Before the advent and proliferation of the internet as a widespread information and communication change factor for the media landscape (around 1998 by my recollection), newspapers, television and radio continued as the trio that reigned supreme.
Having graduated from Valparaiso University in 1992, I’m grateful I had a taste of “the golden years” for media known as the decade of the 1990s.
For Chicago and spanning to borders far beyond, there was media personality Gary Deeb as the caustic gatekeeper of all things TV, radio and media reporting about what and who to watch and when and where to listen. Deeb died at age 79 on May 17.
His obituary was quietly published in his original hometown newspaper, The Buffalo News, the same newspaper that gave him his start as a radio and TV columnist in 1970 (the year I was born). His first editors took a chance on him, considering he hadn’t had any college or journalism experience.
Less than 10 lines long, the first line of his published obituary reads that Deeb “passed away peacefully.”
It’s an interesting phrase of words: a familiar string and accurately assigned to most as symbolic of a quiet and gentle transition.
In contrast, the career and temperament of Gary Deeb was very much the opposite.
In 1973, Deeb moved to Chicago and was hired by the Chicago Tribune as the new radio and TV critic.
By age 30 in 1973, his column was syndicated, and like his immense popularity and power in the media industry, his syndication numbers grew and expanded, extending for a wider reach than Chicago.
He was young, brash, crass, to the point and often sarcastic and mean-spirited.
When his column was added as a new feature in April 1982 to The Columbian newspaper in Vancouver, Washington, the newspaper touted: “TV Columnist Added! Television reviewer Gary Deeb has been described as arrogant, snippy, opinionated, demanding and a host of other adjectives, some printable. He has his defenders, too. He is the best and brightest TV critic in print today. He is the Ralph Nader of reviewers.”
Time magazine dubbed him “Terror of the Tube” and further categorized him in 1975 as “the sour, crude ravager of the medium” after Deeb described that year’s prime time season TV lineup as “devoid of innovation, creativity or diversification, freighted with drivel, sanitized doggerel and phony rotten garbage.”
He was indifferent about ABC’s series “Kung Fu,” saying it “exploits the mass audience’s craving for blood and guts,” yet loved NBC’s “Real People,” an hour-long salute to everyday personalities hosted by Sarah Purcell, Skip Stephenson, Byron Allen and young Peter Billingsley, and very much despised NBC’s “Little House on the Prairie,” describing the latter as “cloying sweetness and padded dialog.”
He loved “the tiny slice of life’s underside” that was the ABC sitcom “Taxi” but had few kind words for brother and sister duo Donny and Marie Osmond and their ABC variety show.
Some of Deeb’s most cutting criticisms were saved for Chicago’s local on-air news personalities from news anchors to the weather broadcasters of TV and radio. Most famously, he said our Hoosier claim-to-fame TV news and NBC “Today” show icon Jane Pauley “has the IQ of a cantaloupe.”
Even his own future Sun-Times gossip columnist colleague Irv “Kup” Kupcinet wasn’t safe from Deeb’s poison pen.
Deeb described Kup and his broadcast counterpart Jack Brickhouse as “simpletons” and found their constant banter and chitchat annoying and distracting from the commentary they were supposed to provide when announcing Chicago Bears games.
Sportswriter George Castle, who I worked with for 20 years at The Times of Northwest Indiana, worked with Deeb as a nighttime copyboy at the Chicago Tribune when he was just beginning his journalism career.
Castle always said Deeb’s column was entertaining to all, as long as it wasn’t them he was describing in his adjective-heavy prose. In today’s era of journalism, no columnist could write with such a harsh slant about people and subjects.
I know firsthand that Kup did not find Deeb amusing or entertaining.
Though I never met or knew Deeb, I did know Kup and would visit him with my parents at his Lakeshore Drive apartment during his final years before his death at age 91 in 2003. “Deeb was a twerp” was Kup’s description of his newsroom desk neighbor. (Though Kup mostly wrote from home and left his newsroom needs to longtime assistant Stella Foster.)
Deeb and Kup became co-workers in 1980 when The Sun-Times courted Deeb away from the Tribune by offering him his own secretary and an assistant by the name of Robert Feder, the latter who would assume Deeb’s column duties from writing about media news while writer Phil Rosenthal took over as the Sun-Times TV columnist.
Deeb eventually left newspapers in 1983 for a coveted TV broadcaster position with Chicago ABC 7 as the TV and radio media commentator. He left his TV position in 1996 and returned home to Buffalo retiring at age 50, and then later moving to Charlotte, North Carolina. He was married and divorced twice.
The last time Deeb’s name made news headlines was in 2003, when the Chicago Reader’s columnist Michael Miner was tipped off that Deeb had netted several thousand dollars by selling his personal archive of letters and correspondence from Chicago media notable names and national media personalities like John Chancellor and Morley Safer, among others. When asked to comment, Deeb had no comment.
He is survived by his sister Elaine Lamb and stepdaughter Kyla Lee. A memorial service will be held at a later date.
Philip Potempa is a journalist, published author and weekly radio host on WJOB 1230 AM. He can be reached at philpotempa@gmail.com.
