Barbara and John Cochran feted at Club's Broadcast/Podcast Team dinner
Broadcast journalists Barbara and John Cochran’s first meetings were straight from the history books: dual assignments to cover the Reagan-Gorbachev summits in Geneva (1985) and Reykjavik (1986).
Three decades later, on May 15, the esteemed couple became the newest journalists to be honored through the National Press Club Broadcast/Podcast Team’s “Dinner with Legends” series at the Club.
Barbara Cochran, whose hiring by Club member Sam Holt was pivotal to the successful launch of National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition,” said much has changed since her early-career days working in the “women’s department” at the Washington Star.
The department, she noted, was separated from the main, male-dominated newsroom. Barriers that prevented her from becoming an editor, she said, ranged from requirements on the length of her skirt to the lack of maternity leave.
Overcoming such barriers, Barbara rose to distinguish herself in editorial and managerial roles across print, radio and television.
Her move from the Star took her, she said, to a very different climate at NPR, where women had established themselves in leadership. Following her NPR stint, she became executive director of NBC’s “Meet the Press” and later vice president and Washington Bureau Chief for CBS. She also led the Radio Television Digital News Association.
She now directs the National Press Club’s Journalism Institute and the Missouri School of Journalism’s Washington Program.
Speaking about the conditions that led to the #MeToo movement, Barbara said she has been “stunned, shocked and horrified” to see men continuing to blatantly exercise power over women. She said she believes the Sunday morning political talk shows remain vital to the political dialogue, and also said she encourages her students to practice flexibility in storytelling while also specializing in a topic to add value and perspective as a journalist.
John Cochran, said Holt, is “a true witness, distilling history into 90-120 seconds.”
But the multi-Emmy-winning journalist’s career started modestly, as “JJ the DJ” during his Army enlistment. A Pentagon-based colonel plucked him from obscurity and placed him at the White House, recording audio of Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy for network feeds.
As a White House staffer, he traveled widely, including accompanying Eisenhower to the United Nations. After an unexpected chastisement by the former president for placing a microphone on the table during a collegial lunch with allies in Manhattan, press secretary Jim Haggerty comforted the young staffer by saying, “You’ve just been used as a prop by the leader of the free world.”
John later left Washington, but a five-month fellowship drew him back. That led to a job at WRC-TV during the week and White House weekend coverage. The weekend work was rewarded with full-time NBC and ABC News White House correspondent assignments, earning John distinction as the first person to do so for more than one TV network.
As a foreign correspondent, he covered the Iranian Revolution, Margaret Thatcher’s rise to power and the fall of Soviet communism.
In his remarks, John commended Presidents Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush for their kindness, while recognizing the unequalled star power of John Kennedy. And, fittingly for a midterm election year, he recalled that in 1994 then- minority leader Newt Gingrich expressed quiet optimism that with luck Republicans could get perhaps as close as five seats to taking control of the House of Representatives. (They actually won big.)
Holt, who introduced the two Cochrans, was praised by Barbara Cochran. “There would not be public radio without Sam Holt,” she remarked over dinner.
Previous “Dinner with Legends” honorees have included Jim Lehrer, Brian Lamb, Maureen Bunyan, Marvin Kalb and Johnny Holiday.
For more information about joining the Broadcast/Podcast Team, contact Hamrick at [email protected].