Cbs News Drags Bottom With New Anchor
CBS’s blockbuster announcement the other day that it will hire Rep. Susan Molinari, R-N.Y., to anchor a new network news program in September is rife with enigma and nonsense.
Oh, don’t try to figure it all out. I’m not sure even CBS fully understands why it had to entice a thirtysomething, rising GOP star whose journalism background is virtually nonexistent to read off of a TelePrompTer intermittently for a two-hour Saturday morning news show aimed at a largely near-puberty audience. Chalk one up for younger demographics.
We probably got a good feel for the network’s comfort level in this baffling matter during a New York news conference some described as testy. CBS News President Andrew Heyward said he did not feel “bound by the traditional definition of what makes a CBS anchor.”
Molinari, giddy with enthusiasm, described the program arrangement on the “CBS News Saturday Morning” program, which begins Sept. 13, as “60 Minutes meets Rosie O’Donnell.”
To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen’s memorable 1988 debate line to Dan Quayle, I’ve seen “60 Minutes” and “Rosie O’Donnell,” and while the new CBS offering isn’t on the air yet, this planned program with Susan Molinari is no “60 Minutes,” “Rosie O’Donnell” or anything in between. It can’t be. It’s hard to imagine CBS News would even attempt to suggest such an idea or allow Molinari to utter any such thing to that effect. After all, this is a partisan political operative who now wants to be transformed into a full-fledged journalist offering fair and dispassionate news.
That kind of makeover seems more like an experiment that might emanate from cable’s Comedy Channel, rather than from an organization once viewed as The New York Times of the broadcasting industry, not to mention the so-called house that Ed Murrow built. No wonder journalism today is held in such low regard.
Only Heyward knows what’s behind his mind-blowing move, which continues to send temblors throughout the news industry - as well it should.
I keep thinking back to a similar 1980s CBS Sports experiment. Phyllis George - now Phyllis Brown - was hired to co-anchor with Brent Musburger an NFL pre-game show. CBS thus made a laudable attempt to showcase women with their male counterparts in its sports anchor booth. But the experiment utterly failed.
George wasn’t entirely the culprit. Sure, the chemistry never seemed to work between the former Miss America and her male co-stars. But this was one experiment involving a very attractive air personality, who, at the least, deserved the basic rudiments to assemble and disseminate information. Arguably, they were lacking.
I’m afraid the same fate awaits an equally attractive but more youthful-looking Molinari, who apparently has decided to take big bucks from deep-pockets CBS - and take refuge from her seemingly paltry $133,600-a-year Congressional job.
Granted, the keynote speaker for the ‘96 Republican Convention won’t have to worry about such chemistry in her new environs because she will be pretty much going it alone. But she should have at least the basic tools of newsgathering. Yet, she doesn’t.
Appearing on TV once in awhile as an elected representative who blurts out sound bites doesn’t prepare or qualify one to deliver the news.
Just look at what’s happening in network sports today, with the avalanche of ex-jocks who either seem confused about their journalistic undertakings or end up speaking what amounts to a foreign language.
In a way, this whole Molinari-CBS arrangement is sad. It’s especially disturbing to me because, just a few years ago, I delivered weekly commentaries for the network’s owned-and-operated radio stations.
Even if you push aside CBS’ proud traditions that date back to Murrow and the broadcast news pioneers who worked closely by his side, there seems little justification, even as bleak as things are today in all of network news, for enlisting a politician with no journalistic experience to do the news.
True, Democrat and former senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey also has been hired by CBS News. But his role is solely that of a commentator, as Molinari’s should be.
For CBS, Molinari’s hiring is clearly over the journalistic edge.
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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Fred Davis Washington State University