It doesn’t surprise many that Susan Zirinsky, the CBS News producer, was the inspiration for Holly Hunter’s Jane Craig character in Broadcast News.
On a recent Monday afternoon, she was uncharacteristically static for a moment as she stared at a framed poster for Three Days in September, a documentary about the 2004 Chechen terrorist attack on a school in southern Russia.
Normally a compact blur of energy, she wears her brown hair in a signature bob and stares out at the world with intense brown eyes, framed by round rimless glasses with bright pink temples. On Monday afternoon, she was dressed in a dark skirt, with knee-high boots and a navy blue overcoat.
It doesn’t surprise many that Susan Zirinsky, the CBS News producer, was the inspiration for Holly Hunter’s Jane Craig character in Broadcast News.
On a recent Monday afternoon, she was uncharacteristically static for a moment as she stared at a framed poster for Three Days in September, a documentary about the 2004 Chechen terrorist attack on a school in southern Russia.
Normally a compact blur of energy, she wears her brown hair in a signature bob and stares out at the world with intense brown eyes, framed by round rimless glasses with bright pink temples. On Monday afternoon, she was dressed in a dark skirt, with knee-high boots and a navy blue overcoat.
The film, Ms. Zirinsky said, started out as an episode on CBS’s long-running true-crime show 48 Hours Mystery, on which she is the executive producer, before it was spun off into a film for the cable channel Showtime and was nominated for a prime-time Emmy.
Below the main image in the poster, a photo of a bloodied hostage, was a sentence that Ms. Zirinsky had composed years earlier. It read: “In the proud tradition of broadcasting excellence, CBS News is honored to have produced this powerful documentary for Showtime.”
Ms. Zirinsky’s eyes widened. “We’re not a cable operation,” she said. “But we’re always looking for more platforms.”
To wit: In recent years, Ms. Zirinsky has somewhat improbably transformed her 48 Hours team of editors and producers into a kind of all-purpose production boutique that is constantly moonlighting projects for CBS media partners outside the news division.
Along the way, her team has worked on a reality series about Britney Spears for the now defunct UPN; a Web series about the fictional show Jericho for CBS’s entertainment division; several Top Model specials for the CW; and a number of documentaries, on everything from Hurricane Katrina to Elvis Presley to the war in Iraq.
Ms. Zirinsky said that when 48 Hours aired its initial story about the Chechen terrorist attack, it put up horrendous numbers. But she believed that the project deserved a second life and, despite the bad ratings, managed to talk Showtime executives into making the documentary.
“You can say ‘no’ to me 50 times, I’m still going to call you on Monday with an idea,” said Ms. Zirinsky. “I think the truly successful people in this business are ravenous.”
The Observer gazed around Ms. Zirinsky’s office, which was stockpiled with three decades of memorabilia from her professional life at CBS News. There were photos of a young Dan Rather, of a ’70s-era Ed Bradley, and of Ms. Zirinsky’s mentor, Lesley Stahl. A gas mask hung on the wall, not far from a Vladimir Putin souvenir clock, a photo of tanks in Tiananmen Square and a pack of band-aids, designed to look like crime scene tape. “I know, sensory overload,” said Ms. Zirinksy. “My mother once said, ‘Put everything out.”
Ms. Zirinsky’s assistant popped her head into the office. One of Ms. Zirinsky’s past collaborators, David Friend, the editor of creative development for Vanity Fair, was on the phone.
These days Ms. Zirinsky is teaming up on a number of side projects with Katie Couric, who, like Ms. Zirinksy, is an insatiable newswoman always on the prowl for more stories, platforms and airtime. “For Katie and us, it’s a perfect marriage,” said Ms. Zirinsky. “It’s a total connection. We’re her secondary team.”
Not long ago, The Observer asked Ms. Couric, on the heels of her game-changing interviews with vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, what more she would like from CBS. “I really would like more time,” said Ms. Couric.
Wish: granted.
In recent weeks, Ms. Couric has been popping up all over the network’s schedule. On Jan. 18, during CBS’s halftime coverage of the AFC championship game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens, Ms. Couric made a surprise news blitz. Two nights later, she was back in prime time, hosting an hour-long inauguration special from the National Building Museum, interviewing President Barack Obama, grooving on Bon Jovi and presidential history and civil rights and playfully mocking her tuxedo-clad colleague Chip Reid, whom she called a fashionista.
The surge continues.
On Wednesday, Jan. 28, Ms. Couric will push aside Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ comedy show The New Adventures of the Old Christine for a special edition of the CBS Evening News. And on Wednesday, Feb. 4, Ms. Couric will host an hour-long prime-time special about the Grammy Awards, featuring freestylin’ interviews with the likes of Justin Timberlake and Lil Wayne.
The 48 Hours crew helped conceive, pitch and execute both the inauguration and the Grammy specials. “We are riding Katie,” said Ms. Zirinsky. “She’s a powerhouse. The more venues we can have her on, letting Katie be Katie, the better it plays for us.”
Not long ago, in the spring of 2008, news reports surfaced suggesting that Ms. Couric would likely leave CBS on the heels of the presidential election, if not sooner. But now given CBS’s $12.5 billion third-quarter write-down, most TV insiders seem to agree it is unlikely that the network could afford to buy out the reportedly $40 million remaining on Ms. Couric’s contract even if they wanted to. That leaves Ms. Couric in control of her destiny and likely to stick around at the network until the moment of her choosing.
Last year, when Ms. Couric was feeling disappointed with the Internet platforms at her disposal at CBS, she met with former Today producer–turned–YouTube executive Jordan Hoffner. The meeting resulted in a number of improved digital outlets for Ms. Couric.
But when it comes to figuring out how to occasionally dine on airtime outside the usual CBS News box, Ms. Couric doesn’t have to look far for guidance. Ms. Zirinsky has spent much of the past decade constructing sturdy pathways between the news division and CBS entertainment.
In short, she is a powerful ally for Ms. Couric, and one who is likely to play an increasingly important role in the months to come. “They mesh extremely well,” CBS News president Sean McManus told The Observer on Monday morning. “They have a lot in common. They’re both incredibly competitive.
“One of the frustrations that both we and Katie have is that a lot of the things that she is so good at doing she can’t do between 6:30 and 7 every night,” he added.
The forays into prime time will allow more flexibility. “There’s no reason why she can’t interview Barack Obama on Wednesday and Lil Wayne on Thursday,” said Mr. McManus.
“It was always part of the plan when we hired her,” he added.
Sure enough, Ms. Zirinsky and Ms. Couric have teamed up in the past on topics such as homeland security and the Virginia Tech massacre. But on the heels of the Palin interviews, Ms. Zirinsky sensed the potential to step things up and told Ms. Couric as much.
“I said, ‘Look, we should be playing off your fabulous election year,’” said Ms. Zirinksy. “‘Everybody is acknowledging what a great interviewer you are, something we’ve all known. But let’s play off it.’ This is the time to really go and say, ‘What about this?’”
Ms. Couric is hardly the first CBS News employee to benefit from Ms. Zirinsky’s vulcanized enthusiasm. At a time when much of the broadcast journalism business is beset with layoffs and hand-wringing, Ms. Zirinsky’s shop is seen by many as a shelter from the hellbroth of the downturn.
Ms. Zirinsky won’t disclose the size of her team. “I will never tell,” said Ms. Zirinsky. “To me, my staff is the ultimate game of chess. The rumor among the executives here is that if I was ever killed in an accident, it might take them years to untangle who’s where and doing what.”
Ms. Zirinksy, who grew up in the suburbs of New York, originally joined CBS News part-time, in the early ’70s, when she was still an undergraduate at American University. “I’m sleeping in the dorms, and I’m staking out Attorney General John Mitchell at the Jefferson Hotel,” recalled Ms. Zirinksy. “Dan Rather used to say that I arrived at CBS from a hospital in a shipping bag.”
Over the past three and a half decades, Ms. Zirinsky has held countless producing jobs for CBS News in Washington and New York. Somewhere along the way, she picked up the nickname Z, was fictionalized in a movie, covered myriad wars and forged a strong working relationship with CBS president Leslie Moonves. “I really have a creative attachment to Moonves,” said Ms. Zirinsky. “And he to us.”
“The people who are the best—Katie, Lesley Stahl, Steve Kroft, Scott Pelley, Mike Wallace—they’re all so motivated,” said Ms. Zirinsky. “It may be a malfunction. But we all have this gene. It’s the drive gene.”
“We’re in warp speed,” she added. “Just bring your underwear.”
fgillette@observer.com
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