There were interview montages, hairstyle montages （note to self: If you don’t look like Winona Ryder, do not cut your hair like Winona Ryder’s）。 I paid my respects to Matt: “I know I’ll never have a partner like you again,” I said solemnly. “Because…I’ll never work with a partner again.” （Guffaws from the crew. And Matt.） “But truly, you have just been an extraordinary colleague and a wonderful friend…beneath this well-dressed exterior lies a huge and loving heart and I’m gonna miss you so much.”
Then it was Matt’s turn.
“They call us co-anchors and I hate it,” he said. “I hate the term. We’re partners, and we have been partners over these last 10 years—13 years in total—in every way possible…”
Wait, what?
Matt: Not that way!
Me: Wait a second…
Matt: That would be a little weird…
Al Roker: Page Six!
NBC THREW AN AFTER-PARTY at a rooftop space on 5th Avenue with champagne, canapés, and the neo-Gothic spires of St. Patrick’s Cathedral jutting dramatically in the background. （Frankly, I was a little sick of Katie-mania by that point, although if anyone else was, they were nice enough not to show it.） The minute it wrapped up, Matthew Hiltzik and I had to fly to Las Vegas for a meeting with the CBS affiliates.
And just like that, after all those wonderful years at NBC, I was officially an employee of CBS News.
But due to a mechanical problem, we sat on the runway for four hours.
I passed the time with three bags of peanuts and two vodka sodas, joking a little nervously with Matthew about our failure to launch: “Do you think this is a bad omen?”
Part IV
58
The Dairy Depot
WITH MY FIRST evening news broadcast slated for September 5th, 2006, I had roughly three months to prepare. I dropped by the newsroom to introduce myself to the rest of CBS. It was cordial; the group seemed receptive, if a little reserved. I had no idea how on edge everyone was, how much raw paranoia was zinging around that place about the existential threat I apparently posed to their way of life.
Having worked at pretty much every network throughout my career, I learned that each has a unique personality. ABC is the slickest and shiniest, suffering from a slight inferiority complex because it’s the newest kid on the block. NBC feels more urbane—proudly responsible for the winning team Chet Huntley and David Brinkley （my dad’s and my onetime alter egos）， followed by owlish, erudite John Chancellor. But NBC never took itself so seriously that it couldn’t put a chimpanzee in the morning mix （J. Fred Muggs, the TODAY show, 1953–57）。
Neither network would ever be described as venerable—that distinction went to CBS. It had been built from the ground up by the dynastic Paley family; Murrow, then Cronkite, brought dignity, decency, and heft.
The whole enterprise was so serious-minded, so immune to any kind of flashiness, that even creature comforts were an afterthought. Consider that the squat, industrial CBS Broadcast Center was once a dairy depot, where cows were processed and milked; the ramps used to transport them had never been dismantled. In the early ’60s, they somehow converted the place into a news hub.
With their buzzing fluorescent lights and leftover rotary phones, the offices felt a bit like the FDA circa 1972. The halls were scattered with cardboard boxes, and random wires hung from the ceiling panels. There were rumors of mice in the control room and tobacco stains on the carpet from when Dan Rather missed the spittoon. The aesthetic was Columbo—trench coats and rumpled button-down shirts, versus the pricey suits guys wore at 30 Rock. It was a big change, but I admired the let’s-get-down-to-the-business-of-journalism aura.
Although I did draw the line at the outdated, borderline-disgusting bathrooms near the entrance of the building （which were probably unchanged since Andy Rooney’s first day）。 I went to Sean McManus and said, “Do you think it would be possible to upgrade the facilities?” It felt like a good use of my capital, sending a message about my desire to improve and modernize the place. A few months after my arrival, the stalls got an overhaul.
The team I’d brought with me from NBC—Lori, Bob, Matt, Nicolla, and Lauren—were ready to get to work. The network knew they were coming; they’d negotiated contracts, and their names and titles were stipulated in my contract too. But they were told there was no room at the inn by the broadcast manager, who’d been at the network in various roles for a quarter century. Her solution was to house some of them in a 9 x 12 space with no phone lines and a plastic folding table until she could find something permanent. Maybe she didn’t like the fact that I had my own people…people like British-born Nicolla, whose statuesque, blinged-out fabulousness made her even more of a foreigner at that place.