"Harry Smith" with Air Force personnel from McGuire Air Force Base in 2010
Veteran TV news anchor and journalist Harry Smith talked to Entertainment Heartbeat today about what he’ll be reporting tonight on Rock Center with Brian Williams, among other things.
“It’s almost a classic New York story,” Smith says, enthused about his newsmagazine-length segment this evening. “It almost feels like a sitcom, because of the reactions of guys stuck driving trucks.”
It’s all about a little matter of The Big Apple creating bike lanes in downtown NYC.
“And what’s interesting about it is that while they’ve made these dramatic changes, the transportation department claims that the traffic is actually moving better than it used to. But one the things that we found out is that New York traffic moves at exactly the same speed as it did exactly one hundred years ago, and that’s an average of seven miles an hour,” Thinking about this for a moment, Smith adds, “If we didn’t have the subways in New York we’d be in a world of pain.”
Smith informs that the big deal over what seems to be a small matter has enormous consequences.
“More and more people are moving into cities and one of the interesting things in New York is that the city’s population is starting to skyrocket back up again, and you see around the world that people are moving to cities, that’s where people are going to live in the future, and one of the things that has to be figured out is how to make cities…less car-friendly and more people-friendly.”
The bikes verses car controversy have animated activists on both sides, but the bike lanes have the blessings of the Mayor and the one who takes the barbs from the press, the traffic commissioner. “Those big cultural changes like that are not easily swallowed,” Smith acknowledges, careful to respect all opinions but realizing that Soylent Green isn’t that far away.
Although Smith didn’t mention it today, we are told that he regularly commutes to his New York NBC office by bike.
Harry Smith spent much of his high-profile TV news career at CBS (25 years), before deciding to accept NBC‘s offer for correspondent duty with their handsomely-produced, prime time news digest.
“It’s a pretty big change from day to day news,” Smith explains. “…and especially from doing morning television show because the morning TV is so day-of-air and you’re three or four minutes with whoever the guest is and move on to the next thing and the next thing. This is old fashioned magazine journalism, where we go out and shoot interviews, go on locations, take a lot of time, make sure it’s edited and written as precisely as possible. It’s hard work but it’s really fun to do.”
While traveling around the world as a TV journalist seems the dream job, any of us who have journeyed on corporate news assignments know that there can be downsides. “It’s not too bad,” Smith deadpans, genuinely loving what he does. “I’ve been home for a week and a half now. We were in Chili a couple of weeks ago, we were in South Africa before that, we’ve been around the U.S. here and there, but that’s part of the deal with a job like this, and it’s very exciting; you have moments when you’re out in the field when you just kind of pinch yourself and say ‘who gets to do this?’ It’s really fun.”
Perhaps the biggest downside for a family man like Smith is being away from his wife and two sons, but he’s kept everything together his own way. “When you get home you actually have to be present,” Smith says. “…when you are home, I don’t believe in that idea of quality time but you really have to be present. When I come home, there’s no complaining, there’s no ‘Oh, gee, I’m tired and this was hard,” you’re lucky to have the opportunity you have and when you get home, part of your job is to be as present as possible.”
Rock Center is intended to be more serious than Dateline NBC, and Smith mentions another segment that’s an example of that design on tonight’s program. “The other story that will be on the broadcast tonight is about mining in Africa, that’s being done by children. (Correspondent) Richard Engel actually goes into these mines and it’s a classic television magazine story that takes time and money and initiative to get done but it’s such an eye-opening, stunning look at how some things are done. It will give you pause if you think about buying gold jewelry for your loved ones. So for the holidays…it’s really a story worth seeing.”
Rock Center with Brian Williams appears on NBC tonight (Monday) 10pm/9c.