TELEVISION
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By his own definition, the man behind the big U-shaped desk is a managing editor. All day, with wire-service teleprinters clacking behind him, he and his associates have kept a close watch on the spasmodic flow of the world's news. They have assigned stories, selected pictures, edited and rewritten copy. They have argued the relative news value of a battle-action file from Viet Nam and bloody films of students rioting in Djakarta; they have checked on the latest peace rumor out of Washington, the day's speeches at the U.N. Now, deadline is approaching, and the big problem is whether that World Series game out in Chavez Ravine will end in time for them to carry the score.
So far, the frenetic activity would be familiar to any newsman on any big-city daily. But deadline brings a difference. No presses roll. Show business moves into the newsroom, and lights dim beyond the rim of the desk. The day's debris is shoved off into the shadows. As technicians man their equipment, a makeup expert goes to work on the managing editor. At the last moment he runs a comb through his blond hair, shrugs a neatly pressed jacket over his wrinkled shirtsleeves, and shoots his French cuffs. It is 6:30 p.m. Cameras zero in, and CBS's Walter Cronkite Jr. begins his half-hour evening report. Now, by his own definition, his role has changed. On the color TV tube he becomes part editor and part ham.
Out of this unlikely combination, Cronkite has constructed an on-screen personality that makes him the single most convincing and authoritative figure in TV news—no mean rank in a medium where competition is uncompromising, where the three nationwide networks scrutinize one another's shows and crib from one another's operations in a desperate drive for the top of the ratings. As a better-informed public has demanded more and more information about current events, TV news programs have changed from loss leaders and have begun to start paying their way. And as the networks have made the most of them, news shows like Cronkite's have become one of the most important and influential molders of public opinion in the U.S. Some 58% of the U.S. public get most of their news from television, reported an Elmo Roper poll last year.
How To Be Used. For better or worse, television has become an established part of the democratic process—a fact of life in the U.S. that is not lost on any politician. Senator Robert Kennedy candidly admits that he would rather appear for 30 seconds on an evening news program than be written up in every newspaper in the world. "President Johnson," says White House Press Secretary Bill Moyers bluntly, "feels that television offers him the most direct, straightforward and personal way to communicate with the people. It is not someone else's attitude or interpretation of what the President said. It's the purest form of communication, and I think the most desirable."
Today the well-heeled political candidate spends all he can to buy television time. When money runs low, he uses his ingenuity to organize "news events":—a post-office dedication, say, or an appearance with an illustrious visitor—anything that will lure the ubiquitous television camera. "I know we're being used," admits NBC's David Brinkley, as he looks ahead toward