And I have the video to prove it!
CBS is always revamping its morning show. (They're doing it yet again.) Well, in 1973 someone got the brilliant idea to do an hour news show and hire someone to anchor it who had never been on television before. She had no experience whatsoever. Sally Quinn was a reporter for the Washington Post. And with no training, no rehearsals, no nothing -- CBS threw her on the air doing a national broadcast. In a book she wrote about the experience, Sally said that no one even told her the red light on a camera meant it was on. She's broadcasting coast-to-coast and doesn't even know which camera to look into. Great preparation. I swear, if you pitched this idea as a series, every network including CBS would say, "Too ridiculous. Too stupid. It could never happen in a million years."
Well, it did.
They gave Sally a partner, Hughes Rudd, who, by his own admission, was not a normal anchor. He was more of a rumpled reporter.
Needless to say, this experiment was an absolute disaster and lasted only a few months. Your heart has to go out to Sally Quinn who was just a deer in the headlights. When you watch this you will probably be shaking your head saying, "This can't be real!"
It is.
By the way, on her first broadcast, Sally also had the flu and collapsed an hour before going on national TV live. I'm guessing some of that was nerves. Anyway, here is that ill-fated first broadcast.
