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S34 Ep5

Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip

Premiere: 10/20/2020 | 00:02:00 |

Meet Walter Winchell, the newspaper columnist, radio commentator and television personality who pioneered the fast-paced, gossip-driven, politically charged journalism that dominates today. At his peak, his audience was 50 million. Stanley Tucci portrays Winchell in a new American Masters documentary.

About the Episode

Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip Tells the Story of the Media Personality Who Pioneered Fast-Paced, Celebrity-Focused and Politically Charged Journalism

Featuring Stanley Tucci as Winchell and narrated by Whoopi Goldberg

Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip traces the life and career of the syndicated columnist, radio news commentator and television host who pioneered the fast-paced, gossip driven, politically charged media culture that dominates today. At the height of his career, Winchell had a combined print and radio audience of 50 million and the power to make or break careers. He became the most feared and admired man in America, a man who transformed entertainment journalism and championed “Mr. and Mrs. America” in his daily columns and Sunday night radio program. Decades later, an alliance with Senator Joseph McCarthy and feuds with Josephine Baker and Ed Sullivan turned his audience against him and forced him into obscurity.

Featuring Stanley Tucci as Winchell and narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, this American Masters documentary breathes new life into Winchell’s original newspaper columns and broadcast scripts, drawing on rare recordings and a recently digitized collection of his work in the Billy Rose Theatre Division at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Winchell’s own words comprise nearly a quarter of the script as the film tracks the rise and fall of his career, and his continued influence on today’s media. “He was not only present at the creation of modern journalism,” concludes biographer and film interviewee Neal Gabler, “in many respects he was the creation.”

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QUOTE
"Gossip is the art of saying nothing in a way that leaves practically nothing unsaid."
PRODUCTION CREDITS

Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip is a production of Ben Loeterman Productions, Inc., in association with THIRTEEN’s American Masters for WNET. Written, produced and directed by Ben Loeterman.

FUNDERS

Major funding for Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Support for American Masters is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, AARP, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, Rosalind P. Walter Foundation, Cheryl and Philip Milstein Family, Judith and Burton Resnick, Seton J. Melvin, The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, The Ambrose Monell Foundation, Lillian Goldman Programming Endowment, Vital Projects Fund, The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, Ellen and James S. Marcus, The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation, Koo and Patricia Yuen, Thea Petschek Iervolino Foundation, The Marc Haas Foundation and public television viewers.

TRANSCRIPT

(suspenseful music) - Good evening Mr.

and Mrs. United States, Cuba, Canada, and Alaska.

Thanks for permitting me to be your guest.

- [Whoopi] He had a very personal, direct mode of address.

- Flash, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, and Captain P.G. Taylor are reported well out over the Pacific in their sky dashed-- - He has this style, that makes you feel that you're right there, and that this guy really knows what's happening.

And therefore, now I know what's really happening.

- He pioneers the blending of news and entertainment.

- From row A, seat five, Flemington Courthouse, January 17.

Witnesses confirmed this writer's contention at the time.

- He understood that people wanted novelty.

That fact was irrelevant really.

- Oh, that's another big one for me.

Come on, fella's, put it in your story.

- The America First committee, founded as a student anti war movement, takes a dark turn when Charles Lindbergh becomes its spokesman.

- Lindbergh made a speech in Des Moines, Thursday night, and unmistakable appeal, to antisemitism.

- [Lindbergh] We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices.

- Lindbergh asks his audience, who's leading us to war?

It's the Jews. - [Lindbergh] The British.

- Winchell sees in Senator McCarthy this rising star, who might one day be President of the United States.

- Congressional detectives are now breathing heavily down the neck of a very big man in the Department of Defense.

- [Man] This becomes an issue of the enemy of my enemy, is my friend.

- The kind of dividing line between entertainment and politics was shattered by Winchell in the thirties.

- And we're still living that in any journalism that we absorb today.

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