Events like the recent British royal wedding may explain why you don't like network news anymore post-Cronkite/Reasoner/Chancellor or Brokaw/Jennings/Rather (if you're old enough), or generally avoid it altogether.
In March 1981, Dan Rather succeeded Walter Cronkite as anchor of the
CBS Evening News. At the time, the evening news shows on ABC and NBC both used multi-anchor, multi-location formats. ABC, on
World News Tonight, had Frank Reynolds (or Ted Koppel) reporting political news from Washington, Max Robinson reporting national news from Chicago, and Peter Jennings reporting international news from London or other places. NBC had John Chancellor in New York and Roger Mudd in Washington. Before the Fairness Doctrine repeal and Telecommunications Act led to the networks bundling up on fluffy human interest stories and content-free, speculative, noisy irrelevance, you could actually watch
real news on the commercial networks. Back then, the networks kept royal marriage-related background stories at low priority.
On the November 13, 1980
NBC Nightly News, John Chancellor delivered the first American TV news story about the Charles/Diana relationship with a
20-second summary about speculation that Prince Charles would marry Lady Diana Spencer. Then on January 2, 1981, Peter Jennings reported for
3.5 minutes about Prince Charles' relationship with Diana and his past relationships. Looking over the Vanderbilt archive from January to July 1981, I found that CBS and NBC only began covering Charles and Diana after the engagement and made full stories (which I define as at least one minute with a field reporter) only out of major events such as the prince visiting America or falling off horses (yes, really happened). Being based in London, Jennings clearly had the scoop on most news developments regionally including of Charles & Diana but at least kept those events as brief items in his reporting.
Fast-forward to post-1987 (when the Fairness Doctrine was repealed) with media deregulation and network news devolving into infotainment. When the paparazzi began hounding Prince William's then-girlfriend Kate Middleton, NBC found that to be worth full stories on
January 7 AND January 9, 2007! ABC did a similar story on
January 10. And when William and Kate ended their relationship on April 14, 2007, ABC summarized it for just
10 seconds, while CBS and NBC made full 2-minute stories about it.
And forget about facts, entire stories could be based on speculation or rumor now. On April 21, CBS even
had a 2.5-minute speculative story about whether social class contributed to their breakup. On August 19, 2007, CBS had
another content-free 2-minute story this time about rumors of royal engagements of Princes William and Harry. And NBC closed the October 25, 2010
Nightly News with
another story speculating about a William/Kate marriage. If Chancellor were still alive today, he'd be screaming at NBC.
Back in '81, the rule was generally to keep trivial public appearances by royalty or other minor revelations as anchor-read briefs such as
this one from the June 16, 1981
World News Tonight. To this year. On March 22, 2011,
ABC World News devoted a
2 minute story to report that William and Kate will ride in Charles' and Diana's carriage! And on April 11,
NBC Nightly News spent
2 minutes to report the last pre-wedding public appearance of Willam and Kate. As I pointed out
here, NBC and the other networks and even PBS skipped a story about Bradley Manning that was covered on British TV that day.
Now of course royal engagements are newsworthy enough for full stories. But their placement on the evening news shows reflect the priority placed on them. When Charles and Diana were engaged on
February 24, 1981, the networks all had full stories. It was the final story of night on ABC (
1 minute 40 seconds) and CBS (
3 min 50 sec). However, NBC made that the fifth story of the night (
3:30), while the
eighth story was about House Ways and Means members discussing Reaganomics, and that was for only
1:20.
William and Catherine were engaged on
November 16, 2010. That was also the day when the House ethics committee
convicted Rep. Charles Rangel of 11 ethics violations. Guess which story led?
CBS and NBC both led November 16 with full stories about the engagement. Could you imagine Walter Cronkite or John Chancellor making such decision? The networks have gone from concluding with a royal engagement story to calling it the
TOP STORY! On NBC, Brian Williams merely
summarized the Rangel conviction for 36 seconds, while CBS had a
1:23-long story by Nancy Cordes. In contrast, ABC put the engagement story after
Diane Sawyer's special reports about China, and substitute anchor George Stephanopoulos
summarized the Rangel conviction for only 20 seconds. And NBC even
concluded November 16 with foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell (who normally reports on serious news)
covering even more fluff about the engagement; in contrast, CBS concluded by
promoting the documentary film
Made in Deningham, about British working-class women going on strike from a Ford factory.
In contrast, the
PBS NewsHour (which
won a Cronkite Award recently) buried the engagement story in the "
news wrap" section of various world news stories on November 16, led with a
Congressional hearing on foreclosures (skipped by the Big 3 networks) and covered the Rangel conviction
in full with a story and interview as the
next-to-last story. This is why I'm grateful for the
PBS NewsHour.
And finally, regarding the wedding day itself. On July 29, 1981, the day when the House of Representatives voted for President Reagan's
tax cut bill and Charles and Diana formally wed, the networks all devoted significant coverage to both events. Frank Reynolds began
World News Tonight by summarizing the House vote for 30 seconds; ABC then had a
7-minute story about the wedding followed by
4 minutes of tax cut coverage and many other stories. CBS had a similar format. On NBC, John Chancellor began with
an in-studio 90-second summary of the wedding before
6.5 minutes on the House tax cut vote; NBC that night had 3 stories totaling 9 minutes about the royal wedding.
On April 29, 2011,
CBS,
NBC, and
PBS led with the Alabama tornado, but ABC
led with a 5-minute story about the royal wedding then had nearly 10 minutes of tornado coverage, another
3-minute retrospective of the royal wedding, then closed with
brief summaries of oil profits, a Donald Trump speech in Las Vegas, and President Obama visiting the Kennedy Space Center. NBC covered only the wedding and tornado on Friday and predominantly the tornado. CBS had 6 minutes of tornado coverage and 12 minutes of wedding coverage and included brief item on Obama at Kennedy Space and a preview of the
60 Minutes Lara Logan
interview.
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