The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 45

THE BOSTON GLOBE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21.1 982 45 Arts Films 52 TV Radio 55 In search of Mike Taibbi i I LfcJi fcsHl fca taa Baajrj 7r tftrr DIANE WHITE A secretary who deserves an award i pf. i ''z rZLv? I A i --w H. i 7 'm station "if they feel the kind of work that I do is Important I'm not going to do supermarket openings or ribbon-cuttings." There's something about Mike Taibbi that elicits strong opinions -even from people who know only what they see of him on TV. Viewers have variously pronounced him arrogant, aloof, hard-nosed, intense. A lawyer who has seen him work says he's "tough as nails." Dave O'Brlan of the Phoenix has written that Taibbi Is "egocentric," adding that "the Channel 7 muckraker" is "solid and energetic." Whatever else is said about the 32-year-old Taibbi, he is prolific.

He typically puts in 60-hour weeks, and, by his own account, produces more stories than "any other anchor in the city ever has." In addition to helping to prepare the news that he reads each weekday, he produces one or more "News-breakers" investigative items each week, along with coreporter Bill Selby, exposing anything from consumer ri-poffs to white-collar crime to, political corruption: he also produces feature Items for the monthly newsmagazine which he anchors and he emphasizes designed. Taibbi works fast, talks fast, drives his silver, sun-roofed BMW fast, even types fast (he counts 90 words per minute). "He works very hard and he works a lot of hours, which is a rarity In this business, since Just being on air as an anchor is a very demanding thing," says Leone. For his efforts, Taibbi has been noticed, and not Just on the street. In 1977.

while he was a reporter at Ch. 5, he was hired by the ABC network to become a By Linda Matchan Globe Staff They all know him. Sort of. They know the face, anyway, even if they can't quite get the name. "I've seen you before," says the man in the turnpike toll booth.

"Don't I know you?" asks the meter maid near Government Center. "I know who you are," says the construction worker in Cambridge. He snaps his fingers. He looks at his friends. 'You're, uh, you're Mike Taibbi.

The one with the small, round, boyish face who anchors the 6 and 11 o'clock "News 7" TV news, with Susan Brady and Brad Holbrook, and who looks very solemn, even when he's Joking. Taibbi likes to ask tough questions "as tough as I can make them," he says when he's out on the street, nosing around for dirt and corruption in Massachusetts for his regular "News-breakers" investigative reports. Like many newspeople in TV these days, Taibbi when he's paying a toll or walking anywhere around town -seems to become the news by virtue of the fact that he reads it over the air. Celebrity or not, the future of -Taibbi and the rest of his WNAC cohorts, is uncertain this week now that the Channel 7 TV franchise has passed into the hands of the New England Television Corp. (NETV).

The new management is promising "a new look In programming" but nobody is sure how that will -affect the current employees. Taibbi says he has "no Idea" what's going to happen to him, what his role at the new station might be when the dust settles and NETV takes over. He's not planning to leave, but, like many of his colleagues, he says vaguely, he has "been talking" to potential new employers. David Mugar, NETV's principal shareholder, refused to comment on Taibbi's future at the station. But a source at Ch.

7, who asked not to be identified, theorized that Taibbi doesn't have much to worry about: If anyone's Job Is secure at the station, the source said, It's Taibbi's because he's good at what he does. "I consider Taibbi to the be the best investigative reporter in Boston," Ch. 7 news director Peter Leone said last week. Taibbi says he'd like to stay at the London-based correspondent. He quit, however, for "personal reasons" after Just six months end returned to Boston, stressing that he left of his own volition.

London bureau chief Bill Mllldyke said In a telephone interview that Taibbi had been an "excellent" reporter. "He left on his own because of family problems." Taibbi, who was married at the time and has one son, is divorced from his first wife and Is now married to Beverly Schuch, a reporter at WJAR-TV in Providence, R.I. i TAIBBI, Page 46 -r'- --W it 113 Newsman Mike Taibbi likes to dabble in fiction. globe photo by ted dully TL The party that wasn't Today Is National Secretaries Day, time to announce the winner of the Petty Office Procedure contest, sponsored by the Boston chapter of 9 To 5, Organization of Women Office Workers. May we have the envelope please? The winner is Joan Mcintosh, 37, of Hyde Park, a secretary at a pharmaceutical company in Boston.

In a manner of speaking, though, you might say the real winner is her boss, James Stewart. His prize-winning petty procedure? "He asked me to go out and get him a knock-wurst sandwich for lunch and I went out and got it," said Mcintosh. "Well, he had a friend in his office and they were shooting the breeze for a while. Then he was on the telephone. Meanwhile, the sandwich sat there and got cold.

When he got off the phone, he asked me to take it back and get it reheated." And did she? "Yes, like an idiot," said Mcintosh, laughing. She can laugh about the incident now, but at the time she didn't think it was so funny. Stewart laughs about it, too. as well he might. "He knows I won, and he's been chuckling about it," Mcintosh said.

"He's a good sport; I don't want to imply he's 4 bad, because he's not. He's been really good. I have two teenagers, and he's al- tered my hours to go with my home life." Mcintosh says fetching Stewart's lunch Isn't really part of her Job, but she doesn mind doing it occasionally. "Sometimes he gets mine," she said. There was a long pause.

"But I get his more than he gets mine." Mcintosh's prize amounts, mostly, to moral satisfaction: The winning incident will be submitted to the writers of the "9 to 5" television show for consideration. Stewart's award will be something more tangible. "We're sending him a plastic knockwurst sandwich that will never need to be reheated," said Joan Quinlan, director of the Boston office of 9 To 5. Marianne DiMambro, 24, of Woburn, who wrrks for a solar energy firm in Bil-lerica, was a close second to Mcintosh. In the middle of one busy day, DiMambro's boss asked her to go out and buy him some cigarettes.

She drove around a nearby mall three times looking for a parking space before giving up and parking illegal- ly. She tried three stores before she found one that had hfs brand in stock. She walked out of the mall Just in time to see her car being towed away. She paid a $13 towing bill and went back to her office. Her boss yelled at her for taking so long.

She handed him the cigarettes and the towing bill for $13. He handed her back 80 cents for the cigarettes. Mcintosh's and DiMambro's stories won, according to Quinlan, because'al-though they are outrageous, they are more or less ordinary. "We think a lot of office workers can Identify with these stories," Quinlan said. Most of the entries fell' into the same outrageous-but-ordinary category.

For example, one legal secretary complained that boss had her work on the arrangements for his wedding for weeks. She typed up guest lists, coordinated seating arrangements, made countless telephone calls to confirm details and tie up loose ends. After all her efforts he didn't bother to invite her to the wedding. "That's a typical story," guinlan said. Other typical stories involved (employers who asked their secretaries to do part-: time nursing.

One legal secretary complained about a boss who expected her to put drops in his eyes three times a day when he had an eye infection. Another le-: gal secretary said her boss had stomach trouble and demanded she make him Jell-O in the middle of the working day. But some of the entries were not so or-dinary. There was, for example, the secre-tary whose boss, the owner of a room-': mate-matching service, was taking Judo lessons and expected her to help him prac- tlce by blocking his punches. There was the medical secretary who, along with her other daily duties, was expected to walk, feed and entertain her employer's Lhasa apso.

And there was the secretary whose boss, a paper company executive (and, ap- parently, amateur pimp), attempted to give her to a disgruntled client as a peace offering. Her boss told the unhappy client that she was the July Playmate, which she wasn't, and, unbeknownst to her, made a date for her with the client. The boss then asked the secretary to meet him In a restaurant, but when she showed up she found the client waiting to claim her. No wonder she didn't win. There's nothing petty about that procedure.

Jerome Wiesner of Watertown, an NETV stockholder and the former president of MIT. as he surveyed the muted party which was being underscored by an even more muted cocktail pianist, "is pursuing a girl for 13 years. When she finally says you're too old to do anything about it." The cause for the hastily arranged gathering was news that had been delivered via telephone from Washington only riine hours earlier. The US Supreme Court had refused to review the revocation of RKO General's license to operate WNAC-TV, thereby apparently clearing the way for NETV to begin operation on Ch. 7 in the Immediate future.

Given the tortuous path the case has taken. however, those with the most to gain financially the license has been estimated to be worth between $100 million and $200 million, depending on who's doing the guessing were NETV, Page 47 From left, Edward Fredkin, Bertram Lee and David Mugar. GLOBE PHOTO BY WENDY MAEDA By Nathan Cobb Globe Staff It was supposed to be a celebration, right? An open bar and red plastic stirrers with little lobsters on them and oysters Rockefeller consumed beneath the wagon wheel chandeliers of Anthony's Pier 4 restaurant In Boston, right? But when many of the approximately 65 stockholders of New England Television Corp. (NETV) gathered Monday night to celebrate their apparent victory in the 14-year battle to acquire the license to operate Channel 7 in Boston, there was nary a hint of folks dancing among the sauteed shrimp. Pick your simile from those floating around the thickly carpeted Lynn Room: A.

It was like holding the wedding reception before the wedding. B. It was like celebrating your gradu ation from college on the night before you entered law school. C. It was like reaching the top of Heartbreak Hill in the Boston Marathon and realizing the race wasn't over.

"What It's really like," concluded A Little League mother vows not to go off base 1 t- i tred for other parents beside me in the bleachers. Not even the man who yells, "Don't worry, Charlie. Just pitch away. This kid can't hit the broad side of a barn!" when my son is at bat. Or the coach of the opposing team who uses only his top players and lets the rest of his team sit on the bench even though his team is ahead of ours by 20 runs.

Nor the umpire who calls everything my son throws a ball and everything he doesn't hit a strike. Nor even my own father who shakes his head in despair when his grandson's team Is losing and mutters, "It's the stupid coach's fault!" so loudly my husband the coach and everyone on the whole field hears him. I will not grit my teeth or hold my breath as I sit on the bleachers. I will breathe evenly and normally, smiling all the while. No matter what atrocity is occurring on the field.

After all, it is only a game. We are all having fun. I will be cheerful and upbeat after each game. No matter how many runs we lost by, I will collect my sons and husband and gaily suggest we all go home and eat the wonderful casserole I left in MOTHER, Page 51 By Phyllis Karas Special to The Globe This year it's going to be a different ballgame. No matter what happens in the upcoming three months.

I am going to act like an adult, like a mature mother of a Little Leaguer. Unlike the past six springs, this year I Intend to carry myself with decorum and control. This baseball season, when the end of June rolls around, I intend to hold my head high and walk through the streets of town with my self-respect Intact. To carry this out I will have to follow a few simple resolutions. No matter what, I will not allow myself to hate any child, under the age of 13, who holds a bat or glove in his hand.

Even if the child uses the bat to smash a home run through the legs of my son the pitcher. Not even If the child strikes out my son the batter five times in one game. No matter what, I will sit In my seat In the bleachers and think pleasant thoughts. Like how cute the little boy is. And what big brown eyes he has.

And what a wonderful little arm he possesses. I will allow myself no feelings of ha ILLUSTRATION EY ELIZABETH SLOTE.