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  • On the Air

    How Gifford got the job

    Personality was the clincher, says the man who hired him in 1955
    Thursday, December 28, 2006
    Dave Walker

    Bill Monroe hired Alec Gifford at WDSU-Channel 6 in 1955, so on the occasion of Gifford's retirement from TV news this month, I called Monroe to ask:

    Any second thoughts?

    Good hire?

    Or not so much?

    Gifford was working at a Texas radio station -- after a stint in the Navy, some college and getting fired from his first job, as a radio announcer in Baltimore -- when he wangled a job interview with Monroe, then news director at WDSU.

    Both Gifford's father and grandfather had been newspapermen in New Orleans, but his dad's advice was to avoid the ink trade because of crummy pay.

    "He showed up and asked for a job," said Monroe, who at the time was assembling what would be one of the South's most accomplished TV newsrooms. "I think I put Alec off for a few days until I finished interviewing a group of other people."

    Monroe, who later became an NBC News icon as longtime moderator of "Meet the Press," said it was Gifford's personality, and not necessarily his résumé, that won him over.

    "Alec is just packed with energy, and it comes across in his news delivery and his demeanor on camera," Monroe said. "I had come from a newspaper background . . . and some radio work, and I didn't know a damn thing about hiring what we now refer to as 'talent.' And I had to gauge what the impact of a particular guy -- in those days they were all males -- on the audience.

    "It was the blind leading the blind. Alec had done some modest work, enough to qualify for the job, (but) I didn't have any clear idea, based on his experience and some other qualities, that he would be a popular anchorman."

    CONTINUED   1 | 2  Next



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