Throughout his career, Barry Weiss has met United States presidents, received golf lessons from Tiger Woods, documented the World Series, and filmed music and film stars such as Christopher Reeves, Britney Spears and Sophia Loren.
Weiss, a news cameraman with the CBS television network, spoke about these experiences and about his coverage of the World Trade Center attack with the seventh and eighth grade students at Public School No. 2 in West New York on Dec. 14.
"Every day, there is something different," said Weiss to the group of students who filled the classroom. "One day I may be at a fire scene, the next day I can do the World Series and the next day I may be with a cop who is delivering a baby in the Bronx."
Weiss, a North Bergen native, was invited by an old high school friend and teacher at Public School No. 2, Trudy Bartroff, to speak to the students after attending a 35-year reunion at North Bergen High School.
Covering Sept. 11
Weiss told the students that he had been shooting a fashion show when his wife paged him to tell him that the World Trade Center was attacked.
Weiss immediately left the fashion show and drove down Fifth Avenue toward the World Trade Center in his news van.
Weiss remembers seeing a firefighter walking along Fifth Avenue with all of his gear. Weiss drove the firefighter as far as he could before flagging down a fire truck to transport the firefighter the rest of the way. He found out that the firefighter had just gotten off duty when he heard about what happened.
"I don’t know what happened to that fireman," said Weiss, unable to track the fireman after the attack.
Weiss then parked six blocks from the World Trade Center, next to an engine that had fallen from one of the planes after the crash.
"Inadvertently this police officer may have saved my life," said Weiss about a police officer that told him to take the long way around the buildings rather than walking right next to the center.
Weiss is used to being the first man on the scene, but nothing could have prepared him for this story.
"The cameraman is usually on the scene when news is actually taking place," said Weiss. "It is unfortunate, but news is usually somebody’s tragedy. There are highs and lows."
When Weiss saw the buildings crumble, he grabbed his camera and began to run.
The streets were pitch black and completely silent as he and a crowd of thousands was running from the building. The only light was the small light from his camera.
"I bumped into something and I didn’t know what it was," said Weiss. "It was a fire truck."
"One of the hardest things I saw were baby carriages left empty, shoes – people ran out of their shoes," added Weiss.
However, Weiss said that one of the worst days for him was Sept. 12, the day after when he was filming outside of Bellevue Hospital where the Wall of Honor was erected with pictures of missing loved ones.
Here, and while covering other tragic stories, reporters were forced to ask people how they feel about the tragedy.
"’How do you feel?’ How do you think they feel? But we have to ask them," said Weiss. "These are things we feel terrible about, but if we don’t do it then the next crew will."
"As hard as it may be, you are doing your job," added Weiss. "If no one could function, where would we be?"
Weiss remembers breaking down while shooting in front of Bellevue Hospital that day.
"Any news person that was there was confronted by relatives," said Weiss. "’Let people see my brother, my father, my mother, my wife.’ I was seeing pictures of people I knew weren’t coming back."
Working his way up
Weiss started at CBS in 1966 when he was 18 years old. Wearing a gray shirt and blue pants, Weiss delivered mail to the CBS president and executives while working with the network’s shipping and receiving department.
Then, Weiss moved his way up to desk assistant, the radio news department and then to the personnel-scheduling department where he discovered that he wanted to be a technician.
In 1974, Weiss went to RCA Institutes, a technical school in New York, to become a technician.
Now, Weiss has traveled all over the world to cover events such as the Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan and Albertaville, France.
"The most wonderful thing is knowing that you are coming back to the United States," said Weiss. "When you see how people live in other parts of the world, you know that you live in the most wonderful place in the world."
Weiss brought pictures of him with different people he has worked with including former President Jimmy Carter and Bob Hope.
"Here I am a young fella from North Bergen at the White House meeting the president," said Weiss. "This is amazing."