Passing the Metroliner Test

By Richard Zoglin

In September, just days after taking over as chief executive of CBS, Laurence Tisch decided he needed a traveling companion for a trip to Washington, where he was to meet staffers at the network's largest news bureau. He called Howard Stringer, who had just been made acting chief of CBS News, and suggested that the two ride the Metroliner together in order to talk. For Stringer, then a leading candidate for the job of CBS News president, the train ride was apparently a success. "It was clear that Tisch had gained a great deal of respect for Stringer," says a CBS correspondent who attended a dinner with the pair. "We knew then the job was Stringer's to lose."

He did not lose it. Last week Stringer, 44, was named president of CBS News, the third person to hold that post in less than a year. Last December Edward Joyce was ousted and replaced by his boss and predecessor, Van Gordon Sauter. Nine months later Sauter himself was forced out after Tisch wrested control of the company from then Chairman Thomas Wyman. The appointment of Stringer, a highly regarded 18-year veteran of CBS News, brought cheer to most staffers and may have finally signaled an end to a painful period of turmoil at TV's most prestigious news division.

Born in Wales and educated in England, Stringer started at CBS News as a researcher and soon became a producer of documentaries. As head of the CBS Reports unit, he oversaw acclaimed documentaries like the five-part series The Defense of the United States, as well as The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception, the program that triggered a much publicized libel suit by General William Westmoreland. (Though Stringer did not have a major hand in the documentary, Westmoreland's lawyers revealed that in an off-the-record talk with a reporter he had voiced doubts about the objectivity of the program's producer, George Crile.)

In 1981 Stringer was named executive producer of the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather. During his tenure, the newscast was transformed with sprightly graphics, a faster pace and a de-emphasis on Washington news in favor of lighter stories and features from around the country. The change helped boost the ratings but was decried by some as violating CBS's "hard-news" traditions. Promoted to the division's No. 2 slot, Stringer championed West 57th, a magazine show that drew fire from traditionalists for its jazzy style and choice of stories.

But Stringer largely escaped the in-house criticism directed at Joyce and Sauter, partly because of his solid journalistic credentials and partly, some say, because of his skill at the corporate political game. In his campaign for the presidency, Stringer won the support of such key CBS News figures as Dan Rather, Bill Moyers and 60 Minutes Executive Producer Don Hewitt. He also sought the advice of two ex-CBS News presidents, Richard Salant and William Leonard, and Burton Benjamin, a longtime CBS News executive who retired last year. Benjamin, 69, had been offered the job of interim president but declined.

Colleagues praise Stringer as a talented producer and a bright, engaging man. He seems to have bridged the gap between CBS's Old Guard and younger staffers more eager for change. "Howard was the first choice of almost everyone I know," says Andrew Lack, executive producer of West 57th. "He will be good for morale." Says Washington Correspondent Phil Jones: "Stringer's a real newsman. We're all feeling good because we're convinced we're heading back to the CBS News of old." Accustomed to twelve-hour workdays, Stringer lives in Manhattan's Greenwich Village with his wife, a professor of dermatology. His tastes run to opera, New York Giants football games and cooking when he gets the chance.

After a year in which CBS was racked by family traumas worthy of Falcon Crest, the new president is moving cautiously. "I'm really going for continuity," says Stringer. "What the news division needs is less management, not more." He is expected, however, to be a strong advocate for more prime-time documentaries. Since September CBS has aired two prime-time news specials (on crack and AIDS), and Stringer promises others. "There is an appetite for them in the news division and the corporation."

But a daunting array of problems faces him. The CBS Evening News, once the network ratings leader, is now in a tense three-way race, and the low-rated Morning News is still a major trouble spot (it will be transmuted in January into a pair of 90-minute broadcasts, one of them produced by the entertainment division and coanchored by Actress Mariette Hartley). Meanwhile, the news division, which has been forced to eliminate 215 jobs in the past 14 months, will have to keep its belt tightened. But Stringer says no more layoffs are planned, and for now at least, he seems to have boosted spirits. When his appointment was announced, staffers were heartened by a rare sight in the beleaguered halls of CBS News: everyone from secretaries to executive producers crowding into Stringer's office for a champagne celebration.

With reporting by David Beckwith/Washington and Naushad S. Mehta/New York