Bob Schieffer's elegant exit

"Stop smiling," the Bob Fosse character snaps at his dancers during a rehearsal scene in the 1979 film All That Jazz, "It's not the high school play."

Those words were brought to mind by the introductory appearance Thursday on the CBS Evening News of fresh new anchor Katie Couric, who interviewed outgoing anchor Bob Schieffer as if he was her favorite uncle and she just flew in for Thanksgiving especially to see him.

The new CBS anchor has a beautiful, warm smile.

The question is, what is it doing on the CBS Evening News?

That smile would be perfectly at home in so many places -- toothpaste commercials, presidential primaries, charming lost puppy stories on the local news in Los Angeles -- but it's going to look downright manic reporting the nightly news out of Baghdad.

You know where this is going. It won't be long before the CBS Evening News is playing on giant TV screens in crowded conference rooms while focus group participants push red buttons during the war news and green buttons during the lost puppy stories.

In the world of TV research, that means viewers want to see less war news and more lost puppy stories.

And gradually, you can bet on it, the CBS Evening News will get the unpleasant catastrophes out of the way more and more quickly to make time for segments and stories that are more comfortable places for Katie Couric's smile. To the endless frustration of the research department, the Evening News will have to contain at least some of the day's news, and that is where the trouble is going to start.

If CBS tries to turn the broadcast partly into a fluffy and cheerful survey of things people would rather watch, the fluffy and cheerful people still won't like the news and the news audience will run screaming from the room at the first sign of stories about how to spice up your home for the holidays with ginger-scented candles.

Instead of adding new viewers to the current audience, they may lose everybody.

Bob Schieffer was gracious and smiling himself on Thursday's farewell broadcast, but the man who covered the Kennedy assassination took a well-aimed shot of his own before leaving.

"Thank you for inviting me into your homes," he said to the camera, "and thank you for inviting me back into your homes."

He was reminding the CBS executives that the ratings for the CBS Evening News went up during the time he was the anchor. He was pointing out, with well-concealed emphasis, that people sampled his broadcast and then came back again.

It was quite a performance. It looked for all the world like he was welcoming Katie Couric to the CBS anchor desk with grace and warmth and all good wishes. And what he was really saying was,"Top that, honey chops."


Copyright 2006

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