CBS News Chicago newscast director Debra Zimmer honored with Silver Circle Award

Former CBS News Chicago newscast director Debra Zimmer was inducted into the pretigious Silver Circle on Friday, honoring her long career behind the scenes of TV news.

The Silver Circle is a group of longtime journalists recognized for their distinguished service by the National Academy of Television Arts and Scientists. The Silver Circle Awards are one of the highest honors bestowed in the television industry.

Zimmer directed newscasts at CBS News Chicago (WBBM-TV) from 1988 until 2019.

"Debra had perfect timing; a knack for anticipating the next best shot, and troubleshooting," said meteorologist Steve Baskerville, who worked with Zimmer for 30 years.

Former CBS News Chicago anchor Linda MacLennan worked with Zimmer for nearly 16 years, sat down with Zimmer after she was named one of this year's Silver Circle honorees, and said she was "always the consummate pro."

"You were unflappable," MacLennan said. "You were always like that."

"I was always like that, always; and if I stayed calm, everybody around me would be calm. But I could always tell when I would raise my voice, and say something very stern and direct. I'd watch the cameras go boop," Zimmer said, mimicking a stunned jerking motion from a camera operator.

It wasn't always that funny. When Zimmer graduated from Ohio University in 1974 and got her first full-time directing job at WOWK-TV in West Virginia, that first day was a doozy.

"Moved out of the house. I had my apartment. I was so excited," she said.

But the person who hired her had some bad news.

"'I don't want you to worry.' Of course, that's the first thing you don't want to hear on your first day of the job. 'But all of our men called off sick,'" Zimmer said. "They didn't want to work with a woman."

"Those were the days where the philosophy of theirs was 'keep the brides out of broadcasting.' We didn't know how to do it. We weren't trained well enough as they would be. I didn't have camerapeople, I didn't have audio, they didn't have film, and I was there by myself. I don't know how that anchor got through that newscast," Zimmer said.

But the newscast got on the air nonetheless.

As one of few women directing newscasts in television, Zimmer faced a very high glass ceiling throughout much of her career, but each time she proved she knew exactly what she was doing.

It was her mom who kept her going after that terrible first day.

"She was, 'well, you know, I want to tell you that you can come home, and I need to tell you this is not about you, but I have to tell you, you are the one that can do it on your own. Get out there, learn your craft,'" Zimmer said.

From there, she moved to WLWT-TV in Cincinnati, and then WKYC-TV in Cleveland, where she worked with Al Roker.

At KGO-TV in San Francisco in the 1980s, directing pool coverage of the visit of Pope John Paul II gave her a memory she will never forget. A Secret Service agent's tip led to a shot of the pope picking up a little boy with AIDS.

"It was such a touching moment to capture that, and it was a shot that was seen around … it led every newscast throughout the world," Zimmer said.

She moved to CBS Chicago, WBBM-TV, Channel 2, in 1988, and worked with anchors Lester Holt, Bill Kurtis, Walter Jacboson, and Carol Marin, and so many anchor teams, reporters, and colleagues behind the scenes.

"Debra, congratulations on your induction to the Silver Circle. You truly deserve it," Holt said.

From newscasts directed in the old control room at the McClurg Court CBS broadcast center in Streeterville, to live remotes in the field, to the current control room at Block 37, Zimmer led WBBM through several set renovations, and many technology changes throughout the years – from film all the way to digital.

What makes a good director in this day and age?

"Understanding the technology. I mean it's simply, that's, you cannot fake it," Zimmer said. "It certainly was my goal and my quest just to keep trying to make a difference; not only for myself, the people that I worked with, but the viewers."

It was in January 2019 when she hung up her headset for good, directing her last newscast.

Zimmer was one of eight journalists inducted into the Silver Circle on Friday, including former WBBM-TV colleagues Diann Burns, Rob Stafford, and Dan Jiggetts, who all worked at CBS News Chicago at one time. 

Burns anchored CBS Chicago's evening newscasts alongside Antonio Mora and Rob Johnson from 2003 to 2008; Stafford served as a CBS Chicago reporter and anchor from 1992 to 1996 and led the station's "Consumer Unit 2" investigative operation; and Jiggetts served as an analyst with the NFL on CBS and covered a wide variety of other sports for CBS Sports in the late 1980s and early 1990s, while also serving for some of that time as a CBS Chicago local sports reporter. Jiggetts also co-hosted "Monsters and Money in the Morning" on CBS Chicago for several months in 2010, along with Mike North, Mike Hegedus, and longtime CBS Chicago financial analyst Terry Savage.

Renowned daytime talk show host Phil Donahue, who taped his show at CBS Chicago from 1982 through until the beginning of 1985 when he moved production to New York, was also inducted posthumously into the Silver Circle on Friday.