CBS Evening News

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.