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P»*« 10 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE May 5, 1978
Chef Heinz
invites all Mothers for something
special May 7-13
choice of any of the delicious
desserts on the menu
FREE of charge
The Brass Key Restaurant
Peachtree Battle Shopping Center
2355 Peachtree Road • Atlanta, Georgia
LAWN SPRINKLER SYSTEMS
A DIVISION OF CHEMLAWN CORP.
...Give Us a Call for a FREE Estimate."
RESIDENTIAL
COMMERCIAL
INSTALLATION
Phone 448-1140
3024 Adriatic Ct. Norc.
Ticket to Aker* Mill Cinema
Bring this adl
When you eat at
• 20 Different Pancakes • Italian Food
• 7 Different Waffles • Italian Pastries
• Steaks • New York Cheese Cakes
• Seafood • All pastries baked
• 5 Kinds of Great Hamburgers on premises
• CHAMPAGNE BRUNCH
Complimentary glass of champagne
with Brunch (Sat.)
• BAGELS & LOX (SAT. & sun.)
SAVE $3.50
Pass good Monday through Thursday
until April 30, 1978
Located at Aker* Mill Square
Across from Cumberland Mall
Next to Akers MtW Cinema
Lou Davis
Piece of mind at 6 and 11
by Lisa Redacted
Criticism doesn’t bother Lou
Davis.
After all if you decide to become
a television commentator you can't
expect everyone to agree with you.
“Look at all these letters I get.
There’s some hate mail but mainly
critical mail included. Some of my
commentaries get more response
than others. I don’t mind the
controversy. I’m just glad people
are interested,” Davis said as he
showed me the piles of letters in his
desk drawer.
Lou Davis has been a WSB-TV
commentator for nine months now
and says he loves his job, although
he wasn’t so sure he wanted thejob
in the beginning.
“At the time I had been on the
assignment desk for a year and a
half and I didn’t really want to be
on the air. I wanted to be in
management.
“Well they asked me if l wanted
to do commentaries and I told
them no. They asked me to cut an
audition tape anyway. This was
three or four days before I was
supposed to get married. When I
got back from my honeymoon
three weeks later, they asked me to
reconsider. They said they had
already hired a replacement for my
desk job. At that point I decided to
take thejob but I didn’t really have
a choice,” Davis said with a smile.
Now nine months later, Davis
said he really enjoys his job
thoroughly.
“I’m having a hall. My entire
background is in reporting. Now I
don’t have to be objective like
before,” he said.
Raised in a religious home,
Davis was born in a small town in
Germany near Frankfurt in 1937.
His family left Germany in 1940,
but many of bis relatives died in
concentration camps.
“My uncle was a cantor at a
synagogue in Newburgh, N.Y. He
and the synagogue sponsored my
family so we were able to get a visa
to the United States,” Davis said.
Davis ended up attending
Orange County Community
College in New York. He later
became a disc jockey in New York.
“I really liked it in the beginning
but after five years 1 got tired of
sitting around playing records. I
was beginning to get bored,” he
said.
After Davis served in the army
in Japan, he came back to the
United States and ended up
working for Philadelphia’s KYW-
TV and from there went to New
York's WNEW. Afterwards he
became an NBC correspondent in
Vietnam.
Lou Davis
Vietnam was interesting but
difficult. It was a tough year. I
wouldn’t do it again,” Davis said.
Did Davis ever feel like he was in
danger in Vietnam?
“It was kind of scary. There were
times when we were in trouble. We
were with the first troops to go into
Cambodia. In Vietnam we knew
our way around but in Cambodia
it was a different story. A very
close friend of mine, another NBC
correspondent, disappeared. For a
whole month we looked for him
and to this day he’s still missing,"
Davis said.
In addition to the Vietnam War,
Davis also covered the Yom
Kippur War in Israel for NBC.
“That was tough. It was worse
than Vietnam. The fighting is so
much more intense. The
operations are bigger,” he recalled.
After the Yom Kippur War was
over, Davis stayed for the peace
talks and the Israeli elections.
During his stay of thrte months
in Israel, Davis interviewed Moshe
Dayan, Golda Meir and Yitzhak
Rabin.
“Dayan was very aloof and
difficult to interview. He was
proper, careful and measured his
every word. Rabin was interesting.
Deep down he was really shy until
you got to know him. And
Golda—she is so nice—kind of like
a grandmother. If I'd ask her
something, she’d say, ‘now Lou,
you know I can’t tell you that,’ ” he
recalled.
Shortly after Israel, NBC
transferred Davis to Atlanta.
“My five year contract was up
with NBC and 1 decided 1 didn’t
want to travel as much. I became a
street reporter for Channel 11 in
Atlanta. Then I went to Channel 2
and was on the assignment desk
until I became a commentator," he
said.
Was Davis nervous about
becoming a commentator?
“When I first became a
commentator I was kind of
worried. The style would sort of be
sarcastic and ‘tongue in cheek.’ But
I knew there would be a lot to write
about because there is so much
going on in Atlanta.
Davis said he usually tries to
avoid Jewish subjects in his
commentaries.
“Israel and Judaism are too
personal a thing for me to do. I’ve
done a couple of things on Israel
including the arms sales to Arabs,
something on the peace talks
around December and on the
movie “Holocaust.” ’
In his “Holocaust” commentary
Davis pointed out that during the
four-night period of the movie,
Channel 2 had received many calls
and some of them were
frightening." He went on to say
that these “J.B. Stoner types” are
“spouting their hate” and if we’re
not careful, what happened in
Germany can happen again. From
this commentary Davis got many
people calling saying the
Holocaust never happened.
“I tried to reason with them. I
had a long conversation with an
Arab who saw my commentary on
cable in another state. Among
other things, he said that we have a
Jewish dominated press. I talked
to him for an hour. I don’t think I
changed his mind but he did thank
me at the end of the conversation,”
Davis said.
Davis said many of the
negative calls he received were
probably from followers of J.B.
Stoner.
Stoner is an entirely different
story for Davis.
Back in November, Davis did a
commentary on Stoner saying that
he is “an ugly reminder that
bigotry and racism still exist.”
“At that time my news director
didn't want me to do it because he
knew Stoner would want equal
time. It wasn't what I was saying,
but what Stoner would probably
say. Well I argued my point and
finally my director let me do the
Stoner commentary,” Davis said.
As predicted Stoner demanded
equal, time and got it, Davis said.
So far Davis has been able to do
any commentary he has written.
“I can do anything I want. The
only person who reads my
commentaries before they go on
the air is my news director and he is
usually checking for facts and libel
problems. He has never made any
substantive changes. His favorite
expression is “argue with me about
it.”
Davis has “argued” other
commentaries besides the Stoner
one and won them all.
From talking to Davis it is
obvious he is a man who enjoys
what he is doing, and doesn’t mind
the heat of controversy. As for the
future, he tries to “live one day at a
time.”
After finishing our interview,
Davis said goodbye as he retreated
back to his typewriter to work on
his commentary for that night.
“You ask me about the future. I
don’t even know what I’m going to
do at 6 o’clock."
The Amencon
Economic System.
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