A Guest in Our Living Room: The Television Newscaster Before the Rise of the Dominant Anchor

Abstract

A popular misconception about television news in this country is that it has always been built around a dominant anchor. This historical study reveals an important era in the mid-1940s at CBS when the focus was on visualization possibilities for each story. The crew first considered the newscaster a liability and concentrated on graphics, film, animation, and other visual tools; later experimenting with what kind of person suited the visual medium. While three anchors, (Dan Rather, Walter Cronkite, and Douglas Edwards), spanned 57 years at CBS, at least a dozen men sat in the chair from 1944 to 1948.

Notes

¹CBS's experimental television station in New York City, W2XAB, became WCBW at the start of commercial television on July 1, 1941. The call letters were changed to WCBS in November 1946. For the purposes of this manuscript, WCBW or CBS-TV will be used to identify the station.

²It's important to note that in this era, the term “commentator” on television is interchangeable with announcer or newscaster and doesn't imply the person is providing analysis or opinion. But to avoid confusion with the radio commentator, the author has specifically avoided the use of commentator when talking about television. But it still appears in the direct quotes from that time period.

³All of Cassirer's manuscripts are located in Box 2G44, Henry R. Cassirer Papers, 1936–1996, Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.

⁴Edward R. Murrow is often mentioned in the discussions of the dominant TV newscasters. But Murrow never worked on a daily television newscast. His television fame came from public affairs and entertainment programs including See It Now and Person to Person.

⁵ Lamp Unto My Feet proved to be one of the longest-running programs in network history. Ashton's creation stayed on the CBS-TV Sunday morning lineup until 1979.