Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 31, 1993 TAG: 9310280101
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICK KOGAN CHICAGO TRIBUNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
This is not unusual. Rather is a remarkably unsteady character in what is supposed to be the steadiest of jobs: anchorman.
Rather has a tradition of exhibiting the most curious behavior, whether getting in a row with a Chicago cabbie, wearing sweaters on camera, ending his "CBS Evening News" with the word "courage," or, perhaps most notoriously, telling of being attacked on a New York street by a man who said, "What's the frequency, Kenneth?"
But a few weeks ago, in front of the Radio and Television News Directors Association meeting in Miami, the CBS anchor really went overboard, shocking those assembled when he said that "we all should be ashamed of what we have and have not done."
In his speech, Rather criticized commercial TV for ignoring responsible journalism for the bottom line.
"They've got us putting more and more fuzz and wuzz on the air, cop-shop stuff, so as to compete not with other news programs but with entertainment programs, including those posing as news programs," he said.
This speech, which regurgitated complaints critics have been making for years, was hailed by some as an act of courage.
Others, like New York Times TV critic Walter Goodman in a Sunday essay, took a more cynical view of Rather's remarks.
"So good luck to Mr. Rather in his campaign to stand up to the bad guys and rouse others in his trade to do likewise," Goodman wrote. "But he had better recognize that the fat cats he is fighting have nothing more devious in mind than catering to the enormous audience he wants to serve, and that the bold talk not withstanding, he is more a beneficiary of the show-biz system than he is victim."
True enough. But what's amazing to me about all this, about the speech and the reaction to it, is that so many people still care about the networks' evening news.
Although most of us in a pinch could name the networks' evening news anchors, how many of us are listening to them?
Nationally, the Nielsen figures show ABC with a 9.7 rating and 21 share, followed by CBS (8.2/17) and NBC (8.3/17) - giving the networks slightly more than 50 percent of the actual viewing audience at the time. (A rating represents the percentage of all TV households, and a share is the percentage of sets tuned in.) Those are about the same ratings of the prime-time shows ranked in the 50th position, shows such as "Herman's Head" on Fox.
That's still a lot of people, but are these shows still relevant?
Network news operations have been having some tough times, especially in the wake of NBC's admission that it had rigged a General Motors truck to explode on camera for a prime-time newsmagazine program, "Dateline NBC." Still, the line between news and entertainment continues to blur, with the explosive growth and popularity of newsmagazine shows, both on the networks' prime-time schedules and of the more tabloidish syndicated variety.
The networks' news divisions have been drained by budget cuts, had their domestic and foreign bureaus thinned, seen their influence distilled by expanded local news broadcasts, and started spending more of their resources and personnel in the newsmagazine wars.
All of that has contributed to make those 30-minute slices of televised network news purveyed in the late afternoon less consequential than ever.
In a poll taken by TV Guide last year, almost half of the respondents said it would be "acceptable" to them if the networks discontinued their national news programs.
Where, then, would people get their world and national news?
The obvious answer would seem to be CNN and, of course, when there is a news event of major and compelling significance - Persian Gulf War, Clarence Thomas hearings, Somalia, attack on the Russian White House - the networks do attract large audiences.
The evening news has always been more package than product, the aim to simplify and personalize the news. And that was OK before telecommunications was able to shrink the world.
If CNN has taught us anything, it is that the news is immediate, that network days of immaculate control have vanished. It is no longer possible to press the news of the day into a neat, 30-minute package, minus 8 minutes for commercials. The anchors may be polished, but the product they are fronting is markedly unexciting and unenlightening.
Trying to enliven things, the shows have started devoting more time to longer segments, such as ABC's "American Agenda." But more often than not, these take the form not of hard news but of soft features.
As the network evening news struggles to stay popular and important, it's relying mostly on cosmetics. The most conspicuous example occurred in May at CBS when Connie Chung joined Rather as a co-anchor, hardly a match that would put many in mind of Chet Huntley meeting David Brinkley.
A "high ranking CBS executive" told TV Guide earlier this year: "Choosing an anchor is as profound a decision as a network can make. Connie is a long term investment like Letterman is a long term investment. She's a franchise."
There was a time when the evening news was the franchise: a place in which America met to collectively experience the terrors of assassination, be outraged by the bloodshed of war or be roused by watching a man step on the moon.
by CNB