Koward Kurtz hits the nail on the head: Dan Rather’s temporary CBS Evening News replacement has literally changed the tone of that show by talking like a PERSON does instead of using the fake, pompous tones of a TV newscaster:
“I hate to jinx it by saying it aloud,” Bob Schieffer told viewers of the “CBS Evening News” on Thursday, but “all of a sudden there’s some pretty good news” in declining U.S. casualties in Iraq.“Bob, I tell you,” correspondent Byron Pitts said from Baghdad, “you’ll be hard-pressed to find any U.S. commander thumping his chest.” And given the danger, Pitts said, “I’m praying the whole time we’re out there.”
As the interim replacement for Dan Rather, Schieffer has managed to change the rigid formula of the nightly newscast. He is delivering the news in a conversational style, rather than with voice-of-God solemnity, interjecting his own views and encouraging CBS reporters to do the same. Often, instead of doing taped reports followed by a stand-up, the correspondents — who tease their stories during the introduction — just chat with Schieffer.
“I’m telling them, throw away the scripts,” Schieffer says. “I don’t want to do a rehearsed question and rehearsed answer because people see through that. What I want to hear is what they would tell me in the newsroom, all within FCC obscenity guidelines, of course.”
Indeed, through the years various networks have noted that TV reporters and newscasters talk in a certain tone — as if they are delivering The Ten Commandments personally from you-know-who (we mean in
Some years ago a news bigwig said:”Real people don’t talk like that!” And they don’t. My sister Nona loves to point out how every profession has a way of talking. Listen when a stewardess talks on a n airplane PA. Listen when a telemarketer calls. And — definitely — listen when a lawyer speaks.
Newspaper reporting has gotten better in recent years. When I asked the late Christian Science Monitor’s Overseas Editor Geoffrey Godsell how to begin a story I was writing he told me:”What would you say to Mrs. Smith in Peoria?”
Schieffer, ironically, has been the one to literally change the news tone. Just watch him one night.
On the other hand, the San Diego Union-Tribune’s respected and insightful TV critic Bob Laurence points out some other factors about Schieffer on his blog that don’t seem terrific for CBS right now:
Yes, Schieffer is an ace newsman with a friendly, easy style.
But, and there’s no gentle way to put this, he just looks really, really old. Considerably older than his 68 years, actually.
His is not a face that will bring younger viewers to the network news show, which desperately needs younger viewers. A major part of television news is, let’s face it, show business. Looks do matter. Maybe they shouldn’t, but they do.
To make it worse, Schieffer wears a black suit, and as the show opens he’s standing to one side of the screen, hands folded discreetly across his abdomen.
He looks, I swear, like an undertaker, politely welcoming us to the viewing.
I don’t think that’s the image CBS was hoping for.
And it’s not the image the network needs.
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.