History Repeats Itself (Katie Couric-"Baba Wawa" Evening News Flop)

There's been a lot of talk about how badly CBS is doing with its high priced ($15 million a year) Katie Couric as anchor of the "CBS Evening News."

Back in 1976, ABC News made a big splash into the ratings tank by hiring (at the then unheard of $1 million a year) Barbara Walters to co-anchor its evening news with Harry Reasoner.

Like Couric, Walters was then co-anchor of NBC's "Today" show where she had built up a reputation as an aggressive, go-getter and in the minds of some, a prima donna b***h.

As a teenager, I remembered Walters on "Today" tearing into Norma Gabler, a Texas parent who dared to challenge liberalism in school textbooks.

I personally was frequenting the ABC News when I first stumbled on it during the communist conquest of Cambodia and Vietnam 31 years ago this month.

What drew me was Howard K. Smith's approach to the news and in particular his commentary. It was unabashedly anti-communist.

Smith's experiences with Nazi Germany as a student and reporter caused him to understand the reality of the situation.

Unknown to me back then, Smith, who got fired from CBS (1961) for wanting to condemn segregation on-air blasted liberal bias in a 1970 "TV Guide" interview that drew thousands of positive responses.

His comments included: "If Ronald Reagan says something, its bad, regardless of what he says. Well, I'm unwilling to condemn an idea because a particular man said it. Most of my colleagues do just that."... "They hate Richard Nixon irrationally"......Mr. Fulbright (Arkansas Senator-Bill Clinton mentor)--who incidentially has voted against every civil-rights act --is not criticized for his want of character. He is beloved by reporters, by everyone of my group, which is left-of-center. It's one of the mysteries of my time!.."

Howard K. Smith started anchoring ABC Evening News in 1969 and in late 1970 he was paired with Harry Reasoner.

By early 1974 Smith and Reasoner had taken ABC's Evening News to a 23 percent share (still 3rd place) with NBC just slightly ahead in 2nd place at 24 percent.

Then late in 1975 Smith got moved off the anchor chair to do just commentary while Reasoner anchored.

Reasoner was a nice guy, but a poor writer. Guys like Andy Rooney at CBS polished the copy to make a friendly man look intelligent on TV. Reasoner alone lacked the seriousness of Smith in presenting the news.

Reasoner's ego was big, too, and that may have led to his being made solo anchor. However, in 1976 his world was turned upside down with ABC's announcement that Barbara Walters would co-anchor with him, becoming the first woman to anchor a network evening news program.

Barbara joined the news and the viewers and ratings went south even more than they had when Smith left. After Walters came on, I went off to watch or listen to something else.

The Barbara Walters I preferred to watch the most was Gilda Radner's "Baba Wawa" parody on "Saturday Night Live."

CBS improved its ratings (2nd Place) with Bob Schieffer at the anchor desk, a temporary move, but then took the plunge with Katie. Now "CBS Evening News" is in the tank and Katie's future departure is being speculated.

Barbara Walters got pulled from the evening news so she could focus on her talent of interviewing people. Her celebrity interviews drew top ratings for ABC in the 80's and 90's.

So I can see a bright future for this "perky" prima donna liberal just like liberal prima donna b***h Barbara Walters had. (That "B" word was applied to her in the 1980's in a trade publication article about how Walters treated the dozens of behind the scenes people at ABC she worked with)

CBS needs to change and it needs to find its serious heritage of Edward R. Murrow's style, Walter Cronkite's work ethic (I'll give Walter that much) and of course the independent opinionated attitude of Howard K. Smith that William Paley chucked to the side in 1961.

That's CBS's future successful anchor-dare I say "anchorman." The liberal stock news program needs replacement but with a serious minded, hard working person who isn't obssessed with themselves as with the mission of the news program.

You sound like just a few years younger than me, but what you said about the Tet Offensive is a perfect illustration. I think we are on the same page.

On a related issue...have you ever read this speech given by Walter Cronkite? I have included it here, because it is a real eye-opener...

(NOTE: The BIGGEST eye opener is the unbelievable statement he makes: “...The differences among the American states then were as bitter as differences among nation-states in the world today...” This just blows me away. This is a man revered by the left...and he thinks the difference between a country that thinks it is okay to stuff its citizens into chipper-shredders and one that has issues with that is as “bitter” and on the same level as Delaware being concerned that Virginia is going to force its will on it because it is so much larger...it STILL shocks me to read this quote.)

WALTER CRONKITE PROMOTES DEMOCRATIC FEDERAL WORLD GOVERNMENT

(Given when he received W.F.A.’s Norman Cousins Global Governance Award on 19 October 1999)

I am greatly honored to receive this award for two reasons: first, I believe as Norman Cousins did that the first priority of humankind in this era is to establish an effective system of world law that will assure peace with justice among the peoples of the world; second, I feel sentimental about this award because half a century ago Norman offered me a job as spokesman and Washington lobbyist for the World Federalist organization, which was then in its infancy.

I chose instead to continue in the world of journalism. For many years, I did my best to report on the issues of the day in as objective a manner as possible. When I had my own strong opinions, as I often did, I tried not to communicate them to my audience. Now, however, my circumstances are different. I am in a position to speak my mind. And that is what I propose to do.

Those of us who are living today can influence the future of civilization. We can influence whether our planet will drift into chaos and violence, or whether through a monumental educational and political effort we will achieve a world of peace under a system of law where individual violators of that law are brought to justice.

For most of this fairly long life I have been an optimist harboring a belief that as our globe shrank, as our communication miracles brought us closer together, we would begin to appreciate the commonality of our universal desire to live in peace and that we would do something to satisfy that yearning of all peoples. Today I find it harder to cling to that hope. For how many thousands of years now have we humans been what we insist on calling “civilized”? And yet, in total contradiction, we also persist in the savage belief that we must occasionally, at least, settle our arguments by killing one another.

While we spend much of our time and a great deal of our treasure in preparing for war, we see no comparable effort to establish a lasting peace. Meanwhile, emphasizing the sloth in this regard, those advocates who work for world peace by urging a system of world government are called impractical dreamers. Those “impractical dreamers” are entitled to ask their critics, “what is so practical about war?”

It seems to many of us that if we are to avoid the eventual catastrophic world conflict we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace. To do that, of course, we Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order. But the American colonies did it once and brought forth one of the most nearly perfect unions the world has ever seen. The circumstances were vastly different, obviously. Yet just because the task appears forbiddingly hard, we should not shirk it. We cannot defer this responsibility to posterity. Democracy, civilization itself, is at stake. Within the next few years we must change the basic structure of our global community from the present anarchic system of war and ever more destructive weaponry to a new system governed by a democratic U.N. federation.

Let’s focus on a few specifics of what the leadership of the World Federalist movement believe must be done now to advance the rule of world law. For starters, we can draw on the wisdom of the Framers of the U.S. Constitution of 1787. The differences among the American states then were as bitter as differences among nation-states in the world today. In their almost miraculous insight, the Founders of our country invented ‘federalism,’ a concept that is rooted in the rights of the individual. Our federal system guarantees a maximum of freedom but provides it in a framework of law and justice. Our forefathers believed that the closer the laws are to the people, the better. Cities legislate on local matters; states make decisions on matters within their borders; and the national government deals with issues that transcend the states, such as interstate commerce and foreign relations. That is federalism.

Today we must develop federal structures on a global level. We need a system of enforceable world law —a democratic federal world government— to deal with world problems. What Alexander Hamilton wrote about the need for law among the 13 states applies today to the approximately 200 sovereignties in our global village: “To look for a continuation of harmony between a number of independent unconnected sovereignties in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages.” Today the notion of unlimited national sovereignty means international anarchy. We must replace the anarchic law of force with a civilized force of law.

Ours will neither be a perfect world, nor a world without disagreement and occasional violence. But it will be a world where the vast majority of national leaders will consistently abide by the rule of world law, and those who won’t will be dealt with effectively and with due process by the structures of that same world law. We will never have a city without crime, but we would never want to live in a city that had no system of law to deal with criminals.

Let me make three suggestions for immediate action that would move us in a direction firmly in the American tradition of law and democracy.

1. Keep our promises: We helped create the U.N. and to develop the U.N. assessment formula. Americans overwhelmingly want us to pay our U.N. dues, with no crippling limitations. We owe it to the world. In fact, we owe it as well to our national self-esteem.

2. Ratify the Treaty to Ban Land Mines, the Law of the Sea Treaty, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Most important, we should sign and ratify the Treaty for a permanent International Criminal Court. That Court will enable the world to hold individuals accountable for crimes against humanity.

3. Consider, after 55 years, the possibility of a more representative and democratic system of decision making at the U.N. This should include both revision of the veto in the Security Council and adoption of a weighted voting system for the General Assembly. The World Federalists have endorsed Richard Hudson’s Binding Triad proposal. George Soros, in “The Crisis of Global Capitalism,” has given serious attention to this concept which would be based upon not only one-nation-one-vote but also on population and contributions to the U.N. budget. Resolutions adopted by majorities in each of these areas would be binding, enforceable law. Within the powers given to it in the Charter, the U.N. could then deal with matters of reliable financing, a standing U.N. peace force, development, the environment and human rights.

Some of you may ask why the Senate is not ratifying these important treaties and why the Congress is not paying our U.N. dues. As with the American rejection of the League of Nations, our failure to live up to our obligations to the U.N. is led by a few willful senators who choose to pursue their narrow, selfish political objectives at the cost of our nation’s conscience. They pander to and are supported by the Christian Coalition and the rest of the religious right wing. Their leader, Pat Robertson, has written that we should have a world government but only when the messiah arrives. Attempts for world order before that time are the work of the Devil! This small but well-organized group has intimidated both the Republican Party and the Clinton administration. It has attacked presidents since F.D.R. for supporting the U.N. Robertson explains that these presidents are the unwitting agents of Lucifer.

The only way we who believe in the vision of a democratic world federal government can effectively overcome this reactionary movement is to organize a strong educational counteroffensive stretching from the most publicly visible people in all fields to the humblest individuals in every community. That is the vision and program of the World Federalist Association. The strength of the World Federalist program would serve an important auxiliary purpose at this particular point in our history. There would be immediate diplomatic advantages if the world knew that this country was even beginning to explore the prospect of strengthening the U.N. We would appear before the peoples of the world as the champion of peace for all by the equitable sharing of power. This in sharp contrast to the growing concern that we intend to use our current dominant military power to enforce a sort of pax Americana.

Our country today is at a stage in our foreign policy similar to that crucial point in our nation’s early history when our Constitution was produced in Philadelphia. Let us hear the peal of a new international liberty bell that calls us all to the creation of a system of enforceable world law in which the universal desire for peace can place its hope and prayers. As Carl Van Doren has written, “History is now choosing the founders of the World Federation. Any person who can be among that number and fails to do so has lost the noblest opportunity of a lifetime.”

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.