David Horowitz: The Consummate Consumerist

“You can’t buy this kind of advertising. This is fantastic! “ said Brahma Inc. publicist Pete Johnson, aiming his 35-millimeter camera at a brooding David Horowitz. Horowitz sat beneath the shade of a beach umbrella in his folding director’s chair. He looked relaxed yet poised, like a man who knew that he was being photographed.

Johnson and his boss, Don Law, danced in the dust of an old abandoned landing strip west of Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia. Law had a Nikon and a Hasselblad to complement Johnson’s camera. The two of them were jubilantly clicking off shutter buttons as fast as they could focus.

They had cause to rejoice.

Law’s company, Brahma Inc., which manufactures Brahma Truck Toppers and Camper Shells, was about to cash in on the finest free product publicity that TV has to offer: a “Fight Back! With David Horowitz” commercial challenge, staged by the reigning guru of television consumer reporting. Would the Brahma Camper Shell collapse when rolled by a stunt driver or remain unharmed, as Brahma advertised in its commercials?

“Are we ready?” Horowitz bellowed, leaning out of his chair. A production aide adjusted the umbrella so the shade remained on Horowitz. “We’re ready. OK.”

A dozen yards away, stunt driver Joie Chitwood was about to clamber into a Chevy pickup outfitted with the Brahma Camper Shell. A small ramp was jerry-rigged on the abandoned airstrip so that Chitwood could roll the camper.

Horowitz hopped from his chair, took some powdered makeup on the chin and stepped into the frame, cameras rolling.

“OK, go to it, guy,” he said, shaking Chitwood’s hand. “Lots of luck.”

After a couple of test runs, Chitwood roared up the ramp and rolled the Chevrolet truck with the camper on the back twice in the dry weeds, kicking up a cloud of dust. The front end was pretty well smashed and the cab was squished, but the radio still worked. A chorus of “oohs” went up from the dozen or so “Fight Back!” crew members huddled around the shade of Horowitz’s umbrella.

As the dust settled and Chitwood wriggled out of the cab, Horowitz strode to the truck with an oak night stick in his right hand. He did a stand-up with Chitwood while the camera rolled, then walked to the rear of the truck where he busted out a window with the stick to show the fragility of the glass. Then he slapped the plastic material of the camper shell to show, in contrast, how resilient the Brahma Camper Shell was.

“That’s a wrap,” said Horowitz’s supervising producer, Lloyd Thaxton, signaling everyone to pack up and head home.

“Wait! Wait!” said Pete Johnson. “Can I get the three of you to just pose together there for a second?”

Chitwood, Horowitz and Law sidled up to the wrecked truck and grinned as Johnson snapped off a few pictures.

“This is so great,” Johnson giggled. “You can’t buy this kind of publicity.”

Someone is always trying to buy David Horowitz, even though he insists that he is not for sale.

“If I wanted to go out and do commercials, I could become a very rich person. I mean really rich,” he said. “Because I get these calls all the time. And you know, I slough off these phone calls the way someone would empty an ashtray. I tell these people that I’m flattered that you watch my show and I’m flattered that you like this segment that we did. But we do not endorse anything.”

Except for his ill-fated connection with Better Book Inc. (see article on Page 4), he maintains that he has successfully avoided the ever-present temptation to sell his journalistic credibility to the highest bidder.

“Someone asked me how I felt about business once,” Horowitz said over lunch recently. “And I said, ‘How do I feel about business? Business is in business to stay in business and not give people the business. Otherwise, business is out of business.’ ”

KNBC-TV Channel 4’s veteran consumer affairs reporter sat forward in his seat, his elbows propped on the edge of the table. He blinked his eyes defensively.

“That’s how I feel about business,” he said. “Now that’s a quote that also has been turned around and shot back at me. Because people who are looking for something to pick at will say, ‘Well, Horowitz is very pro-business.’ ”

Horowitz is pro-business, but he’s also pro-consumer, he says. One thing he isn’t is a consumer advocate.

“I don’t consider myself a consumer advocate,” he said. “If you’re on television you have to really be broadcasting in the public interest . . . but you also have to be objective. Yes, you can do a commentary and advocate certain issues if you feel that way, but I do a lot of stories where the consumer’s wrong--where they’re trying to rip off companies too. I have to really walk that fine line in terms of being fair about something.”

At 50, David Horowitz is conservative, quite image-conscious and, he believes, fair-minded to a fault, because--rather than in spite--of his pro-business and pro-consumer attitude. “I mean, I’m not out there to win a popularity contest,” Horowitz said. “The only way the station gauges what I do is by ratings. And if you get the job done and people like what you do, then you score some points and you continue to do what you do.”

He likes the finer things in life, from his tapered light wool suits to his choice in restaurants, and he’s not afraid to say so. He lives well: a high-security home on the Westside, a mountain getaway in Idyllwild, first-class air fare on out-of-town trips, a Mercedes. He takes criticism with a grain of salt.

“You know, our housekeeper came in one day and you know what she said to me? She said, ‘Mr. Horowitz, I know another lady--a housekeeper--and she hates you.’ And I said ‘Really, Veronica? She hates me? That’s too bad that she has to spend her time thinking about negative things.’ ”

Horowitz paused dramatically and gestured with his fork.

“But I said to her, ‘Do all the people that you know like you?’ and she answered no. I said, ‘Do you hate any of them?’ and she said ‘I dislike a lot of ‘em.’ So I said, ‘So why should you be any different from me? I do a television program that gives me a hell of a lot more exposure and reason for people not to like me, as well as for people to like me.’ And she walked away like I’d given her some jewel of wisdom.”

What David Horowitz does is spread his version of consumer reporting via his frequent reports on KNBC’s nightly newscasts, his stints on “Today” and “Tonight” and his weekly “Fight Back!” program currently syndicated on more than 70 TV stations from coast to coast. Among the stations that carry “Fight Back!” are WNBC-TV in New York, WMAQ-TV in Chicago, KRON-TV in San Francisco, WCVB-TV in Boston and, of course, KNBC-TV Channel 4 in Los Angeles, which airs the program each Saturday at 6 p.m. According to Arbitron Rating Service, more than 3.5 million people watch “Fight Back!” in an average week.

After more than 15 years as TV’s leading consumerism spokesman, David Horowitz has clout, but he is not without his critics.

“David is more personality and showmanship than he is consumerism,” said Ciji Ware, health and life style commentator for KABC-AM (790). She held the KNBC consumer reporting job 18 years ago, just prior to Horowitz.

“Consumerism has slipped in the last few years,” she continued. “I think the consumer movement really had importance and really changed the way people think. They do read the labels and the fine print now the way they once didn’t. But maybe we’re moving on to other things now.”

“He’s popular for the same reason that we have all been successful,” said Betty Furness, who operates her own consumer reporting unit for WNBC-TV in New York. “We have a very, very popular subject that hits people literally where they live. I have no way to measure it.

“I measure my own effectiveness by literally walking down the street. If people say ‘Gee thanks, you sure got through to blah blah blah, that’s good. If we make people read labels and ads more carefully and if we make people more skeptical, then we’re effective. But you can’t put that effectiveness on a scale and weigh it.”

“But David’s biggest flaw is that he shoots from the hip. He takes things for their show value and how they’ll play on TV. . . .”

“He’s become, unfortunately, a little bit of a politician,” said Gary Flint, director of the non-profit Consumer Protection Agency in Los Angeles. “He’s become so well known that he interacts with state agencies and the Attorney General’s office. He’s effected some useful changes, such as getting the laws regarding telephone solicitation in California changed. In some sense, being a politician is helpful if it can effect some sort of a positive change. But at some point, a reporter should not get involved.”

Ralph Nader, arguably the best-known consumer advocate in the nation, is equally lukewarm in his praise for Horowitz.

“He seems to deal with relatively minor things: whether a suitcase thrown down a cliff will bust or not,” Nader told The Times. “The best thing I can say about Horowitz is that it’s shows like his that keep the consumer ethic going. He’s a little too patronizing, a little too condescending to my taste, like somebody who’s talking to 12-year-olds, but audiences apparently like him.

“But why doesn’t he go after bigger fish? Why doesn’t he go after the big corporations--Exxon, DuPont, General Motors, General Electric? Could it be that he wouldn’t survive on commercial TV if he did?

Tom Vacar, the former KCBS-TV Channel 2 who blew the whistle on Horowitz’s Better Book consultancy, believes no consumer reporting at all is better than the often silly and innocuous kind that Horowitz offers.

“David Horowitz over the years has made an institution of consumer reporting, but at some point, he left the planet,” Vacar told The Times.

Horowitz acknowledges that he long ago abandoned the hard-nosed, confrontational approach to consumer reporting.

“My feeling about confrontational-type journalism is that it is just strictly theatrical,” he said. “If you want to get the story, you don’t have to go up to the door and say, ‘Hey, Mr. So-and-So, are you in fact duplicating videos in here against the trademark laws?’

“No. You go out and find out what the story is and you confront this guy and you say: ‘Either you’re going to talk to me about it or you’re not going to talk to me about it, and if you talk to me about it, I will give you a fair platform for your side of the story.’ I believe in that. I don’t believe in this confrontational (crud) because that to me is not the essence of reporting.”

Then, after a thoughtful pause:

“I find that you get more in terms of information, in terms of cooperation and in terms of major stories, by using honey instead of horse manure.”

Horowitz says he is “delighted he (Nader) feels that I’m a safe commodity on TV, but in terms of his other facts he is inaccurate.”

The major corporations that Horowitz says he has chastised over the years reads like the Fortune 500: Ford, Hartz Mountain, Uniroyal, Folgers coffee, Kawasaki, Toyota. . . .

Ralph Nader was the first (consumer activist). He was the granddaddy, the one who plowed the field,” said Horowitz. “But he is not a TV personality so asking him to judge what I do is unfair because the guy does not watch the KNBC news or the ‘Today Show’ and he has no way of knowing, except on a cursory level, what I do.”

Vacar tried a confrontational tack with Horowitz when reporting the Better Book story for KCBS but was never able to get Horowitz to respond either on or off camera. Instead, he had to stand outside the KNBC lot in Burbank and tell his audience that he tried to get Horowitz to talk but was never able to flush him out.

Horowitz, who acknowledges that the Better Book episode was regrettable, simply ignores Vacar, as he does all of his critics.

“I don’t look at what other guys do,” said Horowitz. “And when they take potshots at me, I ignore it. Because I think when you reach a certain level in terms of what you do, you are inviting all sorts of scrutiny from other people, including consumer reporters. I don’t compete with anybody. I mean, whom am I competing with?”

Horowitz untucked the napkin covering his starched shirt front and slumped back in his chair.

“It’s wonderful to sit and eat terrific food,” he said. “But I feel just as comfortable going for a hamburger at a Bob’s Big Boy or having spaghetti and chili.”

He may have the parking spot right next to Johnny Carson in the NBC lot in Burbank, but he has not forgotten what it was like to be just an average guy. He’s proud of his lower-middle-class Bronx roots; the Generoso Pope Scholarship he won in order to study at a private Illinois university; his rise to the journalistic fore with graduate work at Northwestern and, later, Columbia University; his early TV days in Des Moines and New York before he advanced to the position of writer for NBC News’ “Huntley-Brinkley Report” in the mid-’60s.

The big stories he covered roll off his tongue in waves: the bombing of the Caravelle Hotel in Saigon; the splashdown of an Apollo moon flight; then-Gov. Ronald Reagan’s pitched battle with the University of California. Then, in 1973, he accepted a bid from then-KNBC news director Irwin Safchick to start a consumer beat. He’s been the hero, and target, of millions of fans and critics ever since. “Fight Back! With David Horowitz” receives more than 5,000 letters a week, according to Horowitz.

He has won dozens of awards, including nine Emmys, and honors from half a dozen consumer organizations. He’s listed in “Who’s Who in America” and has been called upon for testimony as an expert witness in trials and legislative hearings dealing with consumer and safety issues.

After a highly publicized incident last August when a gunman briefly held Horowitz hostage with a toy gun during a live KNBC newscast, Horowitz joined a drive to outlaw realistic toy guns in California.

“I’m still a little paranoid when someone comes up in back of me,” he said. “And people kid around, like our producer got a yam shaped like a gun and put it in my back when we were at a supermarket for ‘Fight Back!’, but it was a joke. Now I can laugh about it, but for a long time. . . . “

Horowitz shakes his head and, suddenly, he looks older. Yes, he was very much in control that night when the gun was stuck in his back but how one appears on camera does not always jibe with how one feels off camera. How he feels nowadays is vulnerable, mortal and not a little jittery. The KNBC News set has been closed to all but KNBC employees since the incident, but to this day Horowitz remains apprehensive about his on-air appearances.

“I’m not tough at all, to be honest with you,” he said. “I feel that I’m like a delicate flower. That’s why things work for me. In some ways. Because I’m not out there to punch and bang and kick and knock.”

“He’s tough with that ‘Commercial Challenge,’ but we got a great product and it’s just about the best thing that could’ve happened to us,” said Brahma Inc. President Don Law.

He is abiding by the “Fight Back!” rules, which ask subjects of a “Commercial Challenge” to keep mum about the outcome of the challenge until after the broadcast of the program (the show featuring Brahma’s camper shell aired in Los Angeles May 28).

“We will not allow them in any way to use our stuff for advertising,” said Horowitz. “I can’t stop them from saying, ‘Hey, watch Brahma get challenged tonight on “Fight Back!”,’ but I discourage them from doing so. Most of the time they honor that.”

Two years ago, a company that produces a windshield protection product--Glass Shield--passed Horowitz’s challenge. Glass Shield then published an ad saying “Thank you, David Horowitz, for your unsolicited praise on NBC. Glass Shield--it really works!”

According to Horowitz, he has attempted to stop the company from using Horowitz’s endorsement in its ads, but so far he has had no success.

Not all “Commercial Challenges” come out as well as Brahma’s.

Horowitz recalls the Spihl chain saw commercial that claimed the chain saw would always start on the first pull of the power cord.

“It started on the second pull,” Horowitz said.

And there was the commercial about an indestructible mailbox so strong that a tractor could run over it.

“The Caterpillar (tractor) we rolled over it didn’t exactly flatten it,” said Horowitz. “Annihilate would be a better word.”

Sometimes, as in the case of a Colgate toothpaste commercial, Horowitz has actually been able to force the company to change their ads.

“They ran a commercial that had one kid telling another that his mother would kill him if he didn’t screw the cap back on the toothpaste,” said Horowitz. “We did a spot saying that no mother is going to kill a kid if he doesn’t screw the cap back on the toothpaste, and Colgate pulled the ad!”

But most commercials and most products seem to do as well as the Brahma camper top did in “Fight Back!” It’s difficult for a company not to chortle when that happens, said John Law.

Law has already had a bunch of prints made up of Pete Johnson’s publicity shot of Horowitz, Law and stunt driver Chitwood. He couldn’t resist mailing them off to his dealers with the cautionary note that they were not to reveal the results of the challenge to customers until after May 28.

“God, I looked terrible in that picture,” he said. “Of course, I didn’t have makeup people hovering over me. David’s got someone to take the bags out from under his eyes or to tuck in the tummy.”

Law grouses over how he’s going to look on national TV jiggling around with 20 pounds too much around his middle. But he’s philosophical about it when he waxes on about the invaluable publicity the program will give his company’s chief product.

“You know, I saw him on ‘The Today Show’ last week doing one of his reports and I honest to God didn’t recognize him at first. It didn’t look like him at all, the way he is in person. I guess they make them up pretty heavy. But I couldn’t believe it was really him. Sometimes you wonder whether what you see on TV is the same as what you see in real life or not. He just didn’t look real somehow.”