Gene Janowski was born in Buffalo, New York, on May 21, 1934. He spent 27 years at CBS, including 12 as president from 1976 to 1988. He was at the helm during the golden age of broadcast news, when just three major networks, CBS, ABC, and NBC. dominated television.
His upcoming memoir, “Behind the Eye: My Life in the Media,” details his life, his experiences through the industry, and his thoughts on the future of journalism in an increasingly polarized America.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
When you think back to your early years growing up, what do you feel looking back on those memories?
Gene Jankowski: I have a lot of happy memories. [I’m] very fortunate that I grew up in a loving family. And while we didn't have any money, we cared for each other. And my mother and father, while they were uneducated, formally, they really were smart people and they educated themselves on the ways of life.
And as I write in the book, my mother's the one who instilled in me that I can do anything I want if I set my mind to it. And the other important thing they both believed: Nobody owes you anything. Whatever you want, you've gotta work for. And so those were my basic principles as a kid starting out.
In the book you said that you had this curiosity as a child that took you through high school, all, through college and after. And would you say that, and you said youhad a great foundation with everyone around you that allowed you to be curious and really take you to that interest in journalism?
Gene Jankowski: I went to the movies from the time I was about nine years old, and the movies opened up a whole new world for me. And then television came along. And the impact of the early days of television on the American public can't be repeated because the innocence that existed at that time is all gone.
At CBS, from your time as president to when you first came to the doors, you had a chance to work with some of the most iconic names in journalism. What was your experience like working with some of these people, like Walter Cronkite?
Gene Jankowski: Walter is a terrific guy. Well-rounded, no nonsense guy. Good sense of humor. And an old pro. One Christmas, I get a phone call, it's Walter. He asked me, "How would you like to go sailing this Christmas?" And I said, can I bring my daughter and a friend? He said yes. So he said, "Meet me in Nassau, and we're gonna go sailing for a couple of days."
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Mike Wallace was also a solid, solid reporter. Well, CBS was filled with them. Diane Sawyer never should have left CBS to go to ABC. Leslie Stahl. They're outstanding journalists in their own right. They're the best of my era. Bill Moyers sadly passed away too soon. But had to be the best of the reporters that I've ever met.
Dan Rather?
Gene Jankowski: The world could use more Dan Rathers today. He was in that chair for 24 years. That record will never be broken. And he was outstanding, courageous. He'd go under fire in battlefields to get a story. Remarkable individual.
He's still with us. Dan is 93 now. But people criticized it when I paid him. When he took over for Walter, Time Magazine put him on the front cover as a $7 million man or something to that effect.
I think it was $8 million dollar man they put on the cover.
Gene Jankowski: Yeah. I said we could do without that kind of publicity, but I would argue that by today's standard, he was underpaid. But, but he's one of the best. Still remains to be one of the best, as far as I'm concerned. And the fact that he had a 24-year career as the anchor guy, his record proves it by itself. These guys are great and they're dedicated to getting the stories out correctly and not with any hyperbole or tendency to lean one way or the other.
I believe it was 2007 when when your late first wife Sally passed away after battling cancer. She was there for a lot of these events, and was there by your side. What was the impact she had on your life, your career, and eventually your decision to remarry?
Gene Jankowski: My 40th wedding anniversary, my wife [Sally] said, "You know what we should do for our 50th? Why don't we do a memoir of the experiences that we had as a family, plus some of the things that you experienced at CBS?" So that's the genesis of the book. And sadly, she became very ill and passed away, and I tabled the whole process even though she and I had already started to write a bunch of stuff.
I just put it aside. And it was years later when my family and I had lunch with somebody, I start telling stories and they say, "Oh, maybe you should do a memoir." I said, okay, maybe I'll resurrect what we started some time ago. And that's the product that we have now. That's what I eventually came out with, my life behind the eye.
"Behind the Eye: My Life in the Media" comes out September 18.
