Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 29, 1995 TAG: 9505310014
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
CBS News
New York, N.Y.
Dear Connie:
I hope my use of your first name doesn't offend you. This seems proper because I came within a few feet of you once in a press room at the old Hotel Roanoke. I don't know how good you were at covering hard news then, but you certainly needed no instruction in the proper wearing of blue jeans.
But let's dispense with shameful sexist remarks such as those above and get on to the reason for this letter - which is that I am stunned, amazed, laid low, drained emotionally and generally put out with the way CBS treated you in regard to your former co-anchor, good old sad-eyed Dan.
Not to mention being sleepless.
You have to wonder sometimes who old Dan thinks he is. He loves to put on the best-looking leisure clothes he can find and cover the biggest stories. Talks about "turf," whatever that is.
You won't find him doing senseless interviews in which he sandbags Newt Gingrich's mother.
I mean, it isn't your fault he never got to be Walter Cronkite.
I can tell you that a lot of people feel the same way I do. For example, there was a woman down at the recycling place at the shopping center who was wearing a banner across her chest that said: "I'd Rather Not."
I was going to interview her, but she was hysterical about which slot to put her No. 2 plastic in, and I was late for the opening of the liquor store.
Of course, there are some people who simply don't care about you. They watch Brokaw - who also has one of those leisure-clothes things - and that Canadian on ABC whose name escapes me all the time.
I have to be frank here and say that I watch CNN most of the time - although this doesn't lessen my compassion for you.
Most of the people on that network seem to have avoided going nuts about their egos. It's true that some of the females could wear blue jeans very well, but there are others who appear as fresh-faced, full-bodied country girls.
The men generally are not sad-eyed, although one of them does have an odd hairdo.
Anyway, based on the near confrontation years ago, I had to let you know how I feel about what they've done to you there at CBS.
If it would help you to make any comments about old Dan - along the lines of, maybe, that he is a jerk - just drop me a note. Honest. It'll just be between the two of us.
Best wishes,
Bennie Beagle
by CNB