THE VOICE OF THE ANCHORPERSON

By Allan R. Andrews, Managing Editor
Pacific Stars and Stripes, Tokyo, Japan

First published September 17, 1995

The topic got around to television and someone brought up favorite network newscasts and anchorpersons.

The barbecue had been tasty, the twilight was settling like a line from a Robert Frost poem, and everyone spoke animatedly.

The group favored Peter Jennings over Tom Brokaw or Dan Rather. A few said they favored Connie Chung, not because she was any better but because they thought a woman could do the job as well as any man. We agreed the network bosses apparently didn't think so and that's why Chung was dumped.

Someone pointed out that a female anchorperson runs against the conventional wisdom of television consultants who put together these news teams.

An older, distinguished man as anchor, an attractive and stylish woman as co-anchor, a simple, athletic and gregarious young man or woman as sports editor, and an overweight or flamboyant buffoon to present the weather.

That's been the standard line-up for the nation's television news teams.

The buffoon weatherman is gradually giving way to a cerebral woman with graceful hand movements, but the old formula is pretty standard across the nation.

The anchorman, nevertheless, remains the key, and our little group chose Jennings -- the Canadian without a college degree who seems the more intelligent -- as the favorite.

Someone in our group remembered watching international satellite news while visiting Japan. ``I got to see the news in Japanese, in German, in French and in some Middle Eastern language I couldn't identify,'' the traveler said.

``They all looked alike!'' he exclaimed. ``Formula news broadcasting has gone around the globe.''

Then someone sought the opinion of Gomer Guthrie, the resident philosopher and gadfly of Alterego, N.Y.

``Who's your favorite television anchorman, Gomer?'' he was asked.

In typical fashion, Gomer astounded and enraptured us with his elaborate answer.

``Well, I don't generally watch news on television,'' he began. ``Too many witless heads bobbin' and jabberin' in front of my eyes.

``I tend to favor the Ed Hurlihy approach.''

Eyebrows raised as the group turned to each other in puzzlement.

``Is he a local news man?'' someone asked.

It was Gomer's turn to look puzzled. He eyed us as though we should all know Ed Hurlihy. Then a twinkle I'd seen before came to Gomer's eye. He knew he had a captive audience and his lecture was about to begin.

``Well, children,'' he began, ``Very few folks know what Ed Hurlihy looks like 'cause you never saw him when he delivered the news.''

Gomer paused for effect.

``Did you ever watch Movietone News -- or maybe it was Pathe News, I can't recall.'' Gomer shrugged. ``Didn't you see 'em when you went to the movie show as kids?'' he asked.

Bingo. I knew I'd seen that name somewhere. It flashed in my mind: Just before the Zorro serial. Dramatic music and big headlines, with a deep and intense voice-over telling us the story behind the pictures we were seeing, often sounding a little too coy when the bathing beauties walked in front of the camera.

Somewhere on the screen an unassuming tag line read: ``Voice: Ed Hurlihy.''

``The movie news had a problem,'' Gomer continued. ``They hardly took themselves seriously; they didn't know at that time that news was going to be a TV money maker.

``News was thrown in as a short subject along with the cartoons and the coming attractions.'' Gomer leaned back to detail his reverie.

``That was before television got going,'' he continued. ``Somewhere along the line talking heads took over the news.

``I think,'' he said as an afterthought, ``television news went bad because it followed radio instead of the cinema.''

Adopting a more professorial tone, Gomer added, ``I don't know how much you know about TV news, but it's sold in two forms: visuals and so-called tells.''

``I've studied that,'' I offered. ``That's the first thing a TV producer asks a reporter coming back from a story: `Got any visuals?'''

``That's right,'' Gomer said. ``And if there are no visuals, the anchorman has to `tell' the story so it's called a tell.''

Gomer shook his head disapprovingly. ``This tell business has gotten so bad that a good part of TV news nowadays is one reporter interviewing another reporter; it's the teller asking another teller to tell the story. It's given us the double-tell.''

Gomer looked me in the eye. ``You're a managing editor now, ain't you?''

I nodded.

``You and Dan Rather have the same job title.'' He paused, pursed his lips and shook his head. ``You could be reading the news of the day and making lots of money if you'd just gone into television.''

``Yeah,'' I responded in self-mockery, ``but you know, I'd be just another pretty face.''

``Not if you took the Ed Hurlihy approach,'' Gomer said without missing a beat. ``That's its wisdom -- no pretty face, just a reading voice behind lots of good pictures.

``The British are closer to it,'' Gomer said, ``they don't have `anchorpersons.' Their newscasters are called `news readers.' Can you name a famous British news reader?''

Our group was mute.

``Television -- it's what they call a visual medium, ain't it?'' Gomer asked rhetorically.

``Do you know the average newscast boils down to about 22 minutes of news, and about half of that is spoken words without news photos?

``Movietone News was 12 or 15 minutes of pictures.''

``Wasn't Movietone News kind of a joke, though,'' a younger person in our group asked.

``It was,'' Gomer agreed. ``That's cause they let Hollywood types produce it-- personalities and fluff.''

I couldn't hold back my question. ``Are you saying today's TV news producers should reexamine the techniques of Movietone News and get rid of the talking anchorpersons?''

``Not get rid of them,'' Gomer said. ``Just hide them behind some good pictures. Like I told you, Ed Hurlihy style.''

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Allan R. Andrews can be reached at arandrews@aol.com
Gomer A. Guthrie (G.A.G.) can be reached at the same address.