Heyward Envisions News for New Generation

Author: Campus Editor in Chief

Freshly graduated from Harvard University, Andrew Heyward landed in a "macho, barebones newsroom" in New York City where the news director "got a kick out of hiring an elite liberal arts graduate to run up the stairs to get film from the lab." From such humble beginnings - where he said he learned the broadcast trade in the "hurly burly of deadline pressure" - Heyward climbed the career ladder, ultimately securing his current post as president of CBS News.

"Someone with formal training in the field may have had a temporary advantage," admitted Heyward. But he said the confidence he gained from his liberal education allowed him to advance in the competitive and often chaotic world of broadcast journalism.

Heyward visited campus Tuesday to deliver the John Hamilton Fulton Lecture in the Liberal Arts, which this year was titled "Why Television News is the Way it is and Isn't the Way You'd Like it to Be (And Why You Should Care)." His talk was a wide-ranging consideration network news in an era of "exploding choice" and intensifying competition from cable and Internet outlets.

"As the audience fragments, if all we can do is provide a headline service, we will be indistinguishable from our competition and we will become extinct," Heyward told a near-capacity crowd at Dana Auditorium.

CBS must also come to terms with the "information impressionists," Heyward's own term for younger viewers who piece together a vision of current events by drawing on a variety of news sources. As the average age of the network news viewer climbs, networks scramble to lure this younger demographic.

It's a delicate balance. Though "programs that skew older can attract a younger audience," Heyward said, "you alienate your core audience at your peril."

To court the younger viewers, CBS offers free broadband video on its Web site for news on demand. The network also announced a partnership with MTV-owned The College Network to produce a news program.

Heyward told The Middlebury Campus that CBS also plans to integrate a new generation of correspondents into its reporting lineup. The relative newcomers, who came of age during the War in Iraq, would be blended with familiar veterans. "It has to be done carefully to become more inclusive," he said, "and not to substitute 20-something viewers for the 40-somethings."

Despite the "embarrassment of [media] niches" clamoring for the public's attention, Heyward predicts the evening newscast will remain a staple of American journalism.

"There will be a place for the evening news for many years to come, but not the gather round the hearth family experience" that defined the generation prior.

"We're in a transition period," he said. "We're not merely a headline service but a provider of added value - context and perspective on the stories of the day."