For NBC News President, a Week In the Hot Seat

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 30, 2007

NEW YORK -- When he finally got home, close to midnight, on the night that his network aired part of the Virginia Tech killer's video, Steve Capus felt drained.

"I was pretty numb," the NBC News president says. "I definitely felt the pressure."

In the space of seven days this month, the once lesser-known executive found himself in the maelstrom of two emotionally charged, fiercely debated controversies: whether Don Imus should remain on the air and whether Seung Hui Cho's final recorded words should be broadcast to the world. In the face of an enormous backlash over Cho's hate-filled video, Capus flew to Chicago last week and defended himself on "Oprah" -- an unusually public posture for a man who generally labors in relative anonymity.

"I'm more comfortable behind the scenes," admits Capus, 43.

Even as critics accused him of caving to pressure in dropping MSNBC's simulcast of the Imus show -- and, later, of giving a mass murderer the infamy he craved -- Capus won plaudits at 30 Rock for his consensus-building style.

"When you're forced to make a decision like this, there's no rule book, and you're probably going to upset half the public," says Jeff Zucker, NBC's chief executive, who backed Capus in a meeting two hours before the network broadcast Cho's diatribe and gun-wielding photos. "What I saw in Steve is, he was willing to stand up, make a call and be decisive."

It was not the first time Capus had to handle a crisis that put NBC in the forefront of the news. In the fall of 2001, soon after he became executive producer of "NBC Nightly News," Capus spearheaded coverage about the anthrax-laced envelope that was mailed to anchor Tom Brokaw and opened by Brokaw's assistant.

"Steve was keeping the staff focused in a very low-key, quiet way, and it was impressive," Brokaw says. "He won a lot of affection from the rank and file for the way he handled that."

Capus (the first syllable pronounced like baseball "cap") has the thoughtful air of a college professor who enjoys analyzing the news business. He can be painfully introverted at times, but friends know to back off when Capus gets angry. "He does have a little bit of a hair trigger," Brokaw says. "He could blow. But I could always walk in and close the door and say, 'Take a breath.' "

As he made his way up the network escalator, shedding his sneakers and vests for dress shoes and suits, Capus did not aspire to the highest floor. "He never sat around during bull sessions and fantasized about running a division," says anchor Brian Williams. "What he loves to do, and very seldom gets to do, is produce television. I think he'd like to move his office to the control room. He is happiest in a dark room with a wall full of TV monitors and a headset on."

A native of the Philadelphia suburbs, Capus was a self-described "total geek." Andy Warren, who taught Capus in high school, recalls "the small radio station, with a range of about three blocks, that he and his buddies created. Given the choice of tinkering around with some backwater radio station or going to a party, he would choose the radio station."

Capus later dabbled in politics -- at 19, he was elected township auditor in his Bucks County, Pa., municipality -- but it was a brief diversion. He was still at Temple University in 1986 when Philadelphia's WCAU-TV hired him as a freelance writer and producer. He sported an earring and was a devotee of Frank Zappa, whose picture still adorns his wall.

Capus was assigned to work with the new South Jersey reporter, Brian Williams. When Williams was riding around in a van chasing stories, he recalls, "Steve was the island of calm in my day."

After being laid off, Capus signed with rival station KYW, where he caught the eye of then-news director Randy Covington. "Someone called in sick and this kid writer said he thought he could fill in producing a show," Covington says. "His work was better than some of the other producers. He was smart, hard-working, soft-spoken, diligent and, what's really unusual in this field, he was a nice guy."

Capus tired of local news when budget cuts claimed the station's helicopter and satellite truck. "They took all our toys away," he says.

In 1993, a year after his first marriage ended, Capus was tapped to handle news feeds for NBC's affiliate stations, working the overnight shift in Charlotte. He moved to New York to join "NBC News Sunrise," anchored by Ann Curry. After his shift, he hung around the "Today" control room, where Zucker, then the executive producer, later brought him on to the staff.

It was at "Today" that he met Sophia Faskianos, who was also of Greek heritage -- Capus's grandfather had changed the family name from Kapitoutous -- and they were married in 1996. She recently stepped down as a "Dateline" producer, and they have 7- and 5-year-old boys; Capus also has a teenage daughter.

In 1996, Capus was shipped across the Hudson River to the startup cable channel MSNBC, where he was soon reunited with Williams as producer of his prime-time newscast. Disappointed at first to be swimming in a smaller pond, he nonetheless got all kinds of opportunities, traveling to London after Princess Diana's death, to Hong Kong for the British handover and to Athens for the Olympics.

After Capus was recalled to Manhattan to run the Brokaw newscast, the two men became so friendly that the anchor chartered a plane to Daytona Beach, Fla., for Capus's 40th birthday. The highlight for Capus, a big NASCAR fan, was visiting the Daytona 500 racetrack.

Over time, the nightly grind "took a lot out of me," Capus says. "It was a pressure cooker." In 2005, after Capus had managed the anchor transition from Brokaw to Williams, Zucker elevated him to senior vice president. "I was a little worried that a front-office job might be a little boring," Capus says.

Within months, Zucker promoted him to news division president. "He had excellent journalistic credentials," says Zucker, who talks to Capus several times a day. "He had a terrific relationship with Brian Williams. It was clear to me that he was the right guy."

Staffers came to regard him as an all-around Mr. Fix-It. Alexandra Wallace, the "Nightly News" producer, recalls frantically trying to reach Capus when the editing equipment crashed during a broadcast, only to learn he was huddled with the technicians. "I was kind of amazed he had gotten himself up there before I could call," she says.

Capus had just returned from taking his family to Legoland when the Imus controversy exploded. As criticism mounted over Imus calling the Rutgers women's basketball players "nappy-headed hos" -- and the radio host repeatedly said he was sorry -- Capus initially imposed a two-week suspension from MSNBC. "I was replaying in my memory 10 years' worth of Imus programs I've been a fan of," he says, and weighing the "enormous amount of good" that Imus has done through his charity work. "I thought he should be able to continue his efforts to apologize."

The turning point came the next day, when Capus hosted what stretched into a contentious, two-hour meeting of two dozen staffers, most of them African American -- from Al Roker of "Today" and correspondent Ron Allen to junior-level producers -- with more employees joining by conference call. Many of them were angry, some were talking about their daughters, arguing that such comments should not be allowed on the NBC airwaves.

Convening the session proved to be crucial. "A whole lot of top-down managers wouldn't have thought of that," Williams says. As some major advertisers started bailing out, it was the employees' complaints "rattling around in my head" that had the greatest impact, Capus says.

Imus was trying to arrange a meeting with the Rutgers team, but Capus felt he should move first. "I didn't think it was fair to have those young women have to handle the pressure I was feeling to decide Don Imus's fate," he says.

The next day, April 11, Capus got the green light from Zucker and had a top executive tell Imus in person that MSNBC was dropping the program. Capus called the radio host soon afterward. Imus "was a gentleman," Capus says. "That was the first night I got a good rest."

Days later, Capus was at an industry convention in Las Vegas when Cho murdered 32 people at Virginia Tech. The morning Capus returned, he learned that the killer had sent NBC a package. As he spent hours reviewing the profanity-laced video and barely coherent manifesto with Zucker, Williams and other executives, Capus says he never considered not airing material that he believed to be extremely newsworthy. The only question, he says, was how much of it to make public. Just more than two minutes of the 25-minute video aired that night.

The next morning, April 19, "Today" co-host Matt Lauer told viewers that "there are some big differences of opinion right within this news division as to whether we should be airing this stuff at all." Capus, surprised by the remarks, went to see Lauer. Capus says they had a "back and forth" over how much dissension there actually was at the network.

With his daughter Lindsay being a college freshman, Capus needed no reminder of how the Virginia Tech tragedy was reverberating. He got a "Dear Parent" letter from the president of her school, addressing the issue of violence on campus.

Conservative and liberal commentators alike assailed NBC's handling of the video, and executives at other networks that had quickly lifted the footage took potshots. Capus resented their remarks.

"I'm stunned that people bang down our door at one moment," he says, "demanding we release it uninterrupted and without filter -- then question whether it should have been released in the first place. . . . I'm just stunned at the depths of absurdity and hypocrisy."

Capus bristled when conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt said on CNN that "NBC will have blood on its hands the next time someone sends a video to their network of their mayhem."

"We're not above criticism," Capus says, "but let's not take the easy way out and turn to the lowest form of political rhetoric." Still, he understands the public anger, saying: "Sometimes good journalism is bad public relations."

It was the bad PR that led Capus and Williams to tape Oprah Winfrey's show. Later, while the program was airing, the phone rang in Capus's office. Brokaw was calling to congratulate his camera-shy former producer for making the appearance.

"You had to do it," Brokaw told him. "It's okay to have these discussions about how the press makes decisions."

For Capus, two weeks in the limelight was more than enough. "I'm happy to go back to worrying about coverage costs," he says.

The Next Imus?

Stephanie Miller, the wisecracking Los Angeles radio host who is unabashedly liberal -- despite being the daughter of former congressman William Miller, Barry Goldwater's 1964 running mate -- gets this week's MSNBC tryout in the Imus morning slot.