Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 6—The Georgia Bulletin, September 14, 1978
Dave Michaels: Catholic Anchorman
MEETS THE POPE - Vice President Walter
Mondale is greeted by Pope John Paul 1 at the Vatican.
Mondale, who headed the U.S. delegation, was one of a
large number of official representatives who met with
the pope on the day after his installation Mass.
Carter Is Papal-Minded President
(Continued from page 1)
diplomatic event. The people
who went to Rome (in the
official delegations)
represented our country very
well.”
Two bishops who are
personal friends of Vice
President Walter Mondale -
Archbishop John Roach of
Minneapolis-St. Paul, the
NCCB vice president who
preached at Carter’s
inaugural, and Bishop James
Rausch of Phoenix, Ariz. a
Minnesota native
accompanied Mondale as part
of the official U.S. delegation
to Pope John Paul’s
inaugural.
Carter picked the political
figures in the delegations to
the funeral and the inaugural
with an eye toward showing
sensitivity toward the
Catholic Church and various
Catholic ethnic groups. His
choices also indicated he used
the events to reward his
political friends.
The two delegations
included Irish Catholics such
as Sen. Edward Kennedy
(D-Mass.) and New York Gov.
Hugh Carey, Italian Catholics
such as Rep. Peter Rodino
(D-N.J.), Robert Giaimo
(D-Conn.) and Mario Biaggi
(D-N.Y.), Hispanic Catholics
such as the U.S. immigration
Commissioner Leonel
Castillo, and Eastern
European Catholics such as
Rep. Clement Zablocki
(D-Wis.) and Mayor Michael
Bilandic of Chicago.
Several of those in the
delegations, such as Carey,
Sen. Thomas McIntyre
(D-N.H.) and Sen. William
Hathaway (D-Me.), face
tough election fights this fall
in states where they may be
helped by their participation
in the official delegations.
The Carter administration
also showed that it
recognized the Vatican was
an important foreign policy
friend under Pope Paul and
could be again under Pope
John Paul. As Mondale noted
in his interview with the
religious press, the Church is
a major voice in defense of
human rights and social
justice in countries where the
United States has similar
concerns.
(After Pope Paul died,
Father J. Bryan Hehir, the
U.S. Catholic Conference’s
top foreign policy adviser,
received a call from a friend
at the State Department
looking for an insight into the
choice of a new pope. “I told
him our system does not lend
itself to conventional
American political analysis,”
Father Hehir said, with both
good humor and good
insight.)
Carter, who oftens
personalizes issues and his
relations with world leaders,
also personalized his handling
of the papal transition. He
sent his wife, Rosalynn, to
head the U.S. delegation to
Pope Paul’s funeral and he
attended a requiem Mass for
the pope at Washington’s St.
Matthew’s Cathedral. (When
Pope John died in 1963,
President John Kennedy did
not attend a similar Mass,
although his brother Robert,
then U.S. Attorney General,
did).
In a letter which Mondale
delivered to the pope, Carter
joked about the pope’s
surprise selection and said,
“As one who wasn’t expected
to be president of the United
States, I feel we have much in
common.” Mondale said the
pope laughed and said Carter
was ‘TOO percent American.”
Pope John Paul’s efforts to
remove some of the pomp
and ceremony of the papacy
bring to mind Carter’s walk
down Pennsylvania Avenue
after his own inauguration
and other efforts to do away
with the imperial presidency.
In recent months, some of
Carter’s top staffers have
realized that they lost some
of the aura of the presidency
-- and therefore some of its
power - through some of
their efforts to bring the
presidency back to the
people.
One White House aide
with a Catholic background
said he considered sending
the pope some friendly advice
-- “Don’t de-pomp too much,
too soon.”
Papal Gift Leads To Haggling
HARTFORD, Conn. (NC) - It all started
when the first press reports about the new
pope, John Paul I, the former Cardinal Albino
Luciani of Venice, said he was a fan of
American Humorist Mark Twain.
The Carter administration wanted to give
the new pope a gift and decided a first edition
of a Twain book would be appropriate.
The State Department protocol office
contacted the Mark Twain Memorial Museum
in Hartford, Conn. But the office has a $100
limit on gifts of this kind.
The director of the Twain museum at
Hartford, Wynn Lee, told the protocol office
$100 was too cheap for a first edition and
suggested the department buy a Mark Twain
tee shirt.
“There was a horrible sound at the other
end of the phone,” Lee said. “I told them I
was only kidding. They are deadly serious
people in the protocol office.”
Lee said the museum would make an
exception and sell a first edition for $100.
“This was a very special occasion,” he said.
He sent four books for the State
Department to examine - originals of “Life
on the Mississippi,” “A Tramp Abroad,” “A
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”
and “Following the Equator.”
Lee said the State Department asked “if
Twain had ever said nasty things about the
Catholic Church in any of those works. They
were apparently under the impression that
Twain was anti-Catholic.
“I told them Twain never singled out the
Catholic Church,” Lee said. “He was just
anti-organized religion.”
Vice President Walter Mondale, who
presented the gift to the pope, chose “Life on
the Mississippi.”
He said there were two copies of the book,
“but one of them had the inscription on it to
somebody, ‘Be good and you’ll always be
lonely, Mark Twain,’ so I decided not to give
that one to him and gave him the other one.”
(Continued from page 1)
officer once a week. He told
me that if I was interested, he
would arrange for me to get a
six-month period of service. I
was really undecided about
what I wanted to do so opted
for the two-year draft to give
me some time to think.”
The Army gave Dave his
first glimpse of Atlanta when
he was assigned to Fort
McPherson and became a
broadcast specialist in the
information office.
Receiving his Army
discharge in 1960, Dave went
to work at WAGA-TV,
Channel 5. Initially he had
been hired to serve as
anchorman on the evening
news, replacing Dale Clark.
“I ended up a staff
announcer, however, and it
was a great experience. It was
during a period when you did
a little bit of everything -
read the news, hosted movies,
et cetera.”
Dave decided that a
change would be best for his
career and went to
Washington, D. C. The move
North didn’t work out and a
short time later Dave was
back in Atlanta and his old
job at WAGA.
A big break came when he
got to know talk-show host
Phil Donahue, who
encouraged Dave to try to
launch a talk-show of his
own. This was done at
WTVN-TV in Columbus,
Ohio, when “Michaels and
Co.” went on the air weekday
mornings.
A broadcast strike ended
Dave’s career in Columbus
and he admits it was the most
bleak period of his life.
“Suddenly I could not
work. As a member of the
Union, I could not cross the
picket lines and was finally
completely out of work.”
What he considers “a small
miracle” then occurred and
was the biggest break of his
career. He was asked to go to
New York and host “A.M.
New York,” a two-hour early
morning news and
information program for
WABC-TV. He served as host
for two months from January
to February in 1974. A job
offer came from Los Angeles
at this point and he became
the co-anchorman on “Eye
Witness News” at KABC-TV.
Once again the talk-show
host bug bit and he launched
“A.M. Los Angeles,”
interviewing such celebrities
as Theodore White, Andre
Kostelanetz, Norman
Rockwell, Tim Conway, Dick
Gregory and many others
during his nine months on the
air.
“In Los Angeles, I had
more TV exposure than any
personality in the city. I was
host of the early morning
show, plus airing the news in
the evening. I wasn’t exactly
pleased with the situation. It
was one thing to host
interesting guests in the
morning, then tell about the
traffic accidents in the
evening!”
The station had promised
Dave a contract for just the
morning show, but
negotiations fell through. He
then requested to work just
as a newsman. His request
denied, Dave left the station
and was again out of work.
“Only in Los Angeles can
you do two-and-a-half hours
on television on Friday and
find yourself out mowing
your lawn and without a job
on Monday,” he says.
While in California, he had
his first taste of filmmaking.
One movie he made was “Fun
With Dick and Jane” starring
Jane Fonda and George Segal.
“I was really excited about
the film, in which I played a
newsman. I gathered together
about 10 friends and treated
them to a movie outing. We
waited and waited for my big
scene on the screen. It never
appeared! The entire segment
in which I acted was cut from
the final movie! Talk about
being embarrassed, I certainly
was!”
Hopefully, audiences will
be exposed to Dave, or at
least his voice, when NBC-TV
airs Neil Simon’s “Prisoner of
Second Avenue” with Jack
Lemmon later this year. Dave
will be heard as a voice-over
radio newsman in the film.
In addition to his work
with movies, Dave has
appeared on network
television productions with
McLean Stevenson,
“Koochie-Koochie” girl
Charo and Art James.
He once tried to sell the
idea of a game show he
developed and spent several
Thomas More Adult Ed.
“Your Finances In
Changing Times,” a seminar
developed by Larry Burkett
of Christian Financial
Concepts (CFC) will start on
September 24 at St. Thomas
More in Decatur. Phil
Smallwood, coordinator, says
that CFC is the only
gift-supported, financial
ministry in the United States.
Larry Burkett, the founder,
was told that a non-profit
financial organization was not
possible. It is apparent that
Who says
agrea'
restaurant
has to
be dull?
It’s a sad fact: most great restaurants are stuffy.
Sorre are downright pretentious. (If you’re
out with friends and you laugh too loudly*
people actually turn and stare. That’s
no fun.) Happily, there’s a great
restaurant nearby that’s unlike other
great restaurants. The name is The
Steeplechase. And what makes The
Steeplechase different is that it’s
unashamedly unstuffy and unpre
tentious. Yet you enjoy the finest
American cuisine, impeccably
served. And you enjoy a de
lightfully relaxed, happy
evening. (Compare that with
the uncomfortable, stuffy
hush you encounter at
most international
restaurants.)
Come dine at
The Steeple
chase. who
says you have
to sacrifice fun to
dine at a great
restaurant? And for
some fun after dinner,
drop into our Stinup Cup
Lounge. For dancing,
drinks and live
entertainment.
Tne superb® restaurant where you can horse around.
At the Mamott Hotel, Perimeter Center (adjacent to Perimeter Mall), just off 1-285 aod
Ashford-Dunwoody Road. Phone: 394-6500.
God thought it wss possible
for it exists today and
conducts seminars
nationwide.
The seminar reduced to
Video tape in 12 half-hour
segments will be presented at
10 a.m. each Sunday as part
of the Adult Education
Program. A study guide is
available with the seminar to
stimulate discussion at the
conclusion of each
presentation. No registration
is needed.
Another course being
planned is “Jesus - God’s
Way to Conversation;” a four
week mini-course on prayer.
The course’s basic thrust is
that “man hungers for God,
God’s call is through grace,
man’s response is through
prayer, and conversation can
be healing prayer. Developed
by Smallwood under the
guidance of Father Noel
Neary, the course has been
presented previously at
Sacred Heart, and more
recently at Corpus Christi in
Stone Mountain.
months on the project. He
says that he became so sick of
the inanity of the game show
business that he dropped the
idea and has never considered
such a project again.
In June 1976, Dave made
what he hopes will be his
“final” move back to Atlanta
and joined the WXIA staff.
He is quite pleased with his
work and points out that
since he became anchorman
at Channel 11, the station has
won the Associated Press
Pacemaker Award, the
Atlanta Emmy and the
United Press International
Award for Best Newscast.
“But we’re just
beginning,” he says. “Starting
September 25, we’re changing
the image of our news
reporting. We’re going into
more in-depth, no-nonsense
broadcasting and feel that we
will be major competition for
the other stations for the first
time.”
In addition to “Eleven
Alive News,” Dave is also
seen on his bi-weekly
“Michaels: One On One”
Sunday morning interview
program.
Dave is happy to be “back
home” in Atlanta and so is
his wife, the former Ann
Morris of Marietta, whom
Dave met and wed in 1963
during one of his frequent
trips back to Atlanta and the
broadcast market here.
An extremely talented
artist - he once hosted a
children’s program on
Channel 5 in which he taught
the youngsters to draw -
Dave enjoys painting. At one
point in his life he had
planned to become a
commercial artist but
abandoned the idea.
If he were not in
broadcasting, he would
probably be a college
professor in “a small
community with a great
academic atmosphere.” His
hobbies include the study of
Colonial American History
and he’s a great War Between
the States buff. Other reading
material he enjoys are the
novels of Thomas Wolfe.
Dave is a member of St.
Jude’s parish, where son
Michael, age 13, and daughter
Kathy, who will be nine in
November, attend CCD.
Asked if he’s frequently
asked to serve as lecterur,
Dave replied, “No, I’ve never
volunteered. I go to Church
to pray, not to read. I feel
that it might be distracting to
the congregation if I were a
lector. People always
compare you with the way
they see you on television. I
prefer to just be a member of
the parish and quietly
worship.”
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JOHANNES HOF1NGER, SJ
Writer, Lecturer, Catechist
WHERE: St. Pius X High School
WHEN: September 23, 1978 .... 9:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
THEME: EVANGELIZATION CATECHESIS
AGENDA:
9:30 Arrival, Registration, Coffee
10:00 WHAT MAKES CATECHESIS A GENUINE
EVANGELIZATION?
11:00 Break
11:15 Questions/Response
11:30 Liturgy
12:30 Lunch ... (B.Y.O., beverages available)
1:15 THE SPIRITUALITY OF THE CATECHIST
2:15 Break
2:30 Questions/Response/Summary
3:00 Closing Prayer Service
A joint effort of the Department of Catholic Education, Office
of Catholic Schools and the Office of Religious Education.
REGISTRATION FORM ... Johannes Hofinger, SJ Lectures ...
St. Pius X High School September 23, 1978 9:30 a.m. -
3:00 p.m.
NAME: PARISH:
POSITION: PHONE:
1 will be attending the lectures on Sept. 23, 1978 at St. Pius X
High School. I understand that lunch is B.Y.O. and that
beverages will be provided.
This is a joint effort of the Department of Catholic Education,
Office of Catholic Schools and the Office of Religious
Education.
Please fill out and return to: Office of Religious Education, 756
W. Peachtree St., N. W„ Atlanta, Ga. 30308.
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