WABC’s “Eyewitness News” pioneered the use of so-called “Happy Talk” banter, but the legendary Roger Grimsby gave it an acerbic edge suitable for gritty 1970s New York. It was indeed number one in the largest local market, but WABC producer Alan Weiss had even higher ambitions.
Tragedy becomes scoopable opportunity when Weiss is admitted to the same emergency room that labored to save John Lennon’s life. The long dark night of Dec. 8, 1980 is dramatized in Jeremy Profe’s “The Lennon Report.”
Dark and moody, "The Lennon Report" is sort of a throwback.
