JAC LeGOFF
by Lee Alan
Sad that Jac LeGoff is only remembered
because he was a nice guy and was on all
three Detroit stations reporting the news.
Fact is, Jac was one of the first in Detroit
ever to step up, defy management and MAKE
news by speaking out for his beliefs on live
television. It was as much news then as
anything in the is today. When that happened
his name was 'The Headline' in all Detroit
newspapers and a top story in other papers
around the country.
It was 1959. Rigged quiz shows and payola
were a national topic. Radio and television
people in every city were losing their jobs on
a daily basis. Here in Detroit it seemed they
were all falling victim. Names like Mickey Shorr, Ed McKenzie, Don McCleod,
Tom Clay, and a half dozen more. Each fired. Each front page news.
It was all over the newspapers, but on orders of broadcast companies, it was nowhere to be seen on television news or even mentioned on radio. We were all ordered never to say a word.
I was doing the all night show at WJBK radio on those days which was housed in the same building as WJBK-TV, Channel 2. Same company owned both.
Years before all this while on my Cooley High senior trip to New York, a classmate and I were chosen to be on a national network TV quiz show. It was live. Just before we went on the producer "helped" us with the first few answers. One night at three in the morning, I finished reading the news, opened my big mouth and told the whole story. Next day I was in the headlines, but not fired. It read:
DJ ADMITS PART IN RIGGED QUIZ SHOW
Here's en excerpt from my book: "Turn Your Radio On" www.detroitradiolegends.com
"Jac LeGoff was a great television newscaster in Detroit on WJBK-TV Channel 2. In other words, downstairs from our radio studios. He, along with the rest of the broadcast world was under strict orders not to say anything about rigged quiz shows or payola on the air. He was curious though how I said what I did, landed on the front page of the newspaper and still had a job. Ha! So was I.
Jac asked if he could use my office. My office? It was the record library, a big room longer than it was wide with a glass pane in the door. Once inside with the door closed
I could see him through the glass reading something. He was pacing back and forth with a script in his hand reading it out loud. He was rehearsing something for the six o'clock news.
At five minutes to six Jac emerged from my “office”, and raced down the hall to get to the studio in time for the opening shot. I went into the television master control room and watched. In those days instead of making the news TV reporters just reported the news. So the six o'clock news was only 15 minutes. Maybe we should go back to that.
I watched. Jac LeGoff was beautiful. Always smiling. He was very popular, good looking, soft spoken, well liked and respected by everyone and was rated the number one TV newscaster in the city. Everyone paid attention to Jac. He was sort of the Walter Cronkite of Detroit.
That evening as his 15 minutes drew to a close the camera dollied into a tight shot of just his head and shoulders. The background was black. He looked up into the lens and started. It was the script he’d been rehearsing in my “office.”
Basically, he said that quiz shows were entertainment and had been altered from the beginning of time. He said giving some help at the beginning of a contestant’s time on a show should be treated no differently than if the show made some of the answers so simple that no one could miss. As for payola, I think he said that gratuities in some for have been around forever. The buyer in a large department store receives a gift from a supplier, people are taken to lunch, and others get tickets to shows or samples of a company’s product. Jac did not condone criminal activity. He made his point though and as the camera drew closer he looked directly into the lens, raised the first finger of his right hand and said: “So, let he who has not sinned cast the first stone.”
The next morning there was a telegram from Storer Broadcasting. Jac LeGoff was fired.
Once again the newspapers delivered the message.
CHANNEL 2 FIRES LeGOFF
It was a ten alarm fire. The station switchboard burned up. No one had ever seen anything like it before. They had to bring in extra help just to handle it. Jac LeGoff, one of the world’s nicest guys caught in the controversy. I thought a reporter’s job was to report. Not to be muzzled. Storer Broadcasting caved in to their own fear and nearly ruined the career of a wonderful man. They had already done it to others on all of their radio and television stations.
Unable to get a job in American television, Jac was soon hired by CKLW Channel 9 in Windsor. The ratings soared and within months he was hired back in Detroit television where he reigned as the number one TV Newscaster for many years."
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