Description: Interview with playwright Wendy Wasserstein on "The Heidi Chronicles" and the evolution and complexities of the women's movement. Footage of a performance of the play.
Collection: Ten O'Clock News
Date Created: 03/08/1991
Description: Marcus Jones reports on the public's interest in the Pamela Smart trial. Includes interviews with "groupies" that wait overnight for public seating inside the courtroom, or to watch the trial on television in an adjoining room. The trial is being broadcast live throughout New Hampshire (shots of residents watching in bars, nursing homes, etc.) and has gained national media attention. Reporter Bill Spencer says that the live courtroom coverage will help people understand the legal system and make them more willing to serve as jurors, but Marcus Jones wonders whether the "circus atmosphere" surrounding the trial is about "justice, or just entertainment." B-roll follows edited story, including courthouse exterior, metal detector, waiting for a place in courtroom, Court Room One signs, bags being searched before entry, people entering courtroom directly, Pamela Smart entering courtroom, onlookers watching on television in overflow room, shots of Smart testimony on television.
Collection: Ten O'Clock News
Date Created: 03/18/1991
Description: Meg Vaillancourt interviews South Boston high school sophomore boys about their view of confessed teenage murderer William Flynn in the Pamela Smart trial. Interview with Edward Loughran, Commissioner of the Department of Youth Services, about regulations surrounding juvenile offenders charged with capital crimes in Massachusetts.
Collection: Ten O'Clock News
Date Created: 03/18/1991
Description: Profile of changes in Lawrence following an influx of Puerto Rican and other Hispanic immigrants. Interviews with recent arrivals and "old-time" white residents, as well as a representative of Kaps clothing store on the decision to move from its Essex Street location. Mayor Kevin Sullivan attributes the city's difficulties to welfare and a declining middle-class tax base, and warns that the city of Lawrence will "make it very rough" for new arrivals who are unwilling to "contribute."
Collection: Ten O'Clock News
Date Created: 03/28/1991
Description: Marcus Jones reports on the problems faced by condominium owners and renters in buildings owned by absentee investor-owners. Allston resident Elisabeth Schneider and others are witholding rent in protest of poor maintenance and unpaid taxes and utility bills. Jenny Gill, a member of the Allston/Brighton Community Development Corporation discusses impacts of the 1980s "condo conversion boom" in Allston/Brighton and the Fenway, and urges community activists to purchase distressed condos and turn them back into affordable rental housing.
Collection: Ten O'Clock News
Date Created: 04/08/1991
Description: Interview with Beverly Sills on experiencing prejudice as woman directing an opera company and how the world is changing to allow women more opportunities. She comments on opera as expensive art form and how she tried to make quality opera that all people could afford, and that if specific opera communities are catering to the elite, she thinks the consumer can "make a lot of noise" and help to change that. She also mentions censorship in the arts and Robert Mapplethorpe. Clips of Sills singing.
Collection: Ten O'Clock News
Date Created: 04/17/1991
Description: Housing activists go to Massachusetts House Ways and Means Chairman Thomas Finneran's office to 'evict' him because of his budget proposal. The protesters are arrested. Human service advocates and religious leaders also hold separate protests. The house is debating local aid and tax increases. Rep. Thomas Finneran talks about his budget in the House Chambers. Interviews with Reps. John McDonough and Stanley Rosenberg suggesting new taxes are needed to support services.
Collection: Ten O'Clock News
Date Created: 05/21/1991
Description: Profile on the Kennedy family's humor. Examples of Kennedy family dry wit and sense of humor illustrated by quips from Rose, Robert, Edward and John. John Kenneth Galbraith remembers JFK's wit in a speech at a conference as part of the "Profile in Courage" awards at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Award recipient Charles Weltner shares his favorite JFK story.
Collection: Ten O'Clock News
Date Created: 05/29/1991
Description: Final program of The Ten O'Clock News. Flowers on anchor desk. Chris Lydon and Carmen Fields say their farewells. Montage of TOCN staff. Staff hugs on set during credits. Stories on Charlestown High School prom, interview with Kevin White, using the word "condom" on TV, and examination of the Big Bang Theory, which includes interviews with Philip Morrison, Margaret Geller, and Eric Lerner.
Collection: Ten O'Clock News
Date Created: 05/30/1991