Let It Be People’s Choice on TV Anchors

As a member of Congress, Susan Molinari earns as much in a year as Diane Sawyer does in a week. It’s no wonder that when CBS called Molinari, it may have occurred to her that being a TV news anchor would give her more time with her baby.

It is of no significance that the news program that Molinari is leaving Congress to anchor will displace two hours of children’s programming in the network’s Saturday morning lineup. Taking this important new job still makes perfect sense from her point of view. But what does it mean for the future of the republic?

Other politicians who drifted into television were mostly people with nothing else to do, like Geraldine Ferraro, who once ran for vice president, and Pat Buchanan, who runs for president between TV jobs. Or Bill Bradley, who after 18 years as a U.S. senator made speeches for a year and decided that even television commentary was better than that. Or someone like George Stephanopoulos, who played Michael Fox in the first Clinton administration and has a new career sharing his personal opinions with the unblinking camera.

None of these was a sitting member of Congress. And none of these was an anchor.

Television anchors play a special role in American society. They are paid like basketball players, pampered like show dogs and pursued like politicians. It is a role to which thousands aspire but only dozens achieve. The job did not exist during most of American history. Thomas Jefferson, who could have made it big on television, was not afforded the chance to quit writing the Declaration of Independence so he might pursue the riches of anchordom, nor was James Madison, with the Federalist Papers half-finished.

Molinari will be leaving Congress at a time when the networks seem to be suffering from acute anchor shortage. There are no obvious backups for at least two of the three evening guys, and when Joan Lunden said she would no longer co-anchor ABC’s “Good Morning America,” no one knew who would replace her. Not even ABC. This kind of situation is bad for executive stomachs. At this very moment, hard-eyed managers are straining their starry eyes staring at C-SPAN’s endless congressional debates, forcing themselves awake as they try to spot the next Bryant Gumbel or Barbara Walters.

This could undermine government. It is already difficult enough to get good people to go into politics. With anchor prices what they are, who would prefer public service? If one of the best-recognized and perhaps most-admired women in Congress can throw it over with a year to go in her two-year term, what happens to the stability and continuity of the legislative process? Will American boys (or girls) ever dream again about growing up to be president? Cynics will say this shows what really matters these days, that the universal culture of the couch potato makes the face on the tube more powerful than an elected official. If that is true, then our anchors should be chosen the way our presidents are. The people’s voice must count.

The process would begin with the traditional hot, crowded press conference in Rockefeller Center: “My name is Dan Brokaw and I am here to announce my candidacy for anchor of the United States and to humbly ask for your support. Ten years of Tom Jennings have given us only irrelevance, gloom and foreign news. I will end all that. The American people deserve better. I promise you good news, better news, news that is upbeat, more medical news--medical news about cures instead of disease--and reliable stock tips.”

And so off the candidates would go, tromping through the snows of Iowa and New Hampshire, meeting the real America in diners and Elks clubs, front parlors and church basements, sharing the pain of those who want investigative reports on the evils of foreign aid and the need to maintain all existing military bases. In short, if TV anchors are that important, then TV anchors should answer to the people, the way presidents used to.