Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 1, 1993 TAG: 9312300001
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Tom Shales
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Or, of course, her face. The other day on CNN, a female anchor sported a fetching, festive grin as she sat there in Atlanta reading the introduction to a news story out of Sarajevo. The filmed report opened with shots of bodies lying in pools of blood, then concentrated on the story of a man who lost both legs below the knees.
Report over, we cut back to the anchor. Still smiling.
In the early days of television, the great newsmen gave us the news in all seriousness. Edward R. Murrow barely ever cracked a smile. David Brinkley was known (and still is) for his wry wit, but he didn't deliver the news with a wink and a twinkle, and his partner, Chet Huntley, was the soul of sobriety. Frank Reynolds took the news seriously and let you know it. And Walter Cronkite was the model of professional decorum.
He wept tears of sorrow when President Kennedy died and tears of joy when humans walked on the moon, but that was all right, that just proved he was human. Most of the time he was straightforward and sensible.
Pioneering female journalists like Barbara Walters and Pauline Frederick maintained the same standards, although there has probably always been more pressure on the women of TV news to smile and be pretty. What changed along the way is that television took journalism away from the journalists, and now anchors are more likely to be ``TV personalities'' than real reporters who worked their ways up from the trenches.
Most bad trends in broadcast journalism start in local news, and so did this one--the tendency to sugarcoat the news, party it up, turn it into a happy occasion. At the networks, when news went from being a public service to being a profit center, the search was on for performers who could seem authoritative even if they weren't, and who could make viewers feel toasty-warm and cheerfully reassured as they rattled off the events of the day.
For years Dan Rather has been harassed at CBS by executives and producers who think he is too intense on the air - too darn serious about the news. A stalwart team player, Rather has taken many a step to lighten up, from wearing sweaters to speaking more slowly to letting a crinkle of a smile creep onto his face. None of this was necessary, yet he gamely complied.
Now that popular, popular Connie Chung has been imported to make ``The CBS Evening News'' more viewer-friendly still. Chung is not an excessive smiler, no, but she is so resolutely upbeat in her delivery that when she says ``the death toll has risen to 10,000,'' it sounds like she is perkily reporting the record-breaking score at a sports event.
In time the young Turks and media hotshots will destroy every last vestige of what once made CBS News the best in the business.
Best-rated of the evening newscasts is ABC's ``World News Tonight'' with Peter Jennings. Maybe one reason viewers choose Jennings is that of the three network anchors, or anchor teams, he usually seems the least concerned about being loved and the most concerned about just getting the job done.
To some of us, Jennings comes across as a haughty old snoot, but at least he's relatively serious. When there is tragic news to report, he reports it in an appropriate way. Rather still has more sheer authority than any other anchor, but powers that be keep watering him down.
``The news business is no longer the news business,'' notes Reuven Frank, former president of NBC News and once Huntley and Brinkley's boss. ``Now it's just a business like any other. So they look for people who will attract audiences instead of people who know what they're doing or have some sense, or for that matter have a sense of taste.''
Worst of all, the smiley-anchor approach insults the audience, the citizenry. It says we can't take the news unless it's prettied up and pasteurized, delivered to us in sugar-frosted flakes. Or by sugar-frosted flakes. Come on, give it to us straight. We can take it. We're not a bunch of wimps.
Washington Post Writers Group
Tom Shales writes about television for The Washington Post.
by CNB