Reporter Recounts Jerry Falwell Interview

Moral Majority leader Rev. Jerry Falwell died earlier today. My condolences to his family and friends.

Back in May 1981, Rev. Falwell came to Topeka, KS to stage a large rally on the steps of the State Capitol. I was a student reporter for KTWU-TV, the public TV station in town at the time.

Somehow, we snagged an interview with Rev. Falwell. Sandra Johnson, one of the station's full time producer/reporters and host of the station's black community program, and myself interviewed Rev. Falwell early that morning in his hotel room. Rev. Falwell's press secretary was none other than now well known conservative columnist Cal Thomas.

The interview did not go well. Rev. Falwell didn't like our questions. He and Cal didn't like the fact that as part of our special on his visit, we were going to have a panel discussion with some local clergy about Falwell and his conservative religious movement. We were to have a Catholic, a Mennonite, and a Baptist on the panel.

Thomas and Rev. Falwell called our questions biased and that we were a "bush league" operation by having on the other ministers. A shouting match broke out between Thomas and Jerry Cullen, our director and videographer. We also managed to get part of that on tape.

At the large rally that spring day, towards the end of the rally, Rev. Falwell announced to the probably 20,000 or so assembled on the capitol grounds to "boycott KTWU's biased TV program about me and complain about Jerry Cullen, Todd Epp, and Sandra Johnson."

I was standing on the Statehouse grounds when Rev. Falwell said this and it was pretty obvious I was with KTWU as I was standing there in a suit with a microphone by one of our minicams with a big KTWU/Channel 11 logo on it.

While it was scary to have such a powerful man call you out so publicly, it was also exhilarating, as, admittedly, I didn't like Jerry too much before the interview and even less afterward.