Blog 1 | Main Sail Media

By Ilene Safron
September 2, 2024

The following is an excerpt from a chapter in a book I’m currently writing about my career as one of the first female international videographers/photojournalists and the many historic events I witnessed first hand. This chapter is entitled:

“Politics and the Making of a Politician.”

Over the course of forty-two years in television production, I covered eight presidents, starting with Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Sr., Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. This involved various assignments which included Republican and Democratic National Conventions, Inaugurations, State of the Union Addresses, Political Debates, Fundraising Events and Town Hall Meetings.

Right out of college I was fortunate enough to land a job at ABC Network New in New York. It was like graduating law school and working for the Supreme Court. In the summer of 1976, I was assigned to work at the Republican Convention in Kansas City and the Democratic Convention in New York. My job was to watch the live coverage on two major networks, NBC and CBS, and inform the news team at ABC what the competition was saying. This is where I learned that no matter how boring a job is, if you do it well, you will get noticed and it will take you to the next level.

Fast forward five months. When Jimmy Carter beat Gerald Ford to become the 39th President of the United States, I was assigned to cover his inauguration in Washington D.C. as Barbara Walters news assistant. A few memories of that trip always come to mind. We traveled in a limousine, while Harry Reasoner, Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley were more modest vehicles like old station wagons. Barbara’s limo would be swamped with people surrounding the vehicle yelling, “There’s Barbara WAWA”, a line made popular from a skit on Saturday Night Live in which they made fun of Barbara’s Boston accent and difficulty pronouncing her R’s. We would end up being a few minutes behind everywhere we needed to go.

The other notable incident was when we had to climb up to the make-shift temporary anchor booth, which was set up across the street from the Capitol steps and built up as high as the podium where the swearing in would take place. The temperature was close to zero and there was a light sprinkling of snow falling when we arrived. Besides myself and Barbara, our group included a personal assistant and hair and makeup person. Barbara led the way up the steep wooden steps and about halfway up, she frantically turned to me, shaking her head no, and said,”I can’t do this. I’m afraid of heights”. The line of people below us and I were horrified thinking we would all freeze to death if we didn’t get inside quickly. So, I flattened my right hand and pushed Barbara straight up, on her bottom, so she could fly up the steps and make it through the door leading into the anchor booth. My counterpart, Harry Reasoner’s news assistant, snidely asked what took so long for us to get there and could it be from the attention we got by driving around in a fancy car.

The male anchors supposedly resented Barbara because of the high salary she was getting as the first network news female anchor.

Once back in New York, I was assigned to “The Evening News" with Harry Reasoner and Barbara Walters making sure both Barbara and Harry had their scripts in order and adjusting any changes to the scripts during commercial breaks. The tension on the set between the two started out very badly and never got any better. They hardly spoke and if they had to converse to kill time, it wasn't natural since Harry would just mumble.

When Harry left for 60 Minutes on CBS and Barbara was reassigned to special assignments, I stayed with the evening newscast working with a three person anchor team, Frank Reynold, Max Robinson and Peter Jennings. One of my many jobs at “ABC World News Tonight”, the network’s nightly newscast, was assisting with the content of the international news segment, anchored by Jennings, that was pre-taped and fed to New York via satellite from the London bureau. During that time, I knew more about what was going on in Zimbabwe than on college campuses in the United States.

In 1986, while working for WFLA Channel 8 in Tampa, Florida, I flew to Washington, D. C. to film Ronald Reagan’s State of the Union Address. That wasn’t as exciting as it sounds. It involved taking a video recorder and plugging into a mult box, a bank of outlets that fed live audio and video of President Reagan's speech, originating from the only video camera allowed to be inside the Capitol chambers. Dozens of other camera crews had no other choice but to take the feed from the same mult box to get President Reagan’s speech, as well. My report was sent to our newsroom via satellite and included an interview done by our main anchor with a Congresswomen from our district. We did this to give this national story a local perspective to our viewing audience back in Tampa Bay.

Covering politicians was usually both interesting and challenging because it was very competitive. An important aspect of the job as a camera person was getting the best camera angle possible and making sure your audio was clean, while operating in a crowded field. So I was excited when I was asked to follow Reagan's Vice President, George Bush, Sr, around the Strawberry Festival in Plant City, Florida. He was very cordial towards the media, a sharp contrast from some members of the media who were often not very cordial to each other. Standing 5’3 1/2”, I was thrilled when I landed an ideal position situated under a very tall cameraman without blocking his shot. We were right in front of center stage, where Mr. Bush was stepping up to the microphone to speak. As he did, the cameraman behind me knocked my battery off my camera, which was his way of trying to knock me out of position. Since I always carried at least one extra camera battery within arms reach, in a matter of seconds I was able to replace it and start rolling again. This new rival on the scene was not as fortunate. Without turning around, I decided to step on his foot, inflicting enough pain that he had to hop around on one leg and eventually leave the pack to find a new space. When it came to outdoing the competition while covering a story my motto was always, “Don’t get mad, just get even.”

In 1989, when I started my own production company, I continued covering presidents as they campaigned across the country or after they were no longer in office. In 2005, I took pictures of Bill Clinton at a fundraising event in Los Angeles when he was honored as an Ambassador for Humanity by Steven Spielberg. I was at Dreamworks Studio with a room full of A-list Hollywood celebrities.

When President George W. Bush came to Southwest Florida in 2008, I filmed Air Force One landing at Southwest Florida International Airport. The airport director and other local dignitaries greeted him on the tarmac. I had wired the director up for sound so we could catch the conversation between him and President Bush. Unfortunately, the secret service removed the wire and no personal exchanges were ever recorded. No formal speeches were made and he was whisked off by limo for an event in Naples, Florida.

Then, there was President Barack Obama speaking in Fort Myers in February of 2009, right as he was beginning his first term in office. I was hired to take pictures at Harborside Convention Center where he was holding a Town Hall Meeting. He was very personable while speaking to a packed audience about what he planned to do about the collapse of the housing industry caused by the banking and mortgage industries’ risky business practices. An infamous scene of the Republican Florida Governor Charlie Crist, embracing President Obama, when Obama said Florida was going to get a stimulus relief package.

The photo began the end of Crist’s career as a Republican and

started the trend of “no friendships allowed” between Democrats and Republicans, in order to be considered a true member of the Republican Party. One of the pictures I’d taken that day, not the scene where they hugged, I decided to send to the governor's office along with a message to him saying that it’s better for our country if both parties work together and get along.

In May of 2008, at a fundraising event at Mar-a-Lago, I had a face to face encounter covering Donald Trump before he became President. My company had the high profile job of producing the seven minute promotional video as the feature presentation that would play on giant monitors and projected on the walls in the grand ballroom. During the cocktail hour, I was hired to film the ambiance of this annual event, that raises millions of dollars every year for Florida’s environment. Donald Trump was the only person, in a crowded ballroom filled with celebrities, who asked me not to take his picture. He said, “Is that necessary? Can’t you see I’m doing business here?” I said that I thought he would like the positive publicity that would come from attending this event. He said no, go away. Which of course, I did, to prevent from being

thrown out if I didn’t do what he asked.

A real turning point, when I first felt worried about hostility from a politician while on the job, was when I was stationed with my camera on the periphery of Germain Arena, in Estero, Florida. Sarah Palin made a campaign stop in October of 2008 while running for Vice President. As everyone was exiting the arena, one of my news colleagues told me to be careful. During Palin’s speech he was pelted with flying objects, like aluminum soda cans and plastic bottles thrown by the audience each time Palin verbally attacked the “mainstream” media. This assault included him and other still photographers and videographers who were trapped in a roped in the area designated for the press as they were snapping pictures or rolling continuously on her speech. The press was getting attacked while covering a politician who had incited an angry mob by calling them the "Lame-stream Media" because she was unhappy about media reports she'd gotten from her past events. The bottom line, words and negative labels have consequences. I’ve always believed in these two phrases, "A picture says a thousand words” and when I was operating my camera, “The camera never lies." As a News Videographer, I wasn't capable of putting words in a politician’s mouth while recording their speeches or going live. Some altering can happen in an edit room after the event, but when the raw footage is archived as it was spoken "word for word" in their speeches, it’s hard to deny what someone said. That’s why I chose to store thirty-five years of various interviews as the raw video tape or digital recordings and later donated them to Florida Gulf Coast University’s Archives and Special Collections. This was some insurance that the truth would be preserved. I wasn’t inside the arena during Palin’s speech, so that footage wasn’t in my archives. However, for example, the president of U.S. Sugar agreeing to sell 300 thousand acres of farmland south of Lake Okeechobee to the state of Florida to help restore the Everglades, is one of many important speeches that was archived. The next Florida governor backed out of the deal.

My experience following presidents and working on political campaigns leaves me with the following conclusion: As we approach the 2024 Presidential election, it's important to question and fact-check everything you hear about a candidate by referring to multiple non-partisan sources. There are fact checking sites all the media uses including "https://apnews.com/APFactCheck","https://www.politifact.com",and "Snopes.com." It is critical to note that internet websites are not held accountable to the same standards of traditional news sources that are regulated by the FCC. In the United States, it’s hard to sue internet websites like Truth Justice or Brietbart for libel or slander whenever they misrepresent the truth. These sites are filled with warnings about who to fear and why the people you fear need to be defeated or destroyed. Many people are afraid to speak up or write a campaign check due to fear of retaliation by the country’s most famous negative leaders or who I call “political villains”. These players draw their popularity by suggesting the use of extreme actions or using damaging words against their opponents, a tactic that they tend to use to take the focus off their misdeeds.

Here are some things to think about when selecting a leader. If a candidate is business savvy, why would they cover up their financial past? Would you hire a “negative leader” to work for you? The definition of a negative leader is a leadership style where a leader uses a variety of negative strategies to achieve their goals. These strategies may include a lack of empathy, harsh criticism, micromanagement, verbal abuse, and creating a culture of fear and intimidation. What type of person steals things from their last job that doesn’t belong to them? Why are Broadcast Networks, like ABC, NBC and CBS, with their award winning news divisions, being accused by politicians of reporting FAKE news, when the network news reports are basically backed up by pictures and historical facts that support their coverage? While working either on staff or freelance for Network News stations and award winning local TV News affiliates, reporters from different stations didn't call each other up an say, “Hey, let’s gang up on this politician and make them look bad.” They compete against each other for the same advertising dollars that keep their newscasts on the air based on the overall quality of their news coverage.

“The Making of a Politician”

For three decades, while running a television production company in Southwest Florida, I produced political television commercials for various campaigns including judges, mayor’s races, county commissioners, Florida House and State Representatives and Congressional races. With a background in news and documentary programming, figuring out a no-gimmick, fact-based image for a candidate that would resonate with area voters, was my approach and worked really well in our local market. My company had a good track record when it came to getting people elected. The biggest challenge was working with someone who had never held office before and creating a storyline from scratch, on why they had the right qualifications to be an elected public servant. A candidate appearing in a commercial with on-camera endorsements from positive public figures in the community would be more effective than a commercial filled with the candidate saying bad things about their opponent. Unfortunately, negative ads became extremely popular. Post 2016, when a person ran for office in Florida, they often hired a political consulting firm recommended by their party leaders, that were either based in Tallahassee or Washington D.C. This was to try and get Donald Trump’s attention and seek his endorsement, so they would have a better chance of winning the primary. These political “handlers” were not personally familiar with the “local” candidate and would end up trying to recreate their image as a tough, no nonsense, xenophobic, NRA supporter who was so contrary to the candidate’s normal behavior. It was a strategy that would never work for a politician with a track record as being someone who was genuinely a nice person and worked well with most of their constituents. You never saw them with a gun on TV or expressing why you should fear minorities in any prior campaign ads. This new image was obviously phony. In two separate instances, I advised two different candidates against the messages they were being told to use by their “out of town” experts. In the end, despite many years of working on campaigns that got them elected, I had no choice but to suggest they use another production company. Both of these candidates ended up losing their races. Prior to that, there was another such candidate running for Congress that I had filmed a series of commercials for where they were also advised to portray themselves as a totally fabricated version of who they were and what they believed in. I ended up delaying the editing process giving them time to think about how badly damaged their reputation would be once these commercials went on the air. The delay worked. They decided to not run for Congress until the next election cycle.

Here’s some questions to think about. Why would a candidate discredit the majority of TV news outlets and only legitimize a station that presents them in a positive light? What other political leaders, past or present, have discredited, banned or threatened and actually locked up journalists when they didn’t like what they had to say? Are these leaders from countries you’d want to live in? Critics of twenty-four hour news channels believe their news reports are constantly breaking the rules of ethical journalism by reporting biased news with a conservative or liberal slant and airing prime-time angry commentaries in favor of popular politicians, concerned primarily about getting their show the best ratings, which translated into higher salaries and job security. How many viewers know the difference between news reporters and commentators? There are shows that are presented to look like a newscast hosted by commentators as opposed to news anchors. They report stories according to what their viewers want to hear. News anchors in the past would have text on the screen, words like “Commentary” or “Editorial” indicating they were "opinion pieces", but that’s not typical of cable news stations. Both the extreme right and the extreme left, on the twenty-four hour cable news channels, have shows with biased commentators. Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow are examples of biased TV commentators. They count on you being okay with letting them do the thinking for you. As a viewer, you need to question what’s being reported, by checking what can or can’t be backed up by facts.

There’s a difference between TV News and TV Entertainment programming. Here are two examples of primetime entertainment shows. In the 1980’s, Bill Cosby played Dr. Cliff Huxtable on “The Bill Cosby Show. In reality, Cosby wasn’t a nice person or the wholesome doctor you thought he was from his TV character. In the early 2000’s, Donald Trump played a successful self-made multimillionaire in “The Apprentice". His criminal conviction for committing business fraud, and routinely exaggerating his net worth mostly inherited from his father, revealed he could also be a fictitious character. In the entertainment business, the legitimacy of a character you play on TV and who you are in real life is up to the viewer’s discretion but not held accountable by the station. Both shows aired nationally on NBC and were produced for the network's entertainment division, not their news division.

Another observation from years of covering politics is that all Americans need to be included in significant decisions about how our country is run, in other words, they need to have hope by having a seat at the table. Disputes about obsessive voter fraud or who won the 2020 elections shouldn’t be perpetuated by one man or one party. A politician who threatens people who don't support them or thinks it’s OK to be covering up crimes for the “good of the country" is not a great example of a leader. They more likely fit in the category of a “negative leader” or “political villain”. All Americans should be able to decide if the lies and cover-ups were good for them. They should always consider the source and motivation of the lie. There is also the trap of “single issue politics”. That's when someone is supporting a candidate for solely one issue. History teaches us that it is very short-sided to think the only thing that matters is tax cuts or government breaks for your personal wealth. Simply put, taxes pay for building roads, public safety and essentials like our electricity. Most recently, the majority of Americans faced an unstable economy caused by political extremists who denied the seriousness of a pandemic by discrediting ways to protect and prevent an international pandemic, by marginalizing women and minorities in the workforce, and ignoring other important issues for all Americans like passing a non-partisan immigration bill, solutions for affordable housing or agreeing on legislation that addressed pollution or global warming. These are important issues the majority of Americans want to fix but if negative leaders are too busy blocking legislation, rather than problem solving, the problems get worse. There is something causing the extreme politicians to be ineffective after creating shocking headlines for attention and abusing their political power. Take note of politicians who come off as negative, critical, angry, untrustworthy and non-law abiding. Look at the number of bills that they didn’t pass or were vetoed each time Congress was in session, especially bills that could have positively affected all Americans, and then decide who is working for the good of the country and who is a “do-nothing”.

In Florida, we are faced with the dilemma of copy-cat political villains who are followers, not leaders. They are OK with lying, voter suppression, “pay to play, donor only” accessibility, shock leadership, and breaking laws to try to get elected or remain in office. They follow their party leader by repeatedly appealing their lawsuits that resulted from breaking laws and making it easier to use political donations to pay for their legal fees. We have witnessed an increase in hypocritical religious pretenders who quote scripture substituting the word "sinners" with either their opponent's name or party affiliation.

For example, there’s Christian Ziegler, a recent past-Chairman of Florida’s GOP and his wife, Bridget Ziegler, co-founder of “Moms for Liberty”. In the fall of 2023, the married couple embarrassed our country when they got caught in a three way relationship with another woman. The hypocrisy here is that they’ve been attacking the LGBTQ community in Florida's public schools and calling for banning books mentioning tolerance for people of color or the existence of gay people in K-12 and public universities. In reality, Bridgett Ziegler is the “B” in LGBTQ. As the lines of who to believe, or not, become this messy the best way to stop political villains is through the court of public opinion and voting them out. This will happen once their followers realize they are being duped or somehow become the next target of discrimination for no apparent reason. The story appeared in newspapers all over the world.

America will only be as strong as its weakest link so keeping some people down to bring followers of white supremacy and American isolationism up, throughout the history of our nation, has weakened America. These ideologies have never worked. A better philosophy for helping Americans who are less fortunate or those legally seeking political asylum is exemplified by the motto used by “Habitat for Humanity”, a Christian based charity that builds decent housing for the poor. It states, “We are giving a hand up, not a hand out”. When you take a trip to Washington D.C. and read the inscriptions on our founding fathers’ monuments or past presidents’ memorials, it’s quite clear what principles America was founded on. These are not words that were twisted, changed or recently made up.

The President of the United States needs to be a role model for the next generation. For that to happen, we have to rid America of the hate labels placed on people you've never met by politicians bringing fear and division to our families, neighbors and friends. Negative leadership will only empower our worst enemies. Before you vote, watch a political rally, listen closely and fact check after, especially when something sounds exaggerated. If you go to the rally in person, don't forget to take pictures, so you'll have more credibility when telling someone what you witnessed first hand, during this important time in history