Elegy for the evening news Chet and David, Dan and Connie, Walter, Peter, and Tom, along with acid indigestion, hemorrhoids, and constipation
McCarthy, Eugene J
THE LAST WORD ELEGY FOR THE EVENING NEWS Eugene J. McCarthy When the news of the removal of Connie Chung from the "CBS Evening News" broke, I was not particular-ly moved to concern. If anything,...
...Rather rates last...
...Primitive societies look on twilight and sunset as magical times...
...The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea...
...You'll miss the commuter train," etc...
...With the coming of Walter Cronkite, the anchorman was identified, and news became commercial, allowing the in-tervention of advertising after each or several news stories...
...HuntleyBrinkley led the charts for years...
...Meanwhile, the curfew tolls the knell of parting day...
...With the coming of Rather there was a slight change in the tenor, substance, and emphasis of the ads...
...Jen-nings is in first, principally, I think, be-cause as his broadcast proceeds he seems to become increasingly tired, or bored, and about to go to sleep...
...Both God and man are fairly passive at vespers...
...The second crisis reported by Walter (it may have been further down the list) was Mt...
...The news report was followed by an advertisement for Turns, as relief for heartburn and acid indigestion...
...She had been a great success on "Good Morning America...
...Three Mile Island and a decline of four or five points in the New York Stock Exchange averages elicited equal concern...
...Barbara Walters, in the group that supported Connie after she had been taken off the evening news, seemed to suggest that she herself had been removed from a joint venture with Harry Reasoner, on ABC, for gender reasons...
...Get out of bed...
...Walter, too, was reassuring in a way...
...Ed Murrow was the original TV news star...
...Three other crises fol-lowed, with intervention by Martha Ray, plugging a product which would make false teeth five times whiter, an ad for Procelana, designed to remove brown spots from aging hands, and a com-pelling ad showing a man of about forty-five years chasing a woman of about twenty on a sandy beach and catching her, because, the ad said, he was taking iron tablets...
...With Walter, the ad-vertising reflected the concerns and needs of his audience, one beginning to experience the coming of disabilities as-sociated with age...
...Rather denies any...
...They were laid back, the shows ending on a slow, low note, like a clock needing winding...
...Tricks, props, new personnel, racial and gender balance cannot save the evening news for it is basically in conflict with na-ture...
...If anything, I was sympathetic to Connie, whom I have ob-served from the time when she worked for a Washington, D.C., TV station...
...The natural time force is evident in the ratings of the anchor persons...
...Now it is reserved for Rather, Jennings, and Brokaw...
...One was Three Mile Island, with Diane Sawyer staked out in the rising mists of the Susquehanna River, she seemingly threatening to mutate...
...He had sponsors, but his program was not interrupted by ad-vertisements...
...He holds second place in the ratings...
...Brokaw has a rela-tively neutral voice and approach, bet-ter for noon-day, pre-sieste news...
...And leaves the world to darkness and TV...
...If one applies the voice and manner test to today's three leading anchormen, the vespers factor prevails...
...Actually the nature of the ads was adjusted to the image of the anchor person...
...Crows cry havoc in all seasons and at all times of day, ex-cept evening...
...But morning voices, she should have recognized, are not good twilight voices...
...Christians mark it with vespers...
...The Muslims observe the coming of dark with special prayers...
...Connie has charged gender discrim-ination...
...Neither Huntley nor Brinkley seemed to want to do the closing story, but just let things stop...
...For several weeks, in the time before Connie was brought in, Dan tried stand-ing up as he delivered the news, to be more forceful, the network said, al-though there was a suspicion that Preparation H was not working...
...Her voice has good morning qualities...
...The program ended with an advertisement for Ex-Lax, after which Walter said, "Thaf s the way it is...
...A laxative said to be milder than Ex-Lax and more suit-able for women was introduced, and fre-quent advertisements for hemorrhoid relief, especially through the use of Preparation H, after which Dan would conclude the news with, "Thaf s it from CBS" or "Thaf s part of our world today...
...He is too harsh, too demanding, for twilight...
...The whole concept of "evening news" is in play...
...Saint Helen's, fol-lowed by an advertisement for Polygrip (mint-flavored...
...The only interruptions were the silences, while Ed drew on his cigarette, small puffs for minor news, deep, prolonged inhalations for more se-rious matters...
...The poet Longfellow reserved it as "The Children's Hour" for "Alice, laughing Allegro, and Edith of the golden hair...
...Although he stressed crises, there was a kind of sameness about them...
...I had some reservations about Dan Rather, not for any observed professional behavior, but because my dog (now dead) used to go to the apartment door to be taken out for her evening walk just as Dan came on to do the evening news...
...It was, and is, rau-cous...
...There are, I believe, more significant issues involved...
...He was not an anchorman, he was the man...
...Years ago I made a study of Walter's program on two suc-cessive nights when Walter was re-porting on six ongoing crises...
Vol. 122 • November 1995 • No. 19
