Whether he's delivering a chilling update on the progress of Hurricane Floyd, reporting the sobering details of the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh, or advising vulnerable women in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood of the potential dangers of a rapist at large, Craig Wall of Fox News Chicago has the story covered.
The New Jersey-born Wall has been a key player in Fox's news organization here in Chicago since April 1988. The tenacious yet good-natured journalist came to Channel 32 over a decade ago, and soon assumed the roles of General Assignment Reporter and fill-in anchor, having worked for an NBC affiliate in Salt Lake City.
A veteran of the U.S. Navy, Wall held his first TV reporting job while still attending the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Wall has won awards for investigative reporting and spot news coverage, and was recently lead reporter on two Emmy Award-winning spot coverage news stories for Fox Chicago. Wall lives in the western suburbs with wife Julie, a homemaker and faux-finishing designer, and sons Eric 10 and Tyler soon to be 8, and daughter Kelsey, 4.
I sat down with Wall for what I believe is a most revealing interview. I found him interesting, spontaneous and easy to talk to, with a decidedly wicked sense of humor. As you will see, Wall appears to be honest to a fault, whether discussing his career path, or any one of a host of other topics we touched upon.
WCT: If your colleagues could describe your work ethic in one sentence, what would they be likely to say?
CW: I think they would say that I'm intense and that I give 100 percent to every story I do. I'm demanding, but I only ask that people give the same effort as I do to a story. Sometimes people say I'm hard to work with. But I'm the type of person who makes it a point to get along with everyone as much as is possible. I never go out of my way to do anything that's going to offend, irritate or otherwise hurt someone. I treat people the way I would want them to treat me. Simply because I think everyone deserves respect and everyone deserves an equal chance.
WCT: How serious of an error in judgment was it for the major networks to declare Al Gore the winner of Florida so early in the evening on election night?
CW: Let me start off by saying that it was an embarrassment to many of us, to me. That it flip-flopped. Flip-flopped. I realize that there is a race for ratings and a race to call first. But this election has been a grand reminder to all of us that we need to make sure we get it right before we get it first. I've had news directors preach that to me from the very beginning, you know, it's "better to get it right than get it first and get it wrong." The problem turned out to be how the exit polling was done, and the fact that they were getting some bad information. And so, garbage-in, garbage-out. The bottom line is when you get the bad information in, it was bad information, but what they compiled and passed along to all the networks was accurate based on what they knew. ... I wonder if we ought not to have a national poll closing time so that you don't disenfranchise West Coast voters. Or, in the case of Florida, polls closed in half the state before the Panhandle and it was being declared before the votes of the Panhandle were counted.
WCT: How do you feel about alternative family units, Craig? In your opinion, is it equally healthy for a child to be raised by two same-sex partners who are in love and who are fulfilling their duties as parents as it is if the children were raised in a conventional family environment with a biological mother and father present?
CW: As a Christian, I believe that the family unit of a male and a female is the one the kids should be raised in. Men and women each bring something different to the table, and I believe the children need both the mother and the father, and that is what I believe the appropriate unit of family should be.
WCT: I, too, am a Christian and I can tell you that I lived in a family unit where I had both a mother and father. I had a father ( biologically ) who was a father in name only ...
CW: He was never there.
WCT: Exactly.
CW: I'm not saying that just because you have a man and a woman in a family, that that makes the family complete. We know better than that. There are so many dysfunctional families out there ... . But I believe that a family is more than just, you know, two people loving one another and caring for one another and wanting to raise children. So, you're always going to have your problems whether it's a gay family or a straight family. There's no guarantee that they're going to be good parents, and that the kids are going to turn out good. But as a Christian, I believe that God made it ( parenthood ) for a man and a woman to partake in.
WCT: What story that you have covered brought tears to your eyes?
CW: A cover story on Salt Lake City about a family where the husband and wife were either divorced or separated, but it was somewhat of an abusive relationship and there were three children involved. It was a possessive, abusive type husband, and for whatever reason the wife started seeing the husband again after they had split up. One night the husband came back over and while the kids were asleep in their bed, he had sex with his wife and then strangled her in their bed. And his daughter came down the hall and said, "Daddy, is mommy all right?" After he'd killed his wife, he walked his daughter back to her room, tucked her in and then he took off. He was caught and tried for murder. And he was convicted. Shortly after the murder happened though, the kids went to stay with their maternal grandparents and I went and did an interview with the grandparents and the kids. Just the pain that I saw in the eyes of the parents who lost their daughter, and the children who had lost their mother who had been murdered by their father. I cried for the first time during the middle of the interview.
WCT: Craig, how likely is it that Roe vs. Wade will be overturned in our lifetime?
CW: I don't think it will ever be overturned. Whether you are, you know, for abortion or against abortion. I think that as a society we have come to the point where it's here. People are never going to agree on it and it's going to remain one of the most controversial issues ever.
WCT: Do you have any friends who are gay or lesbian?
CW: I have colleagues who are gay or lesbian. I don't have anyone I would say as a friend who is gay or lesbian. And not because I've chosen not to be friends with them ( gays and lesbians ) , but it's just that I'm friends with my neighbors and the people who go to my church, and people I play basketball with.
WCT: As a father yourself, in your opinion, is it fair that many elementary schools are prohibiting the Boy Scouts from organizing at their institutions because of the Club's exclusionary policy regarding the admission of gays?
CW: I guess my feelings are that, as a private organization, the Boy Scouts should have the right to make that restriction ( prohibiting gays ) . And if schools decide that they're not going to sponsor the Boy Scouts because of that, then I guess I have to say that if that's the way the want to do it, the schools have the right not to sponsor the troop.
WCT: What if Federal funding is withheld from schools that sponsor Boy Scout Troops?
CW: I think discrimination is an abhorrent thing. I don't think anybody should be discriminated against whether they're Black, white or Asian or gay. But I'm also not a big fan of affirmative action. Because I think people should be given jobs based on their merits. Because I've always felt that I've gotten to where I am through a lot of hard work. But in this business there are so many white males, that we get discriminated against ( in positions ) because it's already been decided that "that's a position for a Black male or that's a position for an African-American female. Whatever. Those positions are already set aside. Going back to your question, it seems like it's almost blackmailing the Boy Scouts to change their philosophy, and their position.
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Whether one agrees or disagrees with his views, it is clear that Wall is not afraid to speak his mind.
E-mail: DavdRonald@aol.com