Category: State of the Fourth Estate

Walter Cronkite
and the Sorry State
of TV News Today
By George Merlis



Walter Cronkite’s death on July 17 was a great loss. But the greater loss to the nation was the decision in 1982 by CBS News president Van Gordon Sauter to force Cronkite into retirement, replacing him with Dan Rather. Sauter moved to keep Rather on board at CBS after learning that Dan’s agent was discussing a move to the ABC News anchor desk. Sauter’s removal of Cronkite resulted in an immediate and permanent loss of an appreciable chunk of the CBS Evening News audience. But more importantly, it deprived viewers of at least another 10 or 15 years of Cronkite’s services -- not only as a reporter but as an example of what an TV news anchor is and should be. When Sauter forced Cronkite out, the bar for television journalism dropped to a lower level and it’s been inching lower ever since.

Although 65 was the supposed mandatory retirement age at CBS, there had been exemptions in the past -- most notably for company chairman William S. Paley, who worked far beyond that age. Cronkite didn’t retire totally, he remained under contract and on the payroll; in fact, he was on the CBS corporate board of directors. But he was no longer the face and voice of CBS News. By keeping him under contract, CBS kept the “most trusted man in America” from jumping ship to another network, but it also stilled his voice.

When I got to CBS to executive produce the Morning News in 1982, Cronkite had just gone into exile in a large, modern office in building across the street from from the news division. From there he was supposed to function as a senior correspondent. Correspondent for what? CBS News had long since stopped producing the documentaries that were hallmarks of te Edward R. Murrow age at the network. Rather didn’t want Cronkite on “The CBS Evening News” for the same reason a short, fat, funny-looking guy doesn’t want to pull up a stool next to a Brad Pitt lookalike at a singles bar. And since Rather’s word was the law on the Evening News, Cronkite didn’t appear on the Rather show.

I came to CBS News from ABC where, for the last seven years I had run “Good Morning America.” CBS was then called “The Tiffany Network,” and I expected to be moving into a real high-rent district. Imagine my shock when I discovered that CBS News headquarters was on a block on the West Side of Manhattan so decrepit that the opening of a methadone clinic next door actually improved the surroundings. Symbolically, perhaps, the news division -- in a converted dairy building -- was as far from the network's glittery midtown Manhattan office tower. Our offices were dark, dingy, windowless. The news division was spectacularly ill-equipped with the latest electronics, gear we took for granted at ABC. It was almost as if I had gone from a state-of-the art television operation to a collegiate TV station in a third-world country. Just getting a show on the air in those creaky, antiquated studios was a daily miracle.


The Low Building on the right is CBS News broadcast center. It featured
antiquated equipment crammed into a former dairy far from the network's
celebrated mid-Manahattan headquarters skyscraper

It didn’t take very long for me to run afoul of Sauter, whose news instincts were honed running the local CBS station in Los Angeles, land of vapid celebrity reporting, mindless helicopter coverage of police chases and lengthy daily reports devoted to the almost-never-changing weather. I, too, was banished to the office building across the street where my new office was just down the corridor from Burton Benjamin, one of the pioneering TV documentary producers, and Walter Cronkite. As I was unpacking boxes of files my first day there, Cronkite strolled in, looked at me and said, “You’re too young to be in the elephant burial ground.” And then he left. It was the only conversation I ever had with him but I think it spoke volumes about how he felt about “retirement.”


Memorable Moment: Cronkite Loses His Normal Composure
Upon Learning of President John F. Kennedy's Death in Dallas

After Cronkite died, every TV anchor filled many minutes with tributes to him. Minutes. Compare that to the many hours of tributes and coverage they devoted to Michael Jackson. In fact, right after paying tribute to the man who should have shown them the way, most went back to the same old stuff: celebrity worship mixed with fear-mongering and the occasional inane “investigation.”

Can you imagine Walter Cronkite permitting the “CBS Evening News” to devote huge chunks of time to Michael Jackson at the expense of coverage of two wars, a damaged economy, a supreme court nomination fight, the bankruptcy of American industrial giants, the insolvency of many states and a battle over national health care reform?

Can you imagine Cronkite originating live from Los Angeles on the day of Michael Jackson’s memorial service -- the way his successor, Katie Couric and NBC’s Brian Williams did? No, I thought not. (A tip of the hat to ABC’s Charlie Gibson, who declined the opportunity to join the lemmings heading west for the Jackson extravaganza.)

Can you image Cronkite interviewing Sasha Baron Cohen playing his character of Bruno, the way Matt Lauer did? No, I thought not.

When I was executive producer of “Good Morning America,” our host, David Hartman, was a former actor. Despite that Hollywood background, David was so rigorous about separating the line between fact and fiction that he would not interview the muppet Ms Piggy and once he declined to interview a Benjamin Franklin impersonator about that founding father because the impersonator intended to wear a period costume. It’s not surprising to me that a former actor had stronger journalism ethics back then than many of today’s practicing TV “journalists”. Regrettably, the standards will only get lower. So, Walter, although I want to say, “Rest in peace,” I’m afraid, I have to say instead, “Get ready to spin in your grave.”



For my media mastery techniques, read “How to Master the Media.”

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