Celebrity Newsmagazines
61
Life in the Fat Lane and Scared Sexless, as well as the seeds of the genre that
includes series like Dateline NBC, 60 Minutes II, and others. ABC and NBC
managed to extend their standing documentary units longer than CBS did. ABC
Close-Up tried the three-hour blockbusters mentioned previously. NBC blended
lifestyle topics with programs on national defense, foreign affairs, and domestic
policy.
Bob Rogers, who headed the documentary unit in Washington, produced several
programs on life styles as a sort of barter with management to keep the unit alive,
and as a vehicle for showcasing their high-priced news talent (Schwartz). The
Washington unit covered marijuana, pleasure drugs, working moms, divorce, macho
men, bad girls, and the singles scene. These programs were afforded the same indepth research treatment as a treatise on foreign affairs. They were analytical and
focused on broad themes. The difference was topic.
One program that is representative of this group is an NBC Reports documentary
called “Second Thoughts on Being Single.” The idea for the singles show germinated
in 1982, two years before the broadcast, when assistant producer Paula Banks
talked with Dr. Shirley Zussman, President of the American Council of Sex
Educators, Counselors and Sex Therapists. Banks wrote in her notes:
Those who for the first time in our history have had society’s
permission to have premarital sex seem to be turning away from casual
sex; after m ultiple partners it has become m eaningless and non
gratifying.... [Fjears have created a generation of singles who are weary
of the battle, cautious of commitment and protective of themselves because
they feel particularly vulnerable.... Sex has been presented un-realistically
by the media ...tremendous emphasis on sexual technique.
A year passed. Rogers sent a memo to his superior, Dan O ’Connor, proposing
two documentaries: “Singles, the Sad Side,” and “Women, Work, and Babies”
(Rogers papers box 6 folder 8). Both were approved. Referring to the first title,
Rogers told O’Connor, “The drastic change in male, female relationships from
courtship to instant copulation, the breakdown of societies [sic] old structures for
getting young males and females together have left many trapped in a limbo
somewhere between singles bars, dating services, and the terror of herpes” (Rogers
box 6 folder 8).
Rogers then issued a memo to his two assistant producers, Rhonda Schwartz
and Paula Banks, and researcher, Arlene Weisskopf, requesting their input: “I would
like each of you to give me a paragraph with your ideas on a sequence which
would illustrate why it is so difficult for singles to meet suitable potential partners.
Specifically, what do you see as having changed that has created the need for.. .the