CBS News's Unstuffed Shirt

For Anchor Bob Schieffer, A Relaxed Fit and No Starch

"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."

After a report on prosecutors' setbacks at the Michael Jackson trial, Schieffer said: "I think they're going to have a hard time proving this case." When Anthony Mason reported on Bernard Ebbers's conviction in the WorldCom fraud case, he told Schieffer: "I would not want to be Ken Lay right now. . . . He may want to rethink his strategy after seeing that it did not save Bernie Ebbers." White House correspondent John Roberts, after recounting the ethics allegations against House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, told Schieffer: "My bet is that DeLay will survive this unless, of course, that Texas prosecutor decides to indict him."

Executive Producer Jim Murphy, who helped devise the approach, says Schieffer "is a gumshoe who asks tons of good questions like a normal person would ask them. He'll call reporters in the field and say, 'Tell me what's not in your piece.' " After Schieffer's debut, Murphy got a typewritten note from veteran Andy Rooney that said in red letters: "WOW."

Schieffer likens the style to newspaper sidebars or online chats. "It's just kind of my way, and maybe it's because I've been doing 'Face the Nation' for so long," he says. "We're trying to deliver the news in the way people talk."

Early ratings are sketchy since Schieffer took over March 10, but the broadcast is still mired in third place. But on the five nights Schieffer has anchored without being preempted in part of the country for the NCAA basketball tournament, he is down 1 percent from Rather's last four full weeks, while the NBC and ABC newscasts are down 6 percent and 5 percent, respectively.

Schieffer says he doesn't want the job permanently but hasn't ruled it out, despite the weekly commute from Washington to New York. "My wife said if this goes on for very long, we're going to have to renegotiate our contract."

As television keeps trying to reinvent itself, other hosts and hotshots are doing the same. Consider, for instance, the format of CNBC's new 6 p.m. show: A guy in shirtsleeves paces the set, ranting and raving, flailing and gesturing, bellowing about the stocks he loves and hates.

"Cramer said CMGI was a buy on Monday -- now it's through the roof!" a promo spot says. "Stick with Cramer!"

Not since the dot-com boom has a program so aggressively promised to help viewers get rich, but "Jim Cramer's Mad Money" on CNBC reflects the manic persona of the former Wall Street trader.