8 reviews
Nobody has posted any sort of comments on any nightly newscast, but I couldn't resist saying something that has been on my mind ever since Dan Rather took over the anchor spot in 1981.
This newscast used to be every bit as good as Peter Jennings's during the days of Walter Cronkite, but it has now sadly declined. When Dan Rather was announced as the new anchorman back in 1981, I was delighted, because I had seen Rather's work as a field reporter and I was very impressed.
But Rather has turned out to be the stiffest anchorman I have ever seen on television. It's almost as if he were intimidated by that close-up camera; he has an uneasy look on his face half the time, as if he were still in training or something. But what is even worse, he seems to be aware of it and overcompensates by trying too hard to be relaxed; he tries to put more variety into his delivery and sounds like a bad actor at an audition--the enthusiasm he puts into his voice is just too phony. He sounds like someone doing a commercial. And his forced attempts to sound like a "regular guy" by using catchphrases and "cute" remarks are so bad they're embarrassing.
The strange thing is that Rather is still perfectly fine when delivering a field report, and the answer may be that here the camera is much farther away from him. Here he seems relaxed and totally involved in the story he is covering.
To me, it is rather amazing that a professional who has been around for years should be so awkward as an anchorman. No other anchorman I've ever seen, on any network or local broadcast (and that includes CNN) has ever seemed so ill-at-ease when reporting in closeup.
This does not take away from the overall quality of the broadcast, though--the ONLY thing wrong with it is Rather's apparent discomfort as an anchorman.
This newscast used to be every bit as good as Peter Jennings's during the days of Walter Cronkite, but it has now sadly declined. When Dan Rather was announced as the new anchorman back in 1981, I was delighted, because I had seen Rather's work as a field reporter and I was very impressed.
But Rather has turned out to be the stiffest anchorman I have ever seen on television. It's almost as if he were intimidated by that close-up camera; he has an uneasy look on his face half the time, as if he were still in training or something. But what is even worse, he seems to be aware of it and overcompensates by trying too hard to be relaxed; he tries to put more variety into his delivery and sounds like a bad actor at an audition--the enthusiasm he puts into his voice is just too phony. He sounds like someone doing a commercial. And his forced attempts to sound like a "regular guy" by using catchphrases and "cute" remarks are so bad they're embarrassing.
The strange thing is that Rather is still perfectly fine when delivering a field report, and the answer may be that here the camera is much farther away from him. Here he seems relaxed and totally involved in the story he is covering.
To me, it is rather amazing that a professional who has been around for years should be so awkward as an anchorman. No other anchorman I've ever seen, on any network or local broadcast (and that includes CNN) has ever seemed so ill-at-ease when reporting in closeup.
This does not take away from the overall quality of the broadcast, though--the ONLY thing wrong with it is Rather's apparent discomfort as an anchorman.
Sure the media receives a lot of flack. They always have and they always will. Just keep in mind that the media, CBS, and all the rest of them , is in the business of reporting FACTS! The TRUTH, whatever that may be, does not live on the surface. You have to dig for it. Kudos to the First AMendment of the Constitution of These United States of America.
- lwf31407_2k1
- Aug 19, 2001
- Permalink
This was the news with the master of news broadcasts, Walter Cronkite. I grew up watching him on weekly programs like You Are There and The Twentieth Century. He had a magnificent voice and he embodied the role. When I graduated from university and lived through the Nixon and Watergate years, it was Walter Cronkite I tuned to for the news. I felt that the audience was getting the best American journalism could offer. He was often popping up at political conventions as the head of a team of competent journalists but he was the boss. I always watched CBS over the others. It was rated the No.1 broadcast company at the time and it always came across that way. Roger Mudd was a very good replacement when Cronkite was on leave. I preferred him to Dan Rather, who actually replaced Cronkite when he stepped down as the anchor. When Dan Rather took over, it wasn't the same...so strong was Walter Cronkite's persona. So there it is! My rating is a perfect ten. No hesitation.
"CBS EVENING NEWS WITH DAN RATHER," in my opinion, was a good news magazine show. During the time he was on the air, I enjoyed seeing Dan Rather as the main anchor. Until he retired, I thought he had been terminated. When I leaned the truth, I was really sad. If you ask me, it seems that nobody stays with a TV show throughout its entire run anymore. Still, I enjoyed hearing him report about what was happening in the world. I still think about him to this day. The only thing I didn't like hearing about was when someone had been murdered or gone missing. Now, in conclusion, I'd like to say that Dan Rather was a fine reporter who will be sorely missed.
- Catherine_Grace_Zeh
- Jul 10, 2007
- Permalink
The CBS evening news is an exemplary platform for informative news reporting. The journalistic integrity of the anchors has been a key ingredient through the years. It is somewhat laughable to have such an excellent platform marred by the unseemly and relentless pharmaceutical advertising that punctuates this program. Is America so drugged out that we must discuss personal medical conditions on prime time? Can we not leave this topic in a doctor's office? Many of the ads repeat several times in a half hour. Yes, there is help out there for critical lifestyle issues and yes, we (all) who eventually suffer from one or the other will hopefully find that help. Perhaps the MadMen money could be put to better use in our already stressed medical system
- seminolejack
- Oct 14, 2013
- Permalink
Today, unfortunately without Nora, in a less than neutral reporting of what Trump said in California regarding the water shortage during firefighting, you put the blame on an empty reservoir, & not at all the refusal of allowing the pumping of water from Northern California. 1. If a reservoir was empty, it should be considered criminally negligent to not have a back-up source to supply the needs/requirements of the areas affected. 2. This state has put the needs of a 3" fish, the Delta Smelt, over the needs of millions of residents. Why not tell the whole truth? Never mind. I'm watching Lester.
- calind-71121
- Jan 24, 2025
- Permalink
How fitting that the CBS Evening News should take its place among other entertainments in this database. For like the worst TV and movies, it rarely rises above its own melodramatic ambitions - namely, to stir in a dash of intrigue, to parade a cast of heroes and villains, to paint human complexities in broad strokes, to lurch toward awkward climaxes, and to conspire with its dull audience to expect no more and no less.
Let it be recorded for successive generations that the highest paid news professional in the U.S. at the start of the new millennium has the easiest job. Dan Rather reads the news, and, in a sense, he inhabits the news, too, as a rheumy cough inhabits the throat. Moist-eyed, curiously abashed, folksy, stolid, and mottled, his voice arrhythmically skittering past abrupt silences, a body seeming to yearn to press itself against the camera: the 70-year old Rather is a bizarre physical presence to go along with the even stranger conceit that the world can be explained in thirty minutes and that the nation's leading corporations would like to underwrite the same as a public service.
Rather reads a script, yet he also ad libs, and his lines are either unintentional howlers or hair-raising oubursts from the subconscious. The 2000 presidential election brought out the wordsmith in the man who earns a reported $7 million a year: the race was "tighter than spandex." Forget for a moment that you do not want a haggard 70-year old man to confuse politics with tight-fitting spandex; that's ok, he had other Viagrafied metaphors, too: the race was "like a too-small two-piece bathing suit." Then came banal yet creepy juxtapositions: "Close only counts with hand grenades and horseshoes." And finally a Zen riddle of sorts: "If a frog had sidepockets, he'd carry a handgun." All of this deadpan, without hint of irony. The effect was sheer bathos. But maybe also it suggested that after a career of professional tongue-biting, Rather, the epitome of U.S. journalism's chameleon-like sidling up to power, had no choice but to submit to the surreality of the election and become surreal himself.
About the show's customary product, the less said the better. Nightly, we are entreated to accept this purée as gospel, although it never rises far above the level of rehashing "official" sources with but the lightest smattering of dissident opinion or observation. What do one's government and corporations want one to think? Tune in. His eyes bulging as if some internal pressure were about to jettison them straight from his head, Dan Rather knows. At the end of the show, there will be a nice human interest story (cats in trees, brave mountain climbers) to smooth over any feelings of disquiet caused by the disjunction produced by the eerily detached running commentary and the images of war, famine, pestilence, and greed that have passed over the screen - uncommented upon, neutrally observed, "objectively" quarantined - the sedative administered and the nation resting peacefully for another night.
Let it be recorded for successive generations that the highest paid news professional in the U.S. at the start of the new millennium has the easiest job. Dan Rather reads the news, and, in a sense, he inhabits the news, too, as a rheumy cough inhabits the throat. Moist-eyed, curiously abashed, folksy, stolid, and mottled, his voice arrhythmically skittering past abrupt silences, a body seeming to yearn to press itself against the camera: the 70-year old Rather is a bizarre physical presence to go along with the even stranger conceit that the world can be explained in thirty minutes and that the nation's leading corporations would like to underwrite the same as a public service.
Rather reads a script, yet he also ad libs, and his lines are either unintentional howlers or hair-raising oubursts from the subconscious. The 2000 presidential election brought out the wordsmith in the man who earns a reported $7 million a year: the race was "tighter than spandex." Forget for a moment that you do not want a haggard 70-year old man to confuse politics with tight-fitting spandex; that's ok, he had other Viagrafied metaphors, too: the race was "like a too-small two-piece bathing suit." Then came banal yet creepy juxtapositions: "Close only counts with hand grenades and horseshoes." And finally a Zen riddle of sorts: "If a frog had sidepockets, he'd carry a handgun." All of this deadpan, without hint of irony. The effect was sheer bathos. But maybe also it suggested that after a career of professional tongue-biting, Rather, the epitome of U.S. journalism's chameleon-like sidling up to power, had no choice but to submit to the surreality of the election and become surreal himself.
About the show's customary product, the less said the better. Nightly, we are entreated to accept this purée as gospel, although it never rises far above the level of rehashing "official" sources with but the lightest smattering of dissident opinion or observation. What do one's government and corporations want one to think? Tune in. His eyes bulging as if some internal pressure were about to jettison them straight from his head, Dan Rather knows. At the end of the show, there will be a nice human interest story (cats in trees, brave mountain climbers) to smooth over any feelings of disquiet caused by the disjunction produced by the eerily detached running commentary and the images of war, famine, pestilence, and greed that have passed over the screen - uncommented upon, neutrally observed, "objectively" quarantined - the sedative administered and the nation resting peacefully for another night.