David Brinkley: Not a Celebrity

Whether Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley or David Brinkley liked it or not, or didn’t want to admit it, they became TV stars. It’s pretty much impossible not to when you are being seen by people in their living rooms every weeknight.

They, I suspect, wanted to be left alone to tell people what was going on around them that was important or that they should know.

Huntley was distant and stolid. Cronkite was a like a family member you respected. Brinkley was an acquaintance who saw through idiocy and hypocrisy. He was a newsy Fred Allen.

David Brinkley had an outstanding career in electronic journalism, first as a reporter and anchor, then as the moderator of an insightful roundtable discussion in the days before partisan screeching and outrageous spin. Brinkley and Huntley were picked by NBC to replace John Cameron Swayze (whom network president Pat Weaver never liked) on the evening news report after their ratings-winning outings presiding over political convention coverage.

NBC expected Huntley and Brinkley to mow down CBS’ Cronkite during the 1964 conventions. They did. Cronkite was left under the mower after the Republican convention and replaced for the Democratic confab with Roger Mudd and Bob Trout, whose news career at CBS began before anyone else’s.

Here’s a syndicated newspaper story from around May 17, 1964. Brinkley talks about TV network convention coverage in a far more innocent time, and the idea there can be a “news celebrity.”

Brinkley: no gimmicks just wants the facts
By JOAN CROSBY
Newspaper Enterprise Assn
WASHINGTON — (NEA) — Television has been blamed for turning political conventions into shows. But David Brinkley says it isn’t so.
“If a convention is a show, it is theirs, not ours. It was a show before we got there with our cameras. However, since television began covering conventions they have become better shows. They have speeded them up. Speeches run shorter — and that’s a blessing. If a politician can’t say what he has in mind in 20 minutes, it’s not worth saying at all.”
Brinkley with Chet Huntley, Frank McGee and most of NBC’s domestic news staff will be covering both the Republican convention from San Francisco in July and the Democratic convention from Atlantic City in August. It is expected the network will rely on the strong pull of Huntley and Brinkley and present their coverage in the same manner as past conventions. And this pleases David.
Tendency
“There is a tendency towards gimmickness in the television news business,” he says, in a tone that lets you know unmistakably that he disapproves.
“For instance, the hiring of big-name non-journalists purely for the publicity value. I can’t imagine any newspaper doing it.
“Everybody’s always trying to think of some gimmick or trick that will surprise the opposition. But covering the conventions is a journalism job and the only way to do it is the standard way.”
Brinkley paused and smiled.
“So far as I know we are not doing anything gimmicky. I hope NBC doesn’t have any tricks they haven’t told me about. There’s always a lot of elaborate planning in New York but I’m not in on it. I just show up at the conventions and on election night.”
Brinkley doesn’t feel that the public will reach the saturation point through the three networks’ obsession with bringing every phase of preconvention and pre-election happenings to the television audience.
“The public tolerates an awful lot mainly by not paying attention. They either care or they don’t care. They tune in one network over another mostly through habit.
“The rest of that business about whose computer put out the correct result first is something they don’t really care about.
“In 1960 CBS called the result wrong. But they forget about that now. If we had done it we would have forgotten about it too — or tried to make others forget it.”
June Release
The last David Brinkley’s Journal special of the season is scheduled for June. It’s called “Election Year in an Average Town.”
“I think it might be good. What I hope it will be is the anatomy of the average American small town. We got the town — Salem N. J.— through the Gallup Poll. It’s got a population of 9000. It’s below the Mason Dixon Line so there’s a Southern feeling to it. The people always vote for the winners and they are completely average in racial percentages religion income and jobs.”
David and a crew spent time in Salem until he was spotted and had to get out of sight. Being recognized, he says, is a serious handicap.
“When I get to the place where I want to do interviews and get a lot of genuine natural reactions, I find I have to let someone else ask the questions. It’s frustrating. We were trying to film in an old club where men shoot pool or sit around and talk in an old-fashioned Early American atmosphere. But when we started everyone quit what he was doing and gathered around to watch. So I had to leave.”
Brinkley is a modest man who thinks of himself only as a reporter. He becomes irritated when thought of as a celebrity.
“I’m not a celebrity,” he says. “Someone with glamor is a celebrity. An actor like Bing Crosby — now he’s a celebrity.”

One can only wonder what Brinkley would think of news today. Not the standard-issue half-hour newscasts from the network or three-hour local afternoon/evening shows based on all-news radio. I’m referring to cable news channels that have substituted expensive teams of reporters for hours upon hours of what should be commentary by experts but has turned into harsh partisanship, with the idea that people will accept anything you say if they’re of the same political stripe.

That, more than anything, has people pining for the days of Uncle Walter and “Good night, Chet. Good night, David.”