news broadcasts for CBS News correspondents including Harry Reasoner, Richard C. Hottelet, Robert Trout, Ned Calmer, Dallas Townsend, Douglas Edwards, and others.

Eventually I became a news editor, then an executive news editor of CBS News and executive producer. During my 11 years at CBS, I was also the executive news producer for WCBS-TV, New York, the flagship station of the CBS TV Network. There, we enjoyed a multi-year run as New York City's most watched news station, due largely to the talents of news director Lee Hanna, and assistant news director, Sheldon Hoffman.

I was particularly pleased to win a Grammy, together with CBS News President Fred W. Friendly and Sheldon Hoffman, for putting together the now classic two-volume Columbia Records album, "Edward R. Murrow: A Reporter Remembers - the War Years." It won the Grammy as the "Best Spoken Word, Documentary or Dramatic Recording" of 1966. Several documentaries that I produced or co-produced were made into record albums by CBS/Columbia Records.

One day at a luncheon in New York, Bob Wood, then President of the CBS-TV Network, remarked that a friend of his, Herb Klein, was looking for a TV expert to help him and the new President, Richard Nixon, at the White House. Bob said he was especially impressed with a broadcast I produced that he had watched the night before featuring news correspondents reflecting on the year's top news events. Bob said his friend, Herb Klein, was looking for a TV news executive to help him put together the first White House Office of Communications, to better manage the information flow from the Executive Branch of government.

The idea of such an experience from within the White House captured my imagination. I agreed to see Herb Klein, who came to New York to chat and a few days later he called to offer me a job.

It didn't take long to develop so-called "Potomac fever," working at the center of the action. It was a great job, and before I knew it I was in for the long haul.

Working directly with Herb Klein, the director of the newly-minted White House Office of Communications, I supervised the placement of White House and Executive Branch spokespersons on national and local TV and radio news and public affairs broadcasts. I also served on White House task forces to determine White House recommendations on the growth of cable television, and public television.

I went on to become Special Assistant to the President, visiting more than 20 countries as a member of the Presidential advance team that set up the various aspects of the President's trips abroad and within the U.S. Overseas I was a member of the official U.S. diplomatic delegation at meetings with host country representatives to coordinate media coverage of the President.

In Washington, I was the White House press office liaison with the network TV news bureaus on coverage of the President's Oval Office addresses to the nation. The most famous broadcast, of course, was President Nixon's speech to the nation August 8, 1974, when he announced his intention to resign as President, and I was one of a handful of staff in the Oval Office for that speech. I wrote an article about that event for TV Guide which I've posted on this web site. The article was entitled, "The Final Minutes."

Immediately following the President's televised speech and throughout the night I worked with Vice President Ford's team and the CBS News crew, whose turn it was to "pool" the White House news events for the broadcast networks. This included President Nixon's televised farewell address to his staff from the White House's East Room, followed by Vice President Gerald Ford's swearing in as President. I managed those TV events as the White House Press Office liaison with the TV networks.

I remained on the White House staff two months into the Ford administration during a transition period, turning the reigns over to President Ford's new TV adviser, Bob Meade. I became a TV producer at the U.S. Information Agency. Among the projects I worked on was a monthly series of 35 mm theatrical vignettes about America entitled "Vision," a half-hour film shown throughout the world in movie theaters. I also served as executive producer of an international Bicentennial TV broadcast carried in multiple languages by television networks abroad.

Next to the Mid-West for 6 years, as executive news producer of the NBC network's owned-and-operated TV station in Chicago, WMAQ-TV, and as news director of WLWT-TV, Cincinnati. I returned to the U.S. Information Agency in 1982 as the Director of the TV and Film Service.

At the USIA I headed a worldwide organization involved in news and information TV and film production, program acquisition and satellite delivery systems. The worldwide interactive television network, Worldnet, that we inaugurated in 1983 was called by the Washington Post "The Jewel in the Crown" of President Reagan's international public diplomacy efforts. During a six and one-half year period I traveled to some 300 locations throughout the world where we installed satellite TV facilities and promoted joint TV ventures.

It was during this period that the U.S. and the Soviet Union were competing for the hearts and minds that I write about in "Warriors of Disinformation." I wrote the book as a Senior Fellow at the Annenberg Washington Program in Communication Policy Studies.

In the private sector I have introduced satellite communication techniques for getting information into commercial TV news broadcasts in the U.S. and abroad. With my former program chief from the USIA, Jay Garfinkel, I set up a national TV satellite news feed service called the Modern Maturity TV News Service, for the American Association of Retired Persons. I also introduced the concept of video news releases (video versions of press releases)and satellite media tours (touring the country by satellite in a couple of hours rather than by conventional means for days or weeks). For some 15 years, my company produced more than 150 television projects for the National Geographic Society.

I am now a Senior Fellow at the University of Southern California's Center on Public Diplomacy. I write a "WorldCasting" column each week,

http://www.uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php?/newsroom/worldcast_main

which is devoted to international broadcasting and its use in the practice of public diplomacy. My columns on Al Jazeera and other regional and international broadcasters have been carried by English language dailies in the Middle East including the Middle East Times, and Arab News and the Jordan Times.

I'm a member of the Authors Guild, the Writers Guild of America, The National Press Club, the Federal City Club, and the Radio-TV News Directors Association.