We’ve often said that in tone, style, content, delivery and just the way he seems to epitomize the journalistic center, CBS’s Bob Schieffer is the person who should have been the successor to Walter Cronkite as CBS’s anchorman.
When Cronkite was shoved out (and he was) and politely agreed to retire before he normally would have preferred to leave as the network’s symbol (he was considered “the most trusted man in America”) the big battle was between the at-times-academic Roger Mudd and Dan Rather, who burst on the network scene most visibly during CBS’s coverage of the the JFK assassination. Rather won out; Mudd went to P.B.S.
Schieffer remained as a back-up but had and maintained the Cronkite-like aura and tone. And when it was Rather’s time to be forced out (but not for the same reasons Cronkite was), CBS used Schieffer as a stopgap. Critics felt the ratings would go down even more. What young viewers would want to look at a grandfatherly-like figure like Schieffer?
But CBS found that its evening news’ ratings grew. And the newscast regained some lost ground. So he was replaced by the then-highly popular Katie Couric — who has been struggling to get off the downwards ratings elevator ever since.
So, for CBS bigwigs and fans of the Murrow-Cronkite school of broadcast journalism, Schieffer remains a bittersweet what-might-have-been (and think that about how that would have impacted network newscasts if he had held that job).
But he still is around on the network…and once a week takes off his interviewer’s hat to offer commentaries that could be useful for journalism students (and bloggers) to study.
Like THIS ONE on Pat Robertson, God and Rudy Giuliani.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.