Story by Isabella Sherk
Photos by Andrew Lewis
On June 9, the attention of millions of people in America was focused on the first day of the House subcommittee hearings on the attack of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6th.
PBS North Carolina didn’t broadcast it. Instead the network’s channels in North Carolina stuck with local programming.
That decision was David Crabtree’s, who was about a month into his role as interim CEO of PBS NC. He wishes he could have it back.
“As soon as I watched the gravity of it, that night, I thought ‘damn,’” he said. “It was a misstep. “I just knew I had made a mistake — and I regretted it,” he said.
Viewers took note, and PBS NC was met with backlash over the decision not to air that first day of the hearings. The network aired the second hearing, and those after, however.
The decision — and the uproar that followed — is one example of the challenges and political nuances of the job Crabtree took on as head of the state’s public broadcasting network. PBS NC has a $30 million budget, reaches every county in the state and is the third largest PBS network in the country. There are many constituencies: the legislature which approves part of the funding, private and corporate donors, viewers and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The North Carolina network has been in transition: previously known as UNC-TV, it went through a rebrand and name change in early 2021.
It’s a balancing act, but Crabtree likes the gig.
“I’ve fallen in love with it,” he said.
When Crabtree became permanent CEO in September of 2022, there was some pushback, mainly focused on the fact that no national search had been conducted.
“We’ve traditionally done a national search for a position that important to make sure we choose someone who can compete nationally and to be sure that we hire the very best that the market has to offer,” former member of the Board of Governors, state Sen. Gladys Robinson, told NC Policy Watch.
The Board of Governors said his performance as an interim appointee for five months convinced them they already had the best candidate.
Though a newcomer at PBS NC, Crabtree is a veteran television presence in the state of North Carolina who worked as a reporter and anchor at WRAL News in Raleigh since 1994.
He began in the broadcasting business on the radio in Murfreesboro, Tenn. — where he attended Middle Tennessee State University — when he was 17, a drummer, and a fan of the British invasion of music. A small AM station called WGNS is where listeners could first hear the voice of David Crabtree on air.
He moved home to the Nashville area for another radio job, but knew he wanted to break into TV news. No one would hire him.
“I had no experience,” he said. “No one had ever encouraged me to leave home and go and work elsewhere. My whole world was right there. I couldn’t get a job.”
Putting his journalistic pursuits on hold, he took a job as a press secretary for the Tennessee House Democratic Caucus. With connections from that position, Crabtree tried TV broadcasting again at age 32.
“I thought it’s either now or never,” he says.
He found a news director to take a chance on him.
“When that happened, I knew that journalism would be with me in some form for the rest of my life,” he said. “That was 41 years ago.”
After stops in Washington, NC and Denver, CO, Crabtree landed a job as an anchor at WRAL in Raleigh. Initially, he only imagined himself at the network for 3 to 4 years, setting his sights on a bigger network position or an overseas post.
Crabtree replaced longtime anchor Charlie Gaddy, who was a pillar at WRAL. Jim Axelrod, now a chief investigative correspondent for CBS News, was working at WRAL at the time and was skeptical at first when Crabtree showed up.
“I had a very sharp eye trained on this guy who was coming in the door to take over,” Axelrod said. “I was instantly having a conversation with him about storytelling, about journalism. So if that’s what you’re talking about, in your first conversation, you realize, ‘okay, this guy’s for real.’”
At WRAL, Crabtree had the chance to field anchor, work on docuseries and host political debates. He attended the funerals of Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela and Pope John Paul II. He went to Haiti after the devastating earthquake of 2010. In 2022, Crabtree visited Ukrainian refugee camps in Poland.
Experiences like these impacted Crabtree profoundly, he said. “You’re having the chance to be an eyewitness to something in the world and to bring it back to people here through a local voice,” he said. “That was the idea; those things were very important to me.”
When recalling one story he covered, Crabtree got up from his seat and retrieved a picture on the window sill behind his desk. It was a selfie of him and a woman he met when covering the flooding in Cumberland County in the wake of Hurricane Florence.
“I keep her with me everywhere I go,” he said of the picture.
As Crabtree tells it, there were seven minutes left to air when the woman walked right up to him and said, “Hello, do you want to talk to a homeless person that doesn’t have a home?”
“For some reason, I said, ‘Of course,’” he said.
The woman had lived under a bridge where the flooding from the hurricane had caused the Cape Fear River to rise to its highest historic level. She, like many others, was displaced by the storm — even if her home had been located under a bridge. In the interview, she detailed how a plastic Harris Teeter bag held all of her possessions, including a bar of soap and a towel.
Crabtree filmed a two minute interview with her and then, behind the scenes, quickly got his producer to green light the story, which did not always happen so easily, he said. This time it did. “It was a beautiful moment,” he said.
On air, Crabtree told viewers, “I want you to meet someone. Her name is Judy, let’s listen.”
“I had more response to that story, good and bad, than any story I had done in a long time. It wasn’t about me. It was about a story that found me,” he said.
Debra Morgan, a WRAL anchor and reporter that shared the anchor desk with Crabtree, recalled Judy’s story as a defining memory of his coverage.
“He was able to connect with people,” she said. “And you can’t do that just sitting in a TV station. You have to be out meeting people, talking with people; and David was just so special at doing that, because he would make you feel like you’re the only person in the world when he’s talking with you.”
It was stories like Judy’s that kept Crabtree in the anchor chair for so long, although he had planned retirement in 2018. He was set to leave again at the end of 2020, but decided to stay even longer still, signing a contract through the end of 2023.
“Had this opportunity not found me I would still be at WRAL,” he said. “Still anchoring the 6 o’clock news.”
The opportunity to head PBS North Carolina came unexpectedly when Crabtree’s longtime friend and UNC System president Peter Hans wanted to get his opinion on what needed to change at the network.
Crabtree told Hans that he thought the network was “the most underutilized asset in the UNC system.”
“The programming seems to be not focused, inwardly, on North Carolina,” he told Hans. “And there’s just this great potential to do that.”
He was offered the interim job, but turned down Hans twice before he decided to take the position. There were aspects of the job he initially didn’t feel confident in doing, he said. But Hans convinced him, telling him the UNC system office would help him.
“I realized that this may be an incredible opportunity to help shape this business that I love so much; to help shape it in public media, and a chance for public service,” he said. “A chance to truly give back. That’s why I said ‘let’s do it.’”
When he started the job, Crabtree said resisting the urge to move too quickly was difficult — he has many ideas for the network. But he wants to prioritize collaboration and leave room for people to challenge him.
“I want to make sure that everyone in this building knows that they matter,” he said. “That can be challenging because look, I am an old white, male. What does another old, white male bring to the table? I am aware of that, I bring that into the room. To gain and garner trust of people can be really difficult, and I don’t blame them.”
So he focused first on staff, with a goal to meet with every employee, about 135 to 140 people. In 10 months, he said he has made it about 70 percent of the way.
That’s been important for the transition, Deborah Holt Noel, the executive producer of Black Issues Forum and host of North Carolina Weekend, said.
“He’s also been aware of the challenges that a lot of our staff has faced in this economy and made a commitment to elevate pay for our staff members to market rate, and he’s been successful in doing that,” she said. “He is also listening to staff members, and wants folks to feel heard.”
Crabtree said he wants to continue the popular PBS NC programming in areas like legislative matters. Shows like the Black Issues Forum, North Carolina Weekend and cooking shows have a wide following. Antiques Roadshow is coming back to Raleigh in May, and PBS Kids programming has always been popular.
But he also wants to build on that foundation. Crabtree said they are working on an initiative in the fall that will focus on civil discourse, “without ever mentioning the words civil discourse or free speech,” he said.
The show will gather North Carolinians with different perspectives to talk about some tough issues, and will run for four consecutive weeks, he said.
“That’s what I’m looking to do, that’s the type of programming that has the potential to have an impact,” he said. “And, by the way, it can go to everyone in the state, even if you don’t have broadband, you can watch this over the air, for free, if you so desire. You won’t be denied the information.”
Next year, Crabtree said he wants to tackle North Carolina’s lack of comprehensive teaching on the Trail of Tears.
“It came right through this state and it was America’s form of ethnic cleansing,” he said. “There are some pretty heavy things I want us to look at, but they’re North Carolina centric.”
In the end, Crabtree wants PBS NC to continue to serve and educate the public, but he also wants the network to evolve. He referred to the lessons that people like Judy have taught him. To be open to the stories and people that unexpectedly walk straight up to you if you’re willing to keep your eyes open.
“Those are the stories I like finding Judy in, who was under the bridge,” he said. “That you know what you do matters, and why it’s so important that I do the best job I can do to shepherd that — and to have fun while doing it.”
