Anchor's Aweigh

The theory seems to be: if the anchor does not hold, cut it free and drift with the tide. In TV coverage of political conventions, the tide is running to paired team acts like NBC's Huntley and Brinkley rather than single masterminds like CBS's Walter Cronkite. So, gasping in defeat-by-ratings after the San Francisco convention, CBS last week announced that it was replacing Anchorman Cronkite. Its new we-too duet consists of Robert Trout and Roger Mudd, who will be pingponging in Atlantic City at the Democratic Convention three weeks hence, while Cronkite merely carries on with the standard evening news broadcast he gives every week night of the year.

"The story is purely and simply the Madison-Avenue-ratings game," Cronkite commented last week with a patient shrug. "We have decided upon this change in assignments," hummed CBS News President Fred W. Friendly, "because we have concluded that a dual anchor arrangement provides more flexibility, mobility, and diversity of coverage." What he did not explain is why Cronkite is not at least one of the flukes of the new anchor. Is it because Friendly has never cared much for Cronkite, or because he thinks that Captain Cronkite does not easily mesh with other newsmen?

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