That October, word of this incident leaked into the media, with the Rocky portraying an ongoing struggle with management in which Stuart seemed to be using his medical condition to hang on to his 10 p.m. job. Today Stuart suggests that everything had been resolved months earlier and that he never used the press to strengthen his negotiating position. In any event, he rapidly became part of the Columbine narrative, with the tale of his depression appearing in newspapers across the country; he was even interviewed by Howard Kurtz on CNN. The public airing of a private matter didn't bother him, he says. "I didn't get one negative call after this came out, and I heard from a lot of people who told me, 'Thank goodness you're talking about this.' So it may have actually helped some people."
On the other hand, the publicity did no good at all for his relationship with Rockford, whom he met during his Channel 7 days. "We bumped into each other in the halls for two or three years" after the aborted legal showdown, Stuart says. "I'm sure it wasn't a pleasant thing for him, and it was awful for me. But it's over."
Mark Manger
Friendly foes: Ed Sardella and Bill Stuart seem happy
to be leaving the spotlight.
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True enough: Rockford was shown the door last year, and his replacement, Walt DeHaven, has been given a much freer hand to spend whatever it takes to make Channel 4 truly competitive again. According to Stuart, "Walt came in with new people at CBS with the attitude that 'We have all these big stations around the country. Wouldn't it be better to be number one, instead of number two or three?'" At the same time, Stuart sees a qualitative uptick from a news perspective. "Into the '90s, things got lighter and lighter," he says. "Now I see it getting more serious again."
Despite this shift, Stuart is already looking to a future without TV - and if anything, Sardella seems even more eager to step into the next phase of life. On the air, he frequently looks as if he's counting the minutes until the red light turns off and he can get the hell outta there. These observations don't catch him off-guard: "I have a tendency to wear my emotions on my face. That's my history, and there's nothing unusual that it happened after I left and came back."
In respect to the motivations behind his expressions, Sardella says, "I'm my own worst critic, and I've probably been as mad at myself over what I do as I've been over situations in the newsroom." When he first considered retirement, "my belief was that my skills or my motivation might be slipping, and I didn't want that to happen. That was as integral to my decision as my disillusionment with the industry was."
He's heard rumors that he returned to Channel 9 because he regretted the timing of his retirement but says they're entirely false. "The real reason is that [Channel 9 president and general manager] Roger Ogden called and asked, and I felt an obligation to say yes. When the station celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, they gave two half-century awards; one went to our former chief engineer, Herb Schubarth, and they gave me the other one. And when you're staring at a half-century award and the boss says, 'We need you,' it's difficult to say no. That was at least 90 percent of the decision. If he hadn't called, I wouldn't have come back.
"Some people who've quit the business have withdrawal, and I had some of it in 2000," he goes on. "But in a way, this has been the perfect prescription for withdrawal. I got a chance to review my skills and review my philosophy about the business, and I have just confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt that the decision I made before was the correct one."
When he's finally freed from his bondage, Sardella wants to travel with his wife, Sandy, a gallery owner, and is eager to learn how to play a computer-compatible keyboard he purchased around the time of his first retirement. "It's collecting dust," he mutters.
For his part, Stuart will relocate to Alabama after his full-time commitment to Channel 4 expires next year. He expects to commute to Colorado during contract-fulfilling time and doubts that he'd be interested in extending his pact. As he puts it, "I don't want to be dragging my tired old butt in here when I'm 65."
