TV News Anchors Keeping Everybody Safe Themselves Included

Michael Hedges January 10, 2022 - Follow on Twitter

The Great Resignation has received considerable attention in recent months. It seems people are quitting their jobs or retiring early, bring some alarm. The media world has been afflicted, with some surprise, as those seem to be good jobs. For a variety of reasons, TV news anchors, some rather high profile, are bowing out, changing jobs, deserting the audiences.

TV news anchors are a specialized lot. The title is mostly associated with North American television. In the UK, they are called presenters, just a step up from news reader. The particular formulation dates from the early days of TV when networks and channels scheduled one or two news long-form news programs, typically in the early evening, just before primetime. With producers and reporters scurrying around to assemble the show somebody looking serious and proper had to sit behind a desk and deliver the copy. Times have changed.

German TV news anchor Claus Kleber, 18 years on the ZDF evening news program Heute Journal, said his farewells December 30. In a closing interview with German news agency DPA he noted “the huge gift I’m getting. More than 160 evenings a year that are suddenly free. That's a hefty number. I want to get to know the phenomenon that everyone talks about so much - social life, friendships - I'll try things like that.” At 66 years he’s right at that sensible German retirement age. He is entertaining a few projects “close to my heart. Hopefully it will be different, easier.” Co-anchors have been named for the news program.

In November US cable network MSNBC news anchor Brian Williams announced his departure, which came December 9, his contract ending. Previously, he had been evening news anchor on NBC for a total of 28 years with the company. “After I experiment with relaxation and find out what I’ve missed and what’s out there… I pop up somewhere,” he said to staff in striking similarity with Herr Kleber’s words. He’s 62 years old. He closed the final 11th Hour program with “I’ll show myself out, until we meet again.” Guest anchors will follow.

Long-serving and highly regard UK Channel 4 news presenter Jon Snow bid the viewers adieu just before Christmas. His intentions were announced in April jointly with ITN which produces Channel 4 news programs. He is 74 years old and had worked through and for ITN for nearly 50 years, 32 of which were with the Channel 4 evening news program. He also exited gracefully. "Thank you to all the people who have trusted me with their stories all over the world in often appalling circumstances,” he said, quoted by ITV (December 23). "But most of all, I’m so grateful to you at home. It’s not always an easy watch. It’s been the greatest privilege of my life to bring you the news. Thank you, stay safe.”

Grace and composure marks the most successful TV news anchors. Their subject matter may be quite explosive but they are not rattled by anything. Consider Afghan TV Peace Studio anchor Mirwaiz Haidari Haqdost. Eight armed Taliban militants, uninvited and looking rather sour, visited the studio in August and stood behind him as he read the news headlines. A short clip shared by BBC Afghanistan reporter Yalda Hakim went viral. Another Afghan TV anchor, Beheshta Arghand of Tolo TV News, interviewed a few Taliban chiefs, then promptly fled the country.

Prominent Mexican TV news anchor Azucena Uresti was given state protection after death threats from an alleged drug cartel leader, reported Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) (August 10, 2021). Undeterred, she continues to work for Milenio Television and Radio Formula. A video of the threat, complete with guys with guns in the background, was posted to social media. “I assure you that wherever you are I will find you and I will make you eat your words,” it said. Mexican drug gangs are notoriously violent, have murdered several media workers and their threats are taken quite seriously.

The rise of commercial TV news channels in the UK has been an opportunity for BBC news anchors (presenters). Long-serving anchors Andrew Neil and Andrew Marr left the BBC, the former in September 2020 for GB News, the later in November 2021 for LBC. Seizing that executive dream, Andrew Neil joined the right-wing channel as chairman - plus news anchor - after decades at the BBC, Sky and several newspapers. He anchored fewer than a dozen news programs on GB News before taking an extended sabbatical, then resigning in this past September. On his way out the door he called the GB News adventure his “biggest single mistake.”

Andrew Marr had been with the BBC since 2000, anchoring TV and radio programs since 2005. He had long complained of “cultural liberal bias” at the BBC, self-describing as a “libertarian.” Moving to LBC, a right-wing talk radio channel, affords his “no filter, in entirely my own voice.” He signed off from the BBC quoting the Ron Burgundy character from The Anchorman: “Stay classy, San Diego.”

Few TV news anchors exit quoting the famous Howard Beale line (played by the late Peter Finch) from the 1976 hit film Network: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more.” The closest in this season of TV anchor resignations is Chris Wallace leaving Fox News, principally owned by the Murdoch family. His contract was expiring at the end of the year. He decided not to renew after 18 years as Fox News Sunday anchor.

Mr. Wallace announced the departure, graciously, on-air December 12, his last day, saying his next stop would “go beyond politics to all things I’m interested in.” Within hours that new job with streaming service CNN+ was formally announced. Fox News and CNN, principally owned by WarnerMedia, are bitter rivals in the US national TV news battles. Fox News, caught short, said only that they are "extremely proud of our journalism and the stellar team that Chris Wallace was a part of.”

Sometimes TV news anchors find their services terminated. Such it was for the aforementioned CNN, which abruptly fired news anchor Chris Cuomo. He had anchored the weeknight program Cuomo Prime Time. He was suspended “indefinitely” at the end of November and fired outright a week later. CNN executives had two significant issues with Mr. Cuomo; a sexual misconduct allegation and a contractual ethics violation for managing media strategies for his brother, then New York governor Andrew Cuomo, with similar allegations. "When Chris admitted to us that he had offered advice to his brother's staff, he broke our rules and we acknowledged that publicly,” said CNN head of strategic communications Matt Dornic. "When the new allegations came to us this week, we took them seriously, and saw no reason to delay taking immediate action.” Mr. Cuomo said he was “disappointed.”

Television news anchors have often become cultural icons, beaming with status and virtue. Credibility came from having great voices and faces. They - and TV news generally - may be media dinosaurs. GenZers, it’s been said, want “authenticity.” At the same time they want 22 second TikTok messages without context. Their parents - the Millennials - are rushing to “opinion” programming appealing to their every impulse. Media buyers thrive on impulse but their clients would rather the wild and crazy stay away. As the late American TV news icon Walter Cronkite said at the end of every newscast: And that’s the way it is.

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