Lou Gordon (May 17, 1917 – May 24, 1977) was a television commentator and talk show host, newspaper columnist, radio host, and influential political reporter, based in Detroit, Michigan. Gordon was known as a flamboyant, irreverent, and controversial interviewer. He hosted The Lou Gordon Program, a twice-weekly, 90-minute television show, that was seen Saturday and Sunday nights on WKBD-TV. Produced from 1966 to 1977, The Lou Gordon Program was also syndicated across most of the larger media markets in the United States to the Kaiser Broadcasting group of stations, as well as several non-Kaiser stations. Three 90-minute television shows were taped per week - two for telecast only on WKBD, the other for nationwide broadcast.
The show's theme song was MacArthur Park, composed by Jimmy Webb and performed by Richard Harris; the portion of the song used for the show's theme was the long, jazzy climactic orchestral break approximately 3/4 way through the recording.
The show was co-hosted by Lou's wife, Jackie Gordon (1932-1999), who would read questions sent by viewers to Lou. Lou would then give his opinions on the viewer's question.
In addition to his television program, Gordon wrote a bi-weekly column for The Detroit News, which usually reflected, or elaborated on, topics recently featured on his television program.
During the 1967–68 Detroit newspaper strike, Gordon published Scope Magazine in order to fill the news-hole made by a lack of daily newspapers in Detroit. Lou Gordon was the president of Scope Publishing, as well as a writer, and published the weekly until the Detroit newspaper strike ended. Scope Magazine also featured his wife, Jackie, as advice columnist.
Interviewees
Among the people interviewed by Gordon was three-term Michigan Governor George W. Romney, whom he interviewed on August 31, 1967. Boston Globe reporter Neil Swidey said that "for more than a year, Romney had been talked about as the Republicans' best chance for winning the White House in 1968. So, during that August interview, when [Romney] was asked by Lou to explain his inconsistent position on the [Vietnam] war, Romney replied, 'Well you know Lou, when I came back from Vietnam, I had just had the greatest brainwashing that anybody can get.' One word, brainwashing, [emphasis added] and his presidential campaign would never recover. Worse, that single, politically-charged word became not just the shorthand for his aborted White House run, but also the bumper sticker for his entire life's work." The controversial interview with Romney landed Gordon and his Lou Gordon Program on the front page of newspapers across the country, as well as Time magazine.
In an ironic footnote to all the publicity and political fallout surrounding the Romney interview, the staff at WKBD did not initially realize the scoop they had on their hands. The station was still in its infancy (first air date only two and a half years earlier in January 1965) and was always looking for cost efficiencies. One of those cost-cutting directives was to routinely wipe and re-use videotape. With no hint of the firestorm that was about to come, the Gordon show reel was simply put on the shelf of available videotape and quickly re-recorded with another local show. In the days that followed the national attention from the Romney interview, the station officials mounted an all-hands search for the segment, but it remained missing until it surfaced in recent years and is now available for educational and personal use.
Many guests got so frustrated with Gordon's hard-hitting style that they simply walked off the show in the middle of the interview. In one controversial episode, which originated from WKBS-TV in Philadelphia, mayor Frank Rizzo walked out of an interview with Lou because Rizzo thought the questions were unfair.
Gordon was one of the first journalists to come out publicly against the Vietnam War (in 1964, prior to the 1965 Marines invasion) and was also one of the first commentators to publicly accuse President Richard Nixon of wrongdoing in the Watergate scandal. Gordon considered being on Nixon's Enemies List as a "Badge of Honor".