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Susan Zirinsky
Alumni & Friends >> Susan Zirinsky
 | Susan ZirinskyBA '74, CommunicationExecutive Producer, CBS News |
President Ronald Reagan meets for the first time with Mikhail Gorbachev, signaling a reduction in nuclear arms and a possible end to the Cold War. It's 1985, and Susan Zirinsky leaves the edit room as producer for CBS Evening News to climb onto the press bus with the rest of the press corps. "I waited on the camera platform," she remembers. "I wanted to physically see two enemies come face to face. These moments of history are remarkable."
Four years later, Chinese tanks roll at Tiananmen Square, killing hundreds of student demonstrators. Zirinsky, now a senior producer, directs news coverage in Beijing.
Years later, as executive producer of 48 Hours, Zirinsky holds her breath while an American family returns their adopted child to Russia, intending to commit her to a psychiatric hospital or, if the hospital does not accept her, leave her at a subway stop. CBS, and Zirinsky, stand by with legal counsel should the child be abandoned. Would the 48 Hours team have to claim the child? Luckily the hospital accepts her. Later the same year, 48 Hours airs a show about a mother of quadruplets, murdered in front of her children. The show reveals the possibility that her ex-husband, angry over child custody, murdered her. After an hour of programming on the case, the district attorney vows to get the guilty man; three years later he is sentenced to life in prison, with no chance of parole.
These are moments from the life of executive producer Susan Zirinsky - a life so intriguing it was featured in the 1987 movie Broadcast News. The high-energy lead, played by Holly Hunter, was modeled after Zirinsky. With the title of Technical Adviser and Associate Producer on the movie, she helped design a real control room, a functioning newsroom, and wrote the "news" stories delivered by actors Jack Nicholson, William Hurt, and Albert Brooks.
But while Zirinsky calls the movie "an incredible experience," her real life is so packed with significance that Hollywood pales by comparison. Zirinsky was the White House Producer for CBS for more than a decade, the Senior Producer for the Evening News with Dan Rather in Washington, and then the first woman Senior Broadcast Producer for the Evening News in New York.
She was also the executive producer of Campaign '92 and Campaign '96, Senior Broadcast Producer and Executive producer of the prime time news magazine Eye to Eye with Connie Chung, and the Senior Producer for News and CBS Sports for the Winter Olympics in Albertville, France.
"When you do something that's either informative or touching or really makes a difference for people, and can turn people's lives around," she says, "it's quite astonishing." Her work at 48 Hours, where she has been executive producer since July 1996, is less news broadcast and more putting news into perspective, she explains. But when world-shattering events take place, she shifts to hard news, giving her "the best of both worlds."
"When something like 9-11 happens, or the [Iraqi] war, you are de facto a more sophisticated hard-news broadcast. We all love those times because the purity of it is so unique. With 9-11, we couldn't do enough, because we were trying to find out, 'who were these people?' '[Are] we safe as a country?'"
Her enthusiasm surges through her speech, yet she takes her work seriously, describing the "incredible trust" granted when "you have the ability to reach millions of people on any given night."
Zirinsky jumped into CBS when she was still a student at the School of Communication. As a sophomore, in 1972, she worked as a weekend production clerk. When a full-time job opened up before graduation, she jumped on it. "Washington is such a hotbed for connections," she says, and her professors valued that, adjusting her schedule so she could work through senior year. She turned in stories for the station that were also evaluated for credit, and commuted to her job from Anderson Hall.
But Zirinsky was in class long enough to appreciate her professors, particularly Ed Bliss and Glenn Harnden. Harnden, who taught film, gave Zirinsky her first understanding of "the power of an image," an essential tool for news magazine footage. Bliss, one of SOC's pioneers, still comes to mind when she's struggling with a story - at one point, he suggested she consider a different profession, and on difficult days, she wonders if maybe he was right. For years after her work at CBS placed her in the firmament of successful broadcast news professionals, Bliss would laugh about his mistake.
Despite his misjudgment, Zirinsky lauds SOC professors as active, "viable players." She continues their hands-on, career-oriented approach, advising Dean Larry Kirkman as a member of the Dean's Advisory Council. Zirinsky also serves as an active co-chair for the school's fundraising campaign, mentors SOC students, guest lecturers in SOC classes, hosts students at CBS for the annual SOC NYC site visit, and provides internships to SOC students.
In March 2008, Zirinsky celebrated the 20th anniversary of 48 Hours on the air. She has served as executive producer of the investigative news program for over a decade. 48 Hours is the third longest-running prime-time series on network TV, behind ABC's 20/20 and CBS's 60 Minutes.
"American University aligned the planets in the right place at the right time. The professors were players in the world of journalism and film, not merely observers. They gave us theory and practical advice - but, then, the best advice was to go out and smell it, taste it, live it."
