Remembering "the big news".

AuthorSaltzman, Joe

THE TIME: the 1960s. The CBS-owned-and-operated Los Angeles television station then known as KNXT, Channel Two, created what historians agree was the highest quality local television news program in TV annals. Called, appropriately enough, "'The Big News," it was admired and emulated by stations around the country.

"The Big News" emerged in a world where hardly anyone watched television news, where the weather was given a separate five-minute show called "Weather and You," and local news and sports took less than 15 minutes. In 1960, in a restaurant across the street from the station, an energetic news director named Sam Zelman, working with the strong backing of general manager Robert Wood (the future president of CBS Television), told his news team that, for the first time in a major U.S. market, a one-hour news program (45 minutes of local news, 15 minutes of network news) was going on the air. He said it would be called "The Big News."

Reaction to Zelman's idea: It will never work. No one will watch that much news--but they did. In the words of the show's late weatherman Bill Keene, "It was a happy accident. It just took off." A reporter named Maury Green, a sports announcer named Gil Stratton, and an anchorman named Jerry Dunphy teamed with Keene on-air for that first broadcast. They soon were joined by the homespun features of broadcast stylist Ralph Story and, in 1961, went to a full hour of local news followed by a half-hour of "The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite." Television history was made.

"There is no question that 'The Big News' revolutionized television news," recalled Green. "Before that, all TV news was segmented, and everything--weather, sports, and news--had its own little show and sponsor. 'The Big News' suddenly gave us the flexibility and the responsibility of a newspaper, the time for me to do investigative reporting, the time to feature extended news stories and to add something like Story's 'Human Predicament,' the time to give the people the information they should have if they are to make intelligent decisions about their daily lives."

From 1961 to 1966, under the direction of Zelman, Roy Heatly, then Zelman again, KNXT built a phenomenal record. It crushed the competition, scoring unheard of ratings for newscasts while building a reputation for solid professionalism--good, in-depth production pieces that showed effort and care, an on-camera reporting staff that easily was the best in the nation, and an...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT