|
Apr 17, 2005 -- TV News Just Isn't What It Used to Be: The Arizona Republic Interviews Walter Cronkite Network news is, by many accounts, broken.
Ratings, while still relatively healthy, have been slipping for years, with no sign of stanching the desertion to cable news, Web sites, video games, whatever. In the past four months, because of controversy, health problems or aging, different people are filling each of the Big Three network news anchors' chairs. The situation is dire enough that one network - the one in third place, but still - is rethinking the way the whole system works.
Who better to consult in times of flux than Walter Cronkite, the legendary CBS Evening News anchor? He stepped down in 1981 after nearly 19 years as anchor, but he has never let go of the desire to report and stay abreast of the news, and he keeps a sharp and wary eye on the tremors and quakes in the business. When people talk about the anchor's "voice of God," it's Cronkite's voice they're talking about; those who have come after are minor deities in comparison.
Just don't tell him that.
"I've always been amazed, myself, apparently I'm thought of as some sort of oracle," Cronkite, 88, said from the CBS office he maintains in "Black Rock," the imposing Manhattan office building where the network news is based. "I don't have that concept myself."
Maybe not, but others obviously do. And why not? "The most trusted man in America" might as well be part of his name, and in a wide-ranging interview Cronkite spoke freely, if sometimes regretfully and always carefully, about the state of news and its place in the world. As a self-described news junkie who'll bolt his seat in a restaurant to find out where a siren's coming from ("I've come back to the table to a lot of kidding, not all of it friendly, for my trying to chase a firetruck down Madison Avenue"), the decline of news doesn't just sadden him. It worries him.
'Democracy in danger'
"The fact that readership of newspapers is down and the viewing of news on television is down - in the network form, that is - with that, we should consider that democracy is in danger," he said. "As old Thomas Jefferson said, the nation that expects to be ignorant and free expects what never will and never can be. The problem we've got with newspapers and television today, television news, is, I think, the fact that the public is too ignorant to understand the important news of the day. It wants to be entertained rather than informed."
The networks are eager to play along. Traditional network news still enjoys a commanding presence, with combined viewership of the evening news of nearly 30 million people. But that number has been shrinking, so networks never cease in their quest for ratings. "It's understandable, to me anyway, that the management should attempt to do what they can to get a lot of that audience back," Cronkite said. "However, I personally - and this is purely a personal feeling - would rather see more devotion to the major stories in politics and the culture of the nation, rather than quite so much entertainment news, if you will, of crime, of less-important news."
Amen. But don't hold your breath. Cronkite's own network, mired in third place for years, is the one making the most noise about revamping the nightly news. Cronkite's replacement, Dan Rather, stepped down in March under a cloud of controversy over a 60 Minutes II story he did on President Bush's National Guard Service during the Vietnam War. Leslie Moonves, co-president and co-COO of Viacom and chairman and CEO of CBS, has used the opportunity to say that the newscast needs to be revamped, perhaps with several anchors. The single-anchor, "voice of God" days, he's said, are over. And it's all but a given that whoever takes over for interim anchor Bob Schieffer, while maybe not young enough to host MTV's Total Request Live, won't be eligible for Social Security for years to come either.
"That's a mistake, too," Cronkite said, laughing. "They ought to take people in their 80s."
Have anyone in mind?
"Yeah," he chuckled. "I'm available." Ever the company man, Cronkite wouldn't cross Moonves.
"The man who said that (about the multianchor format) is my boss," Cronkite said. "I'm still a contract player at CBS."
Still, Cronkite doesn't sound thrilled about the idea of a glammed-up broadcast long on glitz and short on news.
"If what he means is that it would be better to have a personality who would be perhaps a little more charming or perhaps make a few jokes or I don't know what," he said, "it does seem to me that it would be a denigration of the evening news. . . . The big test will be, if they decide to go that route, whether or not in whatever their presentation in that half-hour is, that it seriously covers the news. That is, that it does not ignore the important news of the day in order to be more interesting, or in other words be entertaining. That would be a tragedy, because the country needs better news coverage."
Calls change needed
Cronkite doesn't disagree that something needs to change.
He thinks the biggest problem facing network news is cramming a day's worth of information into 17 or so minutes (the half-hour broadcast minus commercials) - "that is a ridiculously small amount of time to try to cover a nation as complex as ours."
Instead, he would like to see a newscast based in part on PBS' Newshour with Jim Lehrer, a show he calls "a must" for daily viewing.
"Let's do the headlines at 6:30 or whenever," he said. "And then when we come back for those (prime-time) magazines, instead of Hollywood and crime and all that kind of thing, we could do instant documentaries" on the news of the day.
Not unlike, in other words, Nightline. Or at least the current version of Nightline, which is also changing. Longtime anchor Ted Koppel announced this month that he would step down by the end of the year, refusing an offer to anchor a revamped version of the show.
"I think he's standing on principle," Cronkite said of Koppel. "I admire him for it."
Indeed, Cronkite knows how he would react to such pressures.
"I wouldn't stand up well," he said. "I wouldn't stand up well at all. I will not yield to anybody in my belief that I understand the news and what is important in the news."
Then perhaps it's best when Cronkite quit when he did, when reporting news was still more important than making money, when scoops were considered more precious than Nielsen ratings. Right?
Wrong.
"I made a mistake," Cronkite said. "If I had known my health was going to be as good as it's been for another 30 years, I certainly would have stayed. I'm sure of that."
It's a messy business
Succession can be a messy business. Following Cronkite was Rather, a hard-charging reporter reining himself in as he took over for the unflappable legend. Rumors of tension abounded, and the gig was a thankless challenge for Rather, like trying to replace Michael Jordan in the lineup. It's impossible to measure up.
Cronkite believes CBS chose the wrong man to replace him. Now, 24 years later, his pick's in place, albeit temporarily.
"(Bob) Schieffer is just a wonderful newsman and a very fine broadcaster," Cronkite said. "I have felt all along that he should have been my successor rather than Rather. . . . I think Rather did a good job. But I think Schieffer would have held that audience and increased it probably beyond what Dan did."
Oh boy. That again. Cronkite made his own headlines recently when, just before Rather stepped down, he criticized Rather in a New Yorker story and a CNN interview, saying Rather often seemed to be playing the role of a news anchor.
He paid Rather some compliments, as well, but, coming as they did on the eve of Rather's exit, Cronkite's comments came off as churlish, particularly when reprinted without the compliments alongside them.
"Well, I was embarrassed that I said what I said to the New Yorker," Cronkite said. He didn't back off his comments but said he had hoped for a more complete picture.
"It wasn't taken out of context, I wouldn't say that at all," he said. "I said it. But I said quite a few things that were, I thought, more complimentary that didn't get in. Most of it was in the original piece, but didn't get reprinted."
Wait a second. If Walter Cronkite can't trust the media, who can?
Rather doesn't hold a grudge, apparently. After Cronkite's wife, Betsy, died in March, Rather attended the services and spoke to him.
"I thought that was really a very, very gentlemanly, decent kind of thing," Cronkite said.
Dream of returning
Now you have to place the word "former anchor" in front of both Rather's and Cronkite's name. Rather has gone back to reporting full time. You can tell by talking to Cronkite that part of him would like to.
"Do I ever want to? I want to every day," he said. "But I'm not anticipating it and I don't know that I would accept it if offered."
He is 88, after all. A torn Achilles' tendon, suffered while playing tennis at 85 - "playing singles, I'm happy to say" - has left him hobbled. He doesn't always hear what you have to say the first time you say it, despite a hearing aid in each ear. But Cronkite remains an unusually engaged observer.
"I'm like the firehouse dog who wants to be up there on the seat with the driver anytime they leave the stationhouse. . . . I'm very interested in everything that goes on," he said. "And I'd like to believe that all the public should be that way. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean chasing firetrucks, of course.
"But it does mean an interest in the activity in your surroundings. That is what community is about, for heaven's sake. That's what culture is about.
"To be an informed and cultured population, we've got to be aware of what's happening in our society."
by Bill Goodykoontz, Republic TV Columnist |
