TELEVISION: NEWSCAST IN OVERDRIVE

WITH ITS HIP, HIGH-IMPACT, USER-FRIENDLY APPROACH, NBC HAS DEVISED AN EVENING NEWSCAST THAT SELLS

NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw was one of the three most uncomfortable men in America last Tuesday night. Like his counterparts at ABC and CBS, he had to vamp on the air as two bizarrely incompatible events prepared to collide: President Clinton's State of the Union speech and a verdict in the O.J. Simpson civil trial. In Brokaw's earpiece, frantic conversations were taking place between NBC News executives in New York City and the producer on duty in Washington, with Brokaw chiming in whenever he got a few seconds off the air. "It was an American cultural meltdown," he says. "There were...

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