It was a chance meeting at a Christmas party in Dallas that brought Catherine Crier and Jack Hubbard together. Hubbard, an agent representing television news anchors and reporters, remembers Crier as a ”striking, very bright woman” who he thought would be a great host for a legal-affairs program he was developing.
It was 1988, and Crier was just one month into her second term as a Texas state district judge. Crier was only 34 at the time, but her career achievements were notable. She had been an assistant district attorney, a lawyer for a private firm where she handled civil litigation and she had run two successful campaigns for the bench.
”When I was re-elected, I was looking forward to serving four more years on the bench,” says Crier, ”but I also knew that as much as I enjoyed the bench, in terms of participating in life, I wanted to return to a more activist role. . . . When you`re an activist, you get a chance to pursue and develop the case.”
A self-described ”news junkie,” Crier was intrigued by Hubbard`s idea that she put together a television audition tape. ”I didn`t anticipate anything would come about,” Crier says, but agreed to give it a shot.
Journalism appealed to Crier as an opportunity to combine her skill as a trial attorney with the listening skills she honed as a judge.
”Lawyers advocate one side or the other, while journalists flesh out angles from both sides and jump in with questions,” Crier says. She also was a frequent public speaker and thought her communication skills might someday fit into a television talk show format.
Her audition tape contained a 2 1/2-minute report in which Crier took viewers along on a day in the life of a judge. She donned her black robe, walked into the courtroom and explained what being a judge entailed. The videotape also showed Crier interviewing two author friends.
Hubbard sent the tape to several major news organizations, among them Cable News Network, where it landed on the desk of Gail Evans, CNN vice president of booking and research in Atlanta.
”I told Burt Reinhardt (CNN vice chairman), `You need to see this person. She is fantastic, electric,` ” Evans said.
Evans flew with Crier to Los Angeles, where another audition was taped.
”She was well trained in a profession to be fair, be objective and be accurate,” Evans says.
”One of the things she had was real substance,” says Evans, adding that it didn`t hurt that Crier also had television-perfect looks. ”You have to look like you are a TV anchor. Catherine had brains and beauty.”
In the fall of 1989, Crier, who had no news experience, became an anchor for CNN. She underwent only two weeks of intensive coaching before hitting the air as co-anchor with Frank Sesno for CNN`s evening newscast, ”The World Today.”
”My second day on the air, the San Francisco earthquake hit,” says Crier, ”and the world hasn`t stopped shaking since.
”It`s been the most extraordinary 18 months, at least since the close of World War II if not the entire 20th Century,” she says. ”What a remarkable time to move into this field, particularly with an organization like CNN.”
Crier says her legal training made the transition less difficult. ”Most of the things I did as a trial lawyer and state judge tend to parallel what one does as a journalist,” Crier says. ”From the time I walked out of law school, I hit the streets interviewing witnesses. I pulled together reports. I didn`t submit them to an editor, but to a judge. I didn`t do a standup on camera, I did it in front of a jury,” she says.
”As a judge, instead of advocating a position, I was called upon to understand the entire public policy or social policy surrounding a case. That`s what a journalist does,” Crier says.
When she took the anchor chair at CNN, several of her television colleagues were skeptical. ”She had a tough time when she went there,”
recalls Hubbard. ”They said she`s a judge, she doesn`t know what she`s doing and she hasn`t earned her spurs.”
Crier says the skeptics didn`t bother her. ”To have someone come in from a different career and move into this profession, questions (from CNN colleagues about her ability) are legitimate. I wanted time and opportunity to come in and learn this new profession and do the best that I could,” she says. ”Everyone at CNN has given me that opportunity and has been supportive all along the way.”
In addition to the ”The World Today, Crier`s anchor schedule also includes an hour-long midday news program, ”The International Hour.”
In March, 1991, CNN gave Crier her own daily talk show, ”Crier & Co.,”
as well. ”The first night (on the air) I knew I would fall off the chair,”
says Crier. ”Wonderfully, now I`m doing 2 1/2 hours a day and I`ve moved beyond the point that I worry when the camera comes on. Now I can worry about the content, the focus of the story or the debate.”
Gerry Yandel, television reporter for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, agrees that Crier`s performance has quieted her critics. The initial reaction to Crier`s hiring, Yandel says, was, ”Here`s another case of just a pretty face.” That perception, Yandel says, has gone away.
Crier says her on-camera performance is ”an ongoing lesson.”
”It`s a challenge to learn how to deliver information so that viewers aren`t distracted by the person delivering the news,” Crier says. ”The interesting thing I have found is that the best performance is simply being yourself. In that sense, the camera doesn`t lie. The people watching know the difference, they know if somebody is trying to put on airs and create an on-camera performance.”
Today when Crier, who has been divorced for several years, isn`t working 10- to 12-hour days, she`s on the lecture circuit, or, when there`s time, on the golf course.
”It`s a true lesson in humility,” Crier says of her golf game, adding that her handicap ”is too high to print.”
Another off-camera passion is Arabian horses. When she made the switch from Dallas to Atlanta, so did her horse, to a barn that is about a half- hour drive from CNN headquarters.
”There are moments when I say my dream ranch in the wilderness is calling, with my horses and my dogs and my typewriter,” Crier says of her busy lifestyle. ”I don`t know any human being, regardless of profession, who hasn`t said that from time to time. I can say gratefully those moments are few and far between.”
Crier says her ambitions don`t, for the moment, reach to the other networks. ”I`m where I want to be, doing what I want to be doing,” Crier says. ”There aren`t many places where you can reach out to the world in the manner that CNN does.”
At one point, Crier was rumored to have political ambitions beyond the Texas state bench. Those ambitions, she says, are a thing of the past.
”Ever since I was a child I always thought I`d like to go to Washington in some capacity,” Crier says, ”I`ve come to feel that one can participate in national and international affairs in varying capacities and still satisfy the desire to be involved in the big issues.”
And for the lessons learned from going from lawyer to judge to television anchor? ”There`s probably a brashness of youth, if you will, that one has early in a career,” Crier says. ”I can remember being one of the young prosecutors right out of law school as we took on the world. That`s probably been replaced with a great deal more reason, humility and understanding.”
