Steady as He Goes
In the Anchor Chair, Bob Schieffer Buoys CBS

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 6, 2006

When Dick Cheney had his quail-hunting accident, Bob Schieffer led off the "CBS Evening News" this way:

"The question was being asked at gas stations, in offices, restaurants, all across America today, and the question was: 'Did I hear that right? The vice president shot someone?' "

When terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate in Pakistan last week just before President Bush's visit to that country, Schieffer said: "Frankly, this is kinda scary stuff we're talking about."

If you were casting about for a hot personality to juice up a struggling news show, a white-haired man of 69 would probably not jump to the top of the list. But a year after Schieffer was tapped as a temporary replacement for Dan Rather, he has loosened the collar on a buttoned-up newscast and made modest progress in winning back viewers.

"Bob instills confidence -- a man of his experience, there's something comforting about that," says CBS President Les Moonves. "He's a straight shooter. He's a return to the old school. It's good to be able to say we possibly have the most trusted TV man in America again."

That reference to Walter Cronkite might be a stretch. But Schieffer has brought a bit of "Face the Nation" to the evening news, dropping many taped reports in favor of unscripted chats with the program's correspondents.

"If there's a fire across the street," Schieffer says, "you don't walk into the newsroom and say, 'A raging, three-alarm fire, whipped by 40-mile-an-hour winds, ripped through the home next door.' You say, 'There's a fire across the street.' " His push for plain-spoken language is "in many ways a radical departure," Schieffer says.

The "debriefs" with his reporters "are the equivalent of a newspaper sidebar," he says. "It gives you a chance to elaborate and do that second story that a newspaper does with great ease."

After correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reported on a Senate probe of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's handling of Hurricane Katrina, Schieffer asked her: "Do you think, Sharyl, that Chertoff's job is on the line here?"

Schieffer dismisses criticism that his questions and comments are opinionated, saying this is the kind of analysis he has always done as a Washington correspondent.

Says Sean McManus, who recently took over as president of CBS News: "There's an authenticity about Bob. He really does speak to viewers like he's speaking to them, as opposed to reading a script. When I talk to him in the newsroom, he talks to me the same way one-on-one as he does when he is reporting the news at 6:30."

Who else would introduce a report as "some big news on a subject I know absolutely nothing about -- vintage wines"? He has downscaled the once-omnipotent anchor job from Voice of God to Voice of the Guy Next Door.

The CBS bosses are grateful to Schieffer for boosting morale after Rather stepped down early after the botched report on Bush's National Guard service, for which Rather later apologized.

"Bob has restored a great deal of credibility and faith in CBS News," Moonves says. "There's no question it was a year of turmoil for the 'Evening News.' "

Schieffer has been enjoying a wave of positive publicity, not least because reporters who cover television are fixated on ratings. For the season to date, the "CBS Evening News" has gained 183,000 viewers, from what had been a low point under Rather. By contrast, ABC's "World News Tonight," which is still rebuilding after the death of Peter Jennings and the injuries suffered by Bob Woodruff in Iraq, has lost 845,000 viewers and "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" has lost 741,000.

At the same time, Williams remains the undisputed evening news leader, averaging 9.87 million viewers to 8.78 million for ABC and 7.66 million for Schieffer's broadcast.

The network newscasts are all in various stages of trying to reinvent themselves. Williams writes a daily blog and has owned the New Orleans story. ABC co-anchor Elizabeth Vargas, who made news last week with an aggressive interview of Bush, does a daily webcast. McManus took the unusual step of having Schieffer rerun a story that drew a huge reaction: amateur video of an autistic high school student scoring 20 points in four minutes in his only basketball game. But changing the basic structure of these half-hour programs has been difficult.

Part of CBS's new look involves playing up the likes of chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan, national correspondent Byron Pitts, White House correspondent Jim Axelrod and political analyst Gloria Borger. "When there's a big story overseas, you're going to see Lara Logan on the scene, much as CNN does with Christiane Amanpour," Schieffer says. "TV is a personal medium. When people feel they know our correspondents better, it really increases their credibility."

Whatever his late-in-life success, the onetime Fort Worth newspaper reporter remains an interim solution. CBS is still trying to lure Katie Couric from "Today" after her NBC contract expires in May. Asked about the negotiations with Couric, Moonves ducks, saying: "I've enjoyed her work on the Olympics."

The double duty hasn't been easy for Schieffer, who commutes to New York during the week and returns home to Washington to host "Face the Nation" and to see his wife, Pat.

"Had this happened 10 years ago, I'd be fighting for this job," he says. "Doing it under these circumstances is perfect for me. I don't want to do it forever."

Full-Service Conservative

Some liberals have been dismissing Fox News commentator Sean Hannity as a Republican flack following word that he is attending fundraisers for GOP Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

"Sean Hannity, conservative, an on-air advocate for conservatives -- it's a shock that I support a conservative and want him to get elected?" Hannity asks. "What's the big deal? Rick is a great conservative. I believe he's a great senator."

But isn't there a difference between a commentator voicing support and actively working with a campaign? Hannity says he has helped raise money for other candidates and campaigned for President Bush in 2004. "I'm in the opinion business," he says. "I do none of this in secret."

Besides, Hannity says, he has also offered to campaign for moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, and "a lot of Republicans are angry at my opposition" to White House policies on the Dubai ports deal, immigration and Medicare drug benefits.

Phony Voice

Nick Sylvester, senior associate editor of the Village Voice, has been suspended after admitting he fabricated a scene from last week's cover story. Sylvester says he regrets the lapse into fiction, which involved a barroom meeting with other writers testing their pickup techniques.

Family Ties

MSNBC's Tucker Carlson says he's always been critical of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and the CIA leak investigation that led to the indictment of former vice presidential aide Scooter Libby. And it is "outrageous," Carlson says, for blogger Arianna Huffington to suggest that his father had anything to do with it.

Former ambassador Richard Carlson, she noted on the Huffington Post, is on the advisory committee for Libby's legal defense fund.

"What an incredibly stupid thing to say," says the younger Carlson, adding that Libby was his father's personal lawyer for years. "I was red-in-the-face mad about it." Carlson says that he has met Libby only once and that his father's role "has nothing to do with anything. It's a ridiculous standard." On his show, "The Situation," Carlson said it was a "shame" that Huffington would not come on to debate him.

Huffington says Carlson "never addressed" what she called "a simple journalistic point," which is that he should have disclosed his father's role to viewers. She says Carlson unfairly portrayed her as ducking him -- and knew she had a scheduling conflict while traveling -- because she told him in an e-mail: "Rain check, please? Anytime, any place, any subject."

Pentagon Targets Blogs

A new U.S. Central Command team, according to a news release, "contacts bloggers to inform the writers about any given topic that may have been posted on their site. . . . The team engages bloggers who are posting inaccurate or untrue information, as well as bloggers who are posting incomplete information."

While that may sound ominous, the release says the unit works with more than 250 bloggers "to try to disseminate news about the good work being done by U.S. forces in the global war on terror." This, says Army Reserve Maj. Richard Norton, has a "viral effect" that drives Web users to CentCom's Web site. The team's motto: "Engage."