[BC] Re: CBS evening "stories"

[Mark Durenberger]

And not a word about using other media.  Are they fixated only on "The CBS TV 
network"?

Mark Durenberger


> CBS News explores storytelling
> The project is one of the first indications of how CBS might restructure the
> evening news.
> By Matea Gold
> Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
>
> July 6, 2005
>
> NEW YORK -- Faced with a mandate to remake the network's nightly news
> broadcast, CBS News President Andrew Heyward has commissioned staffers to
> come up with specific approaches that would favor more of a storytelling
> style over the traditional format that generally recaps the news of the day.
>
> Heyward told correspondents and producers, whom he's pulled in to help
> develop the project, about the new concept for the "CBS Evening News"
> in a meeting held at the network's West 57th Street headquarters Thursday and
> again in a smaller gathering Tuesday, a CBS News executive confirmed.
>
> "We're experimenting this summer with new, interesting ideas for how to
> tell stories in a more interesting and compelling way," said Marcy McGinnis,
> senior vice president for news gathering, who declined to give further
> details about the meetings.
>
> According to two editorial employees who were at the meetings, the news
> president asked the staff to gather additional material as part of their
> current assignments that can be used to experiment with various styles of
> storytelling. He plans to present the sample idea to CBS Chairman Leslie
> Moonves in the coming months, with the hope that details about the revamped
> nightly news broadcast could be announced by the fall.
>
> Heyward's project is one of the first indications of how CBS might
> restructure the evening news, which has long lagged behind NBC and ABC in
> the ratings and has been under even more scrutiny since veteran anchor Dan
> Rather stepped down in March, following a much-criticized report he did last
> year on President Bush's National Guard service for "60 Minutes
> Wednesday"
>
> The network has used Bob Schieffer, another veteran staffer, to temporarily
> fill the anchor spot while it ponders a new format for the program.
>
> Moonves has made it clear that he wants CBS to rethink the approach of the
> broadcast, which, like other network news programs, has steadily lost
> viewers in the last decade.
>
> Thus far, news executives have been vague about their plans. At a CBS
> affiliates meeting in Las Vegas last month, Heyward told station
> representatives that the broadcast was in a "process of evolution."
>
> He told them that the revamped newscast will rely heavily on a team of
> correspondents and put less emphasis on "a dominant anchor surrounded by a
> bunch of people you don't know and don't care about."
>
> In the meetings with the staff, Heyward said that he hopes to develop a new
> version of the show that plays to the network's strengths - an experienced
> team of correspondents and its ability to do "great storytelling."
>
> "What people walked away with was that we still have a commitment to news -
> we just have to package it differently," said one of the employees, who did
>  not want to be named discussing internal conversations.
>
> The new broadcast Heyward proposed would dispense quickly with the news of
> the day and focus on deeper investigative and feature stories, modeled after
> the kind of storytelling done on "60 Minutes," arguably CBS' most
> successful news program.
>
> He also said the newscast could provide a measure of "transparency" by
>
> providing viewers a glimpse behind the scenes. An assistant producer could
> use a hand-held camera to film a correspondent making calls, for example.
>
> The new "Evening News" could also include more on-screen graphics to
> give viewers a quick sampling of facts about a subject, Heyward suggested.