How the Era of the Big-Name News Anchor Crashed to an End

The Daily Beast ^ | 12.27.17 5:00 AM ET | LLOYD GROVE

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, and Bill O’Reilly’s careers ended dramatically this year, mired in scandal. With them, the era of the multimillion-dollar news anchor may also be over.

The heyday of alpha anchor appears to be finished, along with the cherished belief of television executives that it’s necessary to cater to coddled stars in the service of ratings and revenue.

The waning days of 2017 feature a growing number of industry insiders who say good riddance to overpaid rubbish.

“The emperor has no clothes,” network news analyst Andrew Tyndall told The Daily Beast. He was not referring to Charlie Rose parading naked in front of young female underlings, but instead to the thorough debunking of a TV truism: “It’s just not true that the reason why people watch television is to watch celebrities, and the only way you get celebrities is by paying them disproportionate amounts of money over what they’re worth,” Tyndall said.

[Steely Tom]

Rush Limbaugh used to refer to O’Reilly as “Ted Baxter.”

[MrEdd]

I never shoot at them. But I wanted to also.

[w1andsodidwe]

I remember the night I stopped watching the alphabet nightly news.

Good old Dan Rather told the masses that every economist had disavowed Reagonomics.

My adult brain told me that Dan had not interviewed every economist is the US, let alone the world. That meant he had to be lying.

[Vince Ferrer]

Megyn Kelly did her part.

[MrEdd]

Until the sixties, when the men coming back from Vietnam pretty much uniformly asserted that the war was nothing like what the television media was describing.

People had to decide whether they believed the news readers or the Veterans. To many chose the idiot box. Many who chose television reevaluated their decision in the late eighties, but relationships with and the lives of the Veterans they rejected were damaged beyond complete repair by that point.

I believe that the scope of the Vietnam betrayal was the largest factor in the rise of the alternative media, and Rush Limbaugh launched on radio at about the time Americans reassessed Vietnam.

[central_va]

It was a joke. Rush called BOR Ted Baxter often.

[Dr. Sivana]

David Brinkley had no daughters, just 2 sons.

And all these years I thought Christie was his daughter!

[blam]

"The waning days of 2017 feature a growing number of industry insiders who say good riddance to overpaid rubbish. "

Amen.

[Justa]

[McBuff]

The whole “action news team” style is obsolete. We don’t need “anchors” to dictate to us what is newsworthy. We find our own sources and we have millions of reporters with smart phones, roaming the streets, ready to deliver when news happens.

[outpostinmass2]

Rush Limbaugh used to refer to O’Reilly as “Ted Baxter.”

---

No, he referred to Dan Rather as Ted Baxter.

[jjotto]

Maybe, but I guarantee Limbaugh called BOR ‘Ted Baxter’ numerous times.

[cgbg]

No one suspected them of being dishonest demagogues.

A few people thought so--but they were called "extremists" and shunned by polite society. :-(

[Fightin Whitey]

Rush Called O'Reilly 'Ted Baxter'.

[Cboldt]

Caller: Why Doesn't O'Reilly Want to be Seen as Part of the "Far Right"? | The Rush Limbaugh Show

CALLER: I don't think he has the courage to admit exactly what's going on.

RUSH: Well, I think I can explain this to you. But you inferred from that that Mr. O'Reilly thinks that you are far right wing because you think that this is intentional and purposeful?

CALLER: Absolutely.

RUSH: Well --

CALLER: What did you call O'Reilly?

RUSH: Pardon me?

CALLER: Yeah, what do you call him?

RUSH: Ted Baxter.

CALLER: Baxter.

[outpostinmass2]

I stand corrected. Thanks. I do remember Rush calling Dan Rather Ted Baxter as well.

[SamAdams76]

I don't see Bill O'Reilly as an anchor. He's a commentator.

When I think anchor, I think Brokaw, Jennings and Rather. At least those were the guys in place last time I watched a network news show. Overpaid flunkies who read off a teleprompter. I grew up with Walter Cronkite. Another overpaid newsreader though he probably had to read off paper as I don't think that had teleprompters back then.

I'm glad that era is over.

[slumber1]

Frankly, I am looking forward to the news robot.

I for one welcome our robot overlords.

[mountainfolk]

I recall a broadcast from an impoverished area of Appalachia and Brinkley commenting on the living conditions of a poor family living in a shack with newspapers on their windows to insulate them from the bitter cold. Turns out that the newspapers were added by his crew to embellish the narrative of the current news cycle.

David Brinkley had three sons and a stepdaughter from two marriages. He attend three universities, no completion given by WIKI. The most interesting new info for me was a quote from him that pretty much sums up the current situation with the news media in general, and featured anchors in particular. “The one function that TV news programs perform very well, is when there is no news, we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were"

Of course we know that the media can and does lie with impunity to further whatever agenda they are paid to push by their mega billionaire media owners. Twitter is about the only push back available for timely rebuttal. Go Trump!

[gswilder]

Whatever little shred of respect the MSM died this year. That is the storyline of 2017. I knew the media has been biased for many many years. But I have never seen a time where they just made stuff up, and reported stuff with no verification. And the hypocrisy is beyond belief. I get tweets from NBC news tracking the number of days Trump has been vacationing, golfing and staying at one of his properties. Don’t remember a peep from them when the Obama’s were sucking treasury funds dry on their boondoggles.