New faces not enough to save network news
By MARVIN KALB of The Los Angeles Times
Once again, the face of American television news is changing.
The older generation of anchormen is, after a quarter of a century, yielding
to a younger generation.
Can this changing of the electronic guard offer any promise of better,
more substantive coverage of our dangerous and unpredictable world?
I am sorry to say the answer is almost certainly no. Network news is hurtling
toward irrelevance in the oddest way.
Challenged by the competitive pressures of Internet blogs and 24/7 cable
and radio talk shows, it still occasionally shows examples of brilliant
and brave reporting, such as we recently saw in Fallujah.
But its more standard fare is a safe blend of hyped political confrontations,
magical medical discoveries for viewers over 70, administration bromides
about everything from “moral values” to the economy, and misleading
trivialization of everyday life.
All this is pushed along by a group of timid network executives who have
forgotten their commitment to the public interest while focusing on ratings,
profits and, since Sept. 11, and the start of the Iraq war, careful displays
of patriotism.
Last week, almost every U.S. newspaper echoed USA Today’s headline,
“End of an Era for Network News,’’ when Dan Rather,
the longest-reigning anchor in television history, announced he would
relinquish his coveted spot on March 9, 2005, the 24th anniversary of
his tenure.
CBS timed the announcement to focus on Rather’s career rather than
on an independent panel’s report, expected soon, on his botched
story about George W. Bush’s National Guard service.
Rather has achieved such iconic stature that the New York Times greeted
the announcement with the sort of extensive coverage usually reserved
for a particularly bloody battle in Iraq.
At the same time, another giant on the Mount Rushmore of aging anchors
—NBC’s 64-year-old Tom Brokaw—will yield his slot today,
after 22 years, to Brian Williams, once a local anchor in New York.
I vividly remember the last “end of an era.’’
In the early 1980s, I was NBC’s chief diplomatic correspondent and
host of its Sunday interview program, “Meet the Press.’’
Brokaw was about to replace the respected John Chancellor, and Rather
was to replace Walter Cronkite, “the most trusted man in America.’’
Now, as a new era dawns, we naturally worry about their successors. Not
that they won’t be capable; surely they will, just as Brokaw and
Rather were.
But talented as they may be, they will represent only cosmetic change,
and they will face the same harsh challenges as their departing colleagues,
with even fewer options for coping with them.
They know that in recent years, ratings have been falling steadily for
all three networks, meaning profits have been dropping too.
Since 1991, networks have experienced a 33 percent fall in their audience.
CBS, which used to attract 12 million viewers every evening, now attracts
only 7 million, and the competitive pressures from cable news and the
blogosphere seem only to be growing.
On election night, the conservative Fox cable news channel pulled in a
larger audience than NBC, the network leader—the strongest indication
yet that cable news and its blustery, right-tilting chatter have finally
drawn even with the older networks in the ratings.
That creates a huge additional problem, more troublesome and insidious
than all the others:
Television must deal with political pressures to conform to resurgent
conservative values that appear to be stifling editorial courage in the
newsroom. Rather had the inner strength recently to criticize “these
partisan, political ideological challenges.’’
Will his successor have similar courage?
Will the timid network executives have the old-fashioned backbone to take
on a crusading administration?
I doubt it.
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