Anchors

Charles Gibson has announced that he will retire as news anchor of ABC's "World News" at the end of this year. Diane Sawyer, co-host of ABC's "Good Morning America," is being promoted to replace Gibson. This development is a perfect picture of the progression of television news in the United States over recent decades...from journalism to mindless entertainment.

TV news has gone from masterful reporting by such reliable news men as Chet Huntley (NBC), Walter Cronkite (CBS), Charles Kuralt (CBS) and even sportscaster Jim McKay -- remembered for his powerful coverage of the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics -- to broadcasters more concerned with ratings than news.

Even in recent memory, some news anchors have tried to maintain a semblance of journalistic integrity. Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather come to mind. Rather emphasized the fact that he considered TV news a part of the rich heritage of "the press" when he insisted that his title be "managing editor." Although he was only "editing" words others had written, to be sent out over airwaves rather than printed on a press, at least he remembered who he was, and was trying deliver to the American people what was truly newsworthy.

But TV news has slowly and surely descended into the murky existence of just one more entertainment medium. Anyone relying on TV news for their window on the world will have a terribly skewed picture of events.

Understand this: The Electronic Generation has a short attention span. They watch 1/2-hour segments of everything (less, if the remote is in the wrong hand). Broadcast news has the potential to be a gravy train for a television network. A good news program develops a loyal following. People feel as if they don't know what's going on in the world if they miss the news, and a comforting news anchor -- with a soothing voice and warm smile -- reassures his audience, when all around them seems to be in chaos.

This diamond in the rough is smoothed and polished by exciting "news" with flashy pictures.

If a really important bit of news has no pictures, or the story is too complicated to compress into a 60-second sound bite, it gets shoved to the bottom of the priority list...or never makes it on the news at all. Instead, what we get is short snippets of the exciting or titillating stories with color and lots of action ("O-o-oh, look at the shiny...")

When is the last time you heard a newscaster describe in detail a bill coming up before Congress (that affects us all)?

Okay, when's the last time you saw a big fire on the news (that affects 1,000 people, max)?

So, it's a given that TV news is heavily photo-dependent, and has no room for long stories. All the networks are the same on that score. Then what gives one network an edge over the others? The news anchor.

As the U.S. population has shifted inexorably to a young, heavily caffeinated, uneducated viewership, the selection of "news anchors" has followed suit: From older, wiser men in suits (Huntley, Brinkley, Kuralt) to educated -- though maybe not so wise -- middle-aged men in suits, to cheerful men with a "comforting presence" (as AP put it today, when describing outgoing Charlie Gibson), to -- at last -- a blonde.

I have nothing against a woman news anchor -- if she were a female counterpart to the journalists of times past who actually knew what they were talking about. Helen Thomas, maybe. But Diane Sawyer? Even Sawyer's co-host on Good Morning America -- Robin Roberts -- has more going for her, although she seemed a lot smarter some years back as a sportscaster, before she was "dumbed down" by her stint with Sawyer.

I remember the first time I watched Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America. I was terribly offended by the way she spoke in a demeaning fashion about some Christians. I thought what she said was malicious. Some time later, however, I had the opportunity to watch her at greater length, and I had to laugh."Why, she's not malicious! She's just dumb!" She was simply ignorant...blonde! She's a good girl that grew up in the South, and doesn't understand a whole lot.

Which, apparently, is what the American people want. The United States has done in 200 years what it took the Roman Empire 2,000 years to do -- gone from a Republic with integrity to masses crying for "bread and circuses."

Are we not entertained?