CBS News producer Lauren Danza blogs about how Olympic gold-medal snowboarder Shaun White went from a confirmed booking with “The Early Show” following his award ceremony to a private jet en route to Chicago for a sit-down on Oprah Winfrey’s Friday show instead:
As much as I like to think I’m a super producer, it’s tough to compete with Oprah and a private plane. I held onto the booking for several more hours with everything I could. We made plans to do the interview from our Chicago bureau. We discussed me getting on the flight to make sure Oprah didn’t pull any funny business. We considered booking a satellite truck to meet Shaun at the airport in case his flight was delayed and we didn’t have time to get him to our bureau.
But it wasn’t meant to be: Oprah’s people clamped down, saying Shaun couldn’t do an interview before their show. We are now working with his people to reschedule.
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“It’s frustrating and disappointing,” she writes. “Losing this booking is still eating at me, but it’s time to move on.”