Gumbel, Bryant 1948–

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Bryant Gumbel 1948–

Television journalist

At a Glance …

Wowed TV Broadcasters

Negative Publicity Mounted

Firmly Anchored on Today

Looked for New Challenges

Sources

Best known as the long-time host of NBC’s Today morning news program, Bryant Gumbel has distinguished himself as one of the most skillful and quick-thinking news hosts on television. He has also become, as was stated by Bill Carter in the New York Times, “the most visible African-American in the world of network news.” Gumbel gained this status during his 15-year tenure on Today and in other high-profile assignments, such as hosting NBC’s coverage of the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. A combination of characteristics make Gumbel a tremendous asset on live television: his unfailingly thorough preparation and phenomenal memory are matched with an ability to speak fluently and act calmly when on-air pressures are at their peak. Off-camera, however, Gumbel’s perfectionist qualities have sometimes made him a difficult colleague and his friction with co-workers has resulted in some unflattering headlines. Most notably, when his criticism of Today ’s weatherman Willard Scott in a confidential memo was leaked to the press in 1989, it lead to intense media scrutiny into the relationships between the program’s hosts and the labeling of Gumbel as arrogant and mean-spirited. Such stories may have tarnished Gumbel’s image slightly, but they did not diminish his influence on Today or dampen the interest of competing television executives when, in 1997, he left the program to explore new opportunities.

Born in New Orleans in 1948, Gumbel grew up with two younger sisters and older brother Greg—who is now a well-known network sportscaster—in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. His father Richard was a Cook County probate judge who had worked two jobs to put himself through law school at Georgetown University. Richard Gumbel would instill in Bryant his focus on the importance of reading and of writing and speaking well. He also taught him how to play baseball, feeding his son’s growing passion for sports. As a student majoring in Russian history at Maine’s Bates College, Bryant played baseball and football. However, his hope of becoming a professional athlete was ended by a wrist injury. Instead, Gumbel moved to New York City to work as a salesman for Westvaco Corporation, an industrial paper company; he quit this job after six months. While his parents hoped that he would attend law school, Gumbel was determined to try his hand at sports reporting. He soon landed a job with Black Sports magazine and, within the year, was promoted to editor.

At a Glance …

Born Bryant Charles Gumbel, September 29, 1948, in New Orleans, LA; son of Richard Dunbar (a probate judge) and Rhea Alice (a city clerk; LeCesne) Gumbel; married June Baranco, December 1, 1973; children: Jillian and Bradley. Education: Bates College, Lewiston, ME, B.A., 1970.

Black Sports Magazine, writer, 1971, editor, 1972; KNBC-TV, Burbank, CA, sportscaster, 1972-76, sports director, 1976-81; NBC, New York City, sports host, 1975-82, Today host, 1982-1997; HBO, Real Sports host, 1995—.

Awards: Emmy Award, 1976, for Olympics sports special, 1977; Los Angeles Press Club, Golden Mike Award, 1978, 1979; Washington Journal Review readers’ poll, Best Morning TV News Interviewer, 1986; Overseas Press Club, Edward R. Murrow Award, 1988; National Association of Black Journalists, Journalist of the Year, 1993.

Member: AFTRA.

Addresses: Home —Westchester, NY. Office —NBC, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10112.

Wowed TV Broadcasters

In 1972, Gumbel was about to take a job with The Baltimore Sun when his father died of a heart attack. Regretfully, Richard Gumbel never lived to see his son’s success as a journalist. Just a week after his father’s funeral, Gumbel was asked to audition for the position of weekend sportscaster at Los Angeles’s KNBC-TV. Although Gumbel believed that he got the job because the station wanted a black reporter, it soon became clear that he had a special talent for his new job. The station had suggested that Bryant change his last name because of the possibility of nicknames like “Stumble-Gumbel”; instead, he became known as “Never-Fumble Gumbel.” At the 1974 World Series, NBC network executives who saw him doing “stand-ups” in one take were duly impressed by Gumbel’s fluidity and precision. NBC sports producer Michael Weisman recalled in Sports Illustrated the first impressions of the then chubby, long-haired sportscaster, “We were dumb-founded. We had experienced network guys who would’ve taken two hours to do what he did in two minutes.” The network staffers at NBC immediately began asking for Bryant’s name and that of his agent.

The next year, Gumbel received his first assignment for NBC as co-host of a weekend sports show called Grandstand. He outlasted two co-hosts because, as Rick Reilly smirked in Sports Illustrated, “Next to Gumbel, everybody else clunked like a dryer full of tennis shoes.” In 1976 he began commuting from Los Angeles to New York to anchor professional football, baseball, and college basketball broadcasts for the network. Gumbel went to work for NBC full time in 1980, when he began doing three sports stories per week on Today. Eventually, he served as a substitute host when anchors Jane Pauley or Tom Brokaw were absent. When Brokaw left Today in 1981 to anchor NBC’s evening news, Gumbel replaced him as a host.

When Gumbel first appeared as a Today host on January 4, 1982, he was one of three co-hosts, with Jane Pauley and Chris Wallace. Within the year, however, Wallace left the show and Gumbel teamed with Pauley as a main anchor. During the 1980s, he received a number of rewards for his work on Today —from the profession and from NBC. In 1984, Gumbel won the Edward R. Murrow Award for outstanding foreign affairs broadcast reporting for a series of Today interviews with high-ranking Soviet officials in Moscow. NBC proceeded to give Gumbel increased duties. In 1985, he became the host of Main Street, an afternoon monthly news program, and in 1988, he was the key anchor for the Olympics Games in Seoul, South Korea. This second assignment was “the fattest enchilada ever handed out by NBC,” noted Rick Reilly in Sports Illustrated, “and the ultimate testament to Gumbel’s talent is that no one has yet mentioned that it went to a black man.” Writing for the New York Times, John J. O’Connor found the casting worked extremely well, “Mr. Gumbel sets the tone for the prime-time coverage and he does so with remarkable style. He is smooth and articulate. Better yet, he has a sense of humor and perspective.”

Negative Publicity Mounted

In 1988, Rick Reilly wrote a highly critical profile of Gumbel in Sports Illustrated, calling him a “strange man. Stubborn man.” This was the beginning of media coverage that closely examined the journalist’s private life and off-camera personality and often presented Gumbel in an unfavorable light. Reilly described Bryant Gumbel as a man who was too hard on his friends, his mother, and people in general. Gumbel’s professional enemies were numbered and an unflattering interview with his estranged mother was included in the article. In addition, the article focused on Gumbel’s seeming obsession with his deceased father and even suggested that Gumbel proposed to his wife because his father spoke of her so highly. In 1989, Gumbel’s image was further tarnished when the contents of a confidential interoffice memo authored by Gumbel to the Today show’s executive producer was leaked to the press. In the memo, Gumbel characterized the behavior of the Today show’s weatherman Willard Scott as unprofessional and offered criticism of almost every aspect of the program. However, his assertion that Scott was “holding the show hostage to his assortment of whims, wishes, birthdays and bad taste” received the most notice. The press leak was followed by a highly-publicized squabble between Scott and Gumbel, and TV Guide dubbed the entire incident “Gumblegate.” Again, the Today anchor was characterized as domineering and egotistical. Walter Goodman editorialized in the New York Times that given Today’s formula of “straight news to straight nonsense,” the incident gave Gumbel “the appearance of a vaudeville piano player clucking his tongue over how the jugglers are distracting the customers from his Liszt concertos.”

The fallout from “Gumblegate” would affect the show’s cast and ratings. Willard Scott “made up” with Gumbel by giving him a kiss on the air, but proceeded to shift his weather reports to remote locations. Gumbel was essentially unapologetic regarding the affair. In an interview with the New York Times Gumbel remarked, “Maybe the worst somebody would ever say of me was: He was fairly undiplomatic in the way he tried to get things done. But at least he tried to get things done.” In 1990, Deborah Norville was added to the Today show cast, a move which may have contributed to Jane Pauley’s departure. Although Pauley had been a popular figure on the show, it was rumored that Gumbel didn’t think she worked hard enough. The addition of Norville was not well received by Today viewers. The show’s ratings plummeted and it lost the distinction of being America’s most popular morning program to ABC’s Good Morning, America.

On another front, Gumbel was criticized as a “liberal cheerleader” by L. Brent Bozell, who commented in The Wall Street Journal that “no morning talk show is more slanted to the left than NBC’s “Today,” and no host more shrill than co-host Bryant Gumbel.” Specifically, Bozell accused Gumbel of “leading questions…political pronouncements…[and] character assassination;” the last item referring to an interview with Ralph Abernathy about his autobiography, a portion of which revealed unflattering details about Martin Luther King’s sex life.

Firmly Anchored on Today

Eight years into his stint on Today, the New York Times Magazine profiled Gumbel, focusing on his reaction to such criticism and his role in revitalizing the morning news program. Writer Bill Carter noted that Gumbel had not responded publicly to the uproar surrounding the infamous Today memo, despite the urging of NBC management, and—contrary to the opinions of some friends—did not blame the incident on racial motivation. It was clear, however, that Gumbel was still determined to improve Today according to his agenda and that his talent had won him a key role in directing this effort. Carter offered this analysis of Gumbel as host: “With his seamless elocution, assiduous preparation and astonishing memory for detail, Gumbel can speak cogently and off-the-cuff on virtually any subject—though he acknowledges a weakness in economics—and has a reputation for being unflappable, equally deft with a script or without, a man who can handle any broadcast crisis without flinching on the air.”

In 1992, former Today staffer Judy Kessler published the book Inside Today: The Battle for the Morning, which included harsh criticism of Gumbel as a sexist who was aggressive and juvenile. However, the book did not receive much media attention beyond two excerpts in TV Guide. Moreover, Gumbel remained firmly entrenched as one of the main Today hosts. In November of 1992, the show regained the top ratings position for morning network news from Good Morning America. By this time, Gumbel had developed a good rapport with his new co-host, Katie Couric; Gumbel remarked in The New York Times that “It’s a fun place to come to work now.” In the same article, Bill Carter wrote that Gumbel “remains secure, self-assured, and just a bit inscrutable.”

Looked for New Challenges

Bryant Gumbel always said how much he enjoyed hosting Today, but by 1992 it was clear that he was looking for a new challenge, a new goal. With the program ahead in ratings, and with an award from the National Association of Black Journalists for the Today series shot in Africa—a five year effort on Gumbel’s part, the television journalist sounded restless. He told Carter, “when I used to do sports, I’d say I didn’t envision myself saying ’Dodgers 3, Giants 2’ my whole life. Now I don’t know what to say about my future.” Finally, in January of 1996, Gumbel announced that he would leave Today in 1997 after 15 years on the show. Having begun hosting HBO’s Real Sports program the year before, Gumbel decided to move on to other, as yet undetermined, projects. The chance that Gumbel would stay with NBC was perhaps soured by an experience in October of 1995, when network management excluded Gumbel from a team that was to interview O.J. Simpson. Gumbel responded to this affront by not showing up for work; he also told the New York Daily News that he was not sure what work was left for him to do at NBC.

When Gumbel made his last appearance as host of Today on January 3, 1997, his future at NBC or plans to work elsewhere were undisclosed. Gumbel released a statement through the network that simply said, “15 years is a long time in one place, and the world’s too exciting to enjoy from just one vantage point.” NBC executives expressed the hope that they would reach an agreement with Gumbel and that, as “chairman emeritus,” he would be welcome to provide guest reports on Today. However, as the cable news competition heated up in early 1997, cable news networks such as CNN were also bidding for Gumbel’s services. The New York Daily News pointed out that “the Emmy Award-winning Gumbel…is an extraordinarily versatile newsman. He is able to grill government officials one minute and break bread with Martha Stewart the next without losing any credibility.” As such, the veteran anchor was armed and ready to sit down at the bargaining table. At the time of his “retirement” from the Today show, Gumbel was commuting to Manhattan from Westchester, New York, where he lives with his wife June; the couple has two children, Bradley and Jillian.