Weighing Anchors

Theoretically, in a nation that prides itself on the separation of church and state, of the media and the ruling administration, there would be no question about keeping the anchor and the president in separate rooms. The more distance between them, the better. Not so, apparently. Kurtz writes about how the White House skillfully manipulates their competitive juices and outsized egos by rationing access to the president, thus buying favor, or at least understanding.

Even though Williams sharply criticized the administration's botched handling of the New Orleans disaster, he had become "the president's favorite anchor." Whenever they met, Bush peppered him with questions. According to Dan Bartlett, a former presidential adviser, Bush said, "I can do business with him." The president and the anchor discussed their reading habits, among other things -- Bush, believe it or not, telling the anchor that he had been reading Camus' The Stranger, and Williams recommending that he read a new LBJ biography.

Couric had raised a few feathers at the Bush White House by once asking the first lady about a woman's right to an abortion (what's wrong with that?); but when Couric became the "CBS Evening News" anchor, she needed Bush, and in a way he needed her. Bartlett, the fixer and doorkeeper, arranged an "exclusive interview" with the president on the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Couric was "respectfully challenging," but Bush was "stiff, . . . his lips often pursed in a quizzical expression," and the interview made little news. No matter. CBS hailed it as an "exclusive."

Gibson, admitted to the inner sanctum of Bush's office, did not seem fazed and certainly was not fawning. The oldest and most experienced of the three anchors, he spoke to Bush "almost as an equal." In one interview, Gibson admitted that when he thought about 9/11, "I find myself crying. Does that happen to you?" Bush responded, "Yeah. Of course, generally, it's triggered when I meet someone who lost a loved one." In this way, unintentionally, Gibson made headlines.

These exchanges help soften the rough edges and natural antagonism in any anchor-president encounter. The anchor wants hard news, a bulletin -- "The president disclosed today. . . . " The president wants support and understanding, if evasion fails to carry the day. The relationship is such that each needs the other, and for this reason, especially in the fuzzy patriotism of war and presidential politics, they are much closer than anyone quite realizes.

Kurtz obviously decided to focus on the problems and personalities of the anchors rather than on the basic changes now transforming the industry, and this is a shame. Few journalists know the industry better, and he could have spent lots more time on the financial underpinnings and technological revolution that truly define what has happened to television news. Kurtz mentions these basic problems -- how could he not? -- but only in passing, leaving the impression that they are not really as important as Katie, Charlie and Brian. Yet in the final analysis they are more important than the anchors, and maybe in his next book Kurtz will decide that he can make economics and technology as compelling as his story of the new anchors.

But he had better hurry. The anchors and their half-hour newscasts are quickly facing what Kurtz gravely terms "irrelevance." They are "just barely good enough" to hold their own against Jon Stewart, podcasts and the other competing wonders of cable TV and the Internet. But "just good enough" is clearly not good enough. What is obvious is that all of journalism, not just the evening newscasts, is undergoing revolutionary change with an outcome now impossible to forecast. *

Marvin Kalb, Murrow Professor Emeritus at Harvard, was an anchor and diplomatic correspondent at CBS and NBC for 30 years.