At Wednesday’s City Council meeting, more aldermen rose to speak in support of a resolution praising the temporarily retired and suddenly controversial Diann Burns than did for resolutions honoring heroic police officers and firefighters.
As this seminar in political values played out, two news cameras in the press gallery recorded the council members’ words of anchorwoman exaltation.
One was from WLS-Ch. 7, where Burns worked for nearly 18 years until being abruptly, even shockingly, replaced last week as the station’s and the city’s queen anchor.
The other, tellingly, was from WBBM-Ch. 2, the troubled news operation thought to be extremely interested in acquiring the services of Burns in the belief that she is that most elusive of things, a local-news audience magnet.
The furor over Burns these last two weeks — which includes her effective firing Feb. 27, much talk-radio discussion of its fairness and import, even mention of a potential boycott of WLS on the City Council floor — speaks volumes about her appeal to viewers, even as few critics have found her on-air presence to be particularly authoritative.
Burns’ popular allure has been documented in the most important place, WLS’ top ratings, and also by local stations in focus-group research that attests to her friendly relationship with viewers and appeal that cuts across race and gender.
“Diann Burns’ research is terrific. She’s outstanding. There’s no question about her being the No. 1 star in the Chicago market,” said Hank Price, the former general manager of WBBM-Ch. 2.
Price, however, cautions that there is a chicken-and-egg question to such research: “Usually, though, stars and No. 1 stations go hand in hand.”
Unlike other top local anchors in TV-news lore, Burns is a low-key personality, neither flashy nor forceful on the air, reserved about her personal life off it, not known for aggressively breaking news.
“She is not a show-off,” said John Drury, her retired long-time partner at WLS. “There are some show-off anchors that are preoccupied with themselves. She was never preoccupied with herself. Her concern was the content, the narration itself.”
Drury rejects a criticism commonly leveled at Burns by news-business insiders and some viewers that she seemed more comfortable as a news personality participating in on-set banter than as a newsreader delivering stories.
“She was a great communicator,” Drury said. “People don’t tune in for people who don’t communicate.”
A highly paid anchor
A 45-year-old Ohio native, Burns has, in that unassuming way, also become what most local news observers agree is the most highly paid anchor in the city — at a figure that has been placed at $2 million annually, though without hard evidence all such numbers should be taken with a grain of salt — and one of the most highly paid local anchors in the country.
She is the first African-American woman to serve as a lead weekday anchor in Chicago, one reason for the rumblings that her removal from the WLS news desk may have racial repercussions beyond the current chatter (and for, indeed, WLS General Manager Emily Barr to pay a precautionary visit to Operation PUSH co-chair Rev. Willie Barrow on the same day she took Burns off the air).
And, most important, Burns has been at the head of what has been, with just a few exceptions, the city’s top-rated newscast for most of her tenure in town.
So when her station essentially makes her disappear for at least four months in an obvious attempt to diminish her value to anyone else who might hire her, it’s extraordinary.
Observers suggested that, by not effectively stringing WLS along and letting the station take itself out of play, Burns and her husband/agent Marc Watts have seriously diminished their negotiating strength with, say, a WBBM.
But the couple insist that they only wanted to obey the letter of her contract and not talk with anybody until its expiration June 30.
“I’m not interested in a bidding war. I’m not gonna auction my wife off like a piece of anchor meat,” Watts said. “Some people are trying to make it out like Diann is this greedy spoiled little brat who turned down a pile of money on the table. Well, we never got to the point where we discussed money.”
Even if Watts and Burns had played it differently, WLS’ hardball decision makes it clear that the station wasn’t going to stand for much stringing, especially when it knew that Joe Ahern, the former WLS chief who promoted Burns to a lead anchor slot, was newly returned to town with an open checkbook and a similarly open desire to sign away top talent from rivals.
“I like Diann personally. I think she does a great job on the air,” Barr said, “but she just didn’t want to do a deal with us, and I had no choice but to move forward.”
Barr is clearly concerned, though, about the impact the move might have on the station’s viewership, especially strong among African-Americans.
According to a Nielsen Media Research study from November, ABC-owned WLS draws an average of 17.4 percent of black Chicago households, compared with 12 percent of overall households.
Changes in the newsroom
So to that end, Barr, in removing Burns while continuing to pay her salary, not only promoted 6 p.m. co-anchor Kathy Brock, who is white, to be Ron Magers’ co-anchor at 10 p.m., but she also added as a third, 10 p.m. anchor Cheryl Burton, who is African-American and was also said to be in Ahern’s sights.
And Barr had the conversation with PUSH’s Barrow.
“I know Willie Barrow and I felt it was appropriate for her to know what was going on from me directly,” Barr said. “I just wanted to inform her. I didn’t ask her to do anything. I asked her to listen. I told her I tried very, very hard to re-sign Diann and I went through a lot of hoops . . . and that it was a business decision to move forward. I reluctantly — and very reluctantly — moved on.”
Although she said she heard rumors, the decision took Burns by surprise, she said.
“I kind of got hit by a SCUD,” she said Wednesday, speaking mostly cautiously in her first extensive interview since being pulled from the air and asked to turn in her WLS keys and such. “I have to sort of regroup here.”
She seemed most concerned about the perception that she and Watts were primarily angling for money.
“Money was never the issue,” Burns said. “I just want to be happy at this point. I want to be happy again, and I look forward to it. Happy and working.”
Pressed on whether that meant she had been unhappy at WLS, she said that her constant position, as Barr had pressed to sign her to a new contract before her current one expires, was that “I work here now and I want to work here,” but that she simply wanted to wait before negotiating.
Although Watts had earlier said that they would consider offers from all comers, including cable and network people, Burns said, “I’m going to stay in Chicago. This is my home now. I’m not going to start over somewhere.”
It’s an assertion that lends credence to the belief that she will land at WBBM, although she rightly insisted that four months is a long time in the TV news business, especially given all the recent turmoil.
She would not entertain speculation as to what it is viewers like about her.
“I don’t count on my appeal as much as I count on my reporting skills,” she said. “I’m a good journalist.” She has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.
The interview with Burns occurred after the council meeting and took place, at the suggestion of Watts, in Water Tower Place.
Warm public response
The spot was chosen because Burns had to buy a gift and was lunching with friends, she said, but surely Watts, who has worked hard to counteract criticism since the WLS move took the couple by surprise, also wanted to demonstrate the public’s warm response to her.
Two of the comments she received, one typical, the other intriguing:
“I don’t like what they did to you,” said a Lord & Taylor saleswoman, “but you’ll get a big job.”
“I’m a producer at Channel 2,” said another woman, before dashing up the escalator. “I hope I’ll be working with you soon.”
Burns was polite and gracious to all her well-wishers, giving off an apparent genuine warmth most observers consider her greatest strength on the air.
“Diann is somebody that you feel very comfortable watching,” said Jennifer Schulze, former news director at Tribune-owned WGN-Ch. 9 and a former colleague of Burns at WLS. “You trust her. You like her. She can be funny. Above all people are comfortable with her.”
And let’s not forget attractiveness, important on television, even in the city that made John “Bulldog” Drummond, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert into TV stars.
Burns’ physical appeal is there, but it’s non-threatening.
Pleasing to viewers
“She is attractive without in any way putting people off,” said ex-WBBM chief Price, now running a station in Winston-Salem, N.C., and a senior fellow at Northwestern University’s media management center. “The real key to being a successful anchor is to have the viewers feel you are someone they would be likely to want to be friends with.”
The city’s aldermen, not surprisingly, think Burns has that.
“We’re not burying you today,” said Ald. Dorothy Tillman (3rd) “we’re just congratulating you for your stay at Channel 7. Wherever you go, we shall follow.”
Might it be to Channel 2?
Ahern would only say: “She did work for me. I promoted her a couple of times. Clearly I recognize her importance in the market, and the fact that she’s got a track record of accomplishment.”
That should not in any way be interpreted as a contract offer. Nor would Ahern discuss the notion that the WLS move may have weakened Burns’ bargaining position.
But Hank Price was unequivocal: “Diann Burns is a star, and when you’re a star, there’s always a market for you.”
