Editing for Viewers

Broadcasting is the least discussed, most misunderstood and under-reported facet of our modern life. Certainly the news of broadcasting, the people in and around broadcasting and the problems of broadcasting need a broadcast forum.

--John Kiermaier, President, Educational Broadcasting, Inc.

The subject up for discussion on the TV panel show was television news, and one of the guests weighed in with a surprising suggestion. "I heartily believe," said CBS Newscaster Walter Cronkite, "that in 1968, the political parties ought to ban television from the floor of the convention hall. It certainly makes a mockery of the fact that this is a convention of delegates who are supposed to be listening to the speeches and tending to some sort of business on the floor." Cronkite added wryly: "I'll probably be read out of every honorary journalism society in the world."

On New York's educational Channel 13 last week, ABCs Howard K. Smith and NBC's Edwin Newman joined Cronkite to bring to the hour-long Broadcasting Forum the kind of frank and open discussion that can be a credit to television. Boldly, they put their own medium on the firing line--and fired at will.

Passing the Buck. Neither Smith nor Newman endorsed Cronkite's view on changing convention coverage, but on other scores both were as outspoken as he. "I think American TV documentaries are in a rut," observed Smith. "We've carried the concept of balance too far. We've got to the point where we're almost afraid to make a point." Cronkite demurred: "If the intention is to illuminate, you should illuminate both sides of the issue because the issue has two sides." Smith overruled him: "Truth is not necessarily halfway between any two points."

Not all the comment was self-critical. In re-examining the press's performance in Dallas after President Kennedy's assassination, Cronkite felt inclined to pass the buck. "We turned the cameras on the kind of confusion that the press has always created in similar circumstances," he said. "And for the first time, the public was able to see how all of the press operates. What we did was show the confusion, and therefore we got the blame."

Newman upheld TV's right to Milquetoast programming, even on newscasts: "I don't think it's realistic to expect organizations that live by advertising to pioneer in fields that may offend people." With some justice, he made news brevity on TV a virtue: "One reason we have such a great impact is that we edit. We edit to a degree that I think it is fair to say the New York Times does not. It doesn't edit very often; it compiles."

Footnote. At one point, Howard Smith insisted unblinkingly that "the civil rights bill would have passed into obscurity if television had not existed" --a statement that went strangely unchallenged by Colleagues Cronkite and Newman, or by Moderator William A. Wood, director of the Office of Radio and Television at Columbia University. "I don't argue with that for one second," responded Cronkite. "But do we cover all the news? I think we cover as much news as many of the bad newspapers in this country." Said Newman: "I think we cover as much news as it is possible for people to take in."

A little later, Cronkite added a thoughtful footnote. "I'm afraid that the public is getting brainwashed into a belief that they're getting all that they need to know from television," he said. "And this is not so. They need to know a great deal more than we can communicate to them. Somehow or other, we have to teach the American people to seek more information, to be a little more discriminating perhaps. And when they do, they'll get even better news programs on television."

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