Collectively, their careers at the helm of the three major television networks’ evening news programs spanned more than 65 years. They reported on the end of the Cold War, moderated presidential debates and helped bring a sense of calm to a shocked nation on a harrowing September day in 2001.
Over the course of the past year, they have all ceded their anchor desks. First to go was Tom Brokaw in December 2004. Next, Dan Rather signed off in March 2005. And, early last month, Peter Jennings died of lung cancer.
They were not their respective networks’ first great anchors. But, history will show, they were the last.
The demise of the evening news may well have begun in Ted Turner’s mind more than a quarter-century ago. His bold, risky and groundbreaking vision of a 24-hour cable news network was fully realized in CNN. By the time Bernard Shaw was ducking under a desk in Baghdad as bombs flew over the city in 1991, it was clear to many Americans that the most intriguing news would no longer enter the living room through an antenna.
And this medium soon helped render network news moot. What was the point of watching a two-minute story on the O.J. Simpson trial at 5:30 p.m. if you had viewed the courtroom drama live on CNN all day?
But by the late 90s, the proverbial second shoe had fallen. President Clinton carried on a sexual relationship with an intern and Americans learned of this scandal not through the evening news or even the morning paper, but via a young man named Matt Drudge. He had broken the story on the Internet, and, before long, an era of bloggers, online reporting and mobile-news alerts was born.
These mediums not only provide competition to ABC, CBS and NBC, but also an unprecedented level of scrutiny. Those very bloggers would be largely responsible for the controversial demise of Mr. Rather. And Bernard Goldberg’s angry ruminations on his career in network news are no longer privy to merely those willing to buy a copy of his latest book — Bill O’Reilly has made him a regular guest.
There was a time when news came in just two formats — six columns wide or 30 minutes long. Today it is shared via text messages, pontificated on the World Wide Web and never more than a half-hour away on CNN Headline News.
To be sure, Messrs. Brokaw, Rather and Jennings are not to blame. They were merely the finest of silent film stars when Al Jolson was allowed to move his lips on celluloid. And, moreover, they — along with Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite and a few others — will always be to the news what George Méliés, D.W. Griffith and a guy named Chaplin are to cinema. Just as “The Birth of a Nation” and “Modern Times” still adorn the shelves of video stores elsewhere, these gentlemen will always be an integral part of news clips from the fall of the Berlin Wall and a hurricane named Andrew.
It is, in a way, sad to see the unofficial end of such an era, especially coming through the tragic passing of Mr. Jennings. Those students populating college campuses everywhere today are members of the first generation to have enjoyed a more intimate relationship with Kurt Loder, Jon Stewart and a machine called “Google” than Messrs. Brokaw, Rather and Jennings.
And the networks know this. Ratings have reportedly dipped for the three broadcasts in excess of 30 percent over the past decade. In fact, rumors recently circulated that CBS was eyeing none other than the aforementioned “Daily Show” host for anchor duties. The Tiffany Network’s news operation is in absolute disarray and, as profits plummet into financial hemorrhages, may well be the first formal casualty to this recent revolution. ABC, still recovering from Mr. Jennings’ sudden death, has understandably made no genuine movement toward the future as of yet. NBC, conversely, has tapped Brian Williams — one of America’s finest newsmen — to fill its anchor seat.
But no matter how fine Mr. Williams’ oratory, how bold CBS’s new format or how innovative ABC’s next move, it would appear that these one-time coveted, 30-minute programs will soon join eight-tracks in the world of Generalissimo Francisco Franco.
Mac VerStandig ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in rhetoric.
