20181017

NEWS

The year 2005 "completed a remarkably rapid, generational transition in broadcast news" with the loss of the Holy Trinity of TV news, Peter Jennings, Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw. Speaking to 'New York' magazine in 1984, Van Gordon Sauter of CBS News made the point, "Anytime you change an anchor, there is an attrition in the audience."

At the time, Van Gordon Sauter believed, "CBS is unquestionably the network that stands out. Our counterparts are far more predictable in what they cover. They follow what would be a traditional newspaper-wire-service diet of the day's stories while we tend to be more eclectic … The 'Evening News' is a snapshot, taken once a day. In the foreground of the snapshot are the major stories; behind, we move into an area where we can show discretion as to the stories we pick.

"One of the valuable things about the Old Guards (people from the era of Eisenhower, Hula Hoops, and circular television sets) is that they're the storytellers, the priests, the troubadors, if you will. They are the quiet critics. They perform an important role, but they don't help you through the minefields; the value system does … 'CBS Evening News' is unquestionably the best-produced of the three broadcasts. The storytelling is infinitely superior to the graphics.

"The most tangible change we made was eliminating the broadcast's opening animation … We created our own typeface … Certainly we brought our generated graphics into a more contemporary style … At one time, ABC was the more immediate competition. NBC was the sleeping giant. ABC was gaining on us rapidly. They were within range … At this moment (in January 1984), NBC, after us, does the best journalism, and ABC, after us, the best production.

"Sunday morning is totally unlike Monday through Friday … Sunday morning, I get up, fix myself a huge bowl of popcorn, get a couple of Tabs, sit down with five or six newspapers, and watch television. I grade Sunday morning by how deep I get into my newspaper pile during the two-hour broadcast ('Sunday Morning' with Charles Kuralt and 'Face The Nation' with Lesley Stahl). Monday through Friday, I get to grab a couple of Tabs, read a few sections of newspapers, watch a bit of television, and dash out the door. If I'm lucky, I have 40 minutes to give to a television set. I have to be able to come in and out of that broadcast and find it coherent.

"Diane (Sawyer) was a star waiting to happen. Very early in our time here (at CBS), Ed Joyce and I went to lunch one Saturday with Diane. I didn't know Diane Sawyer from watching television (then co-host of 'CBS Early Morning News'). I thought she was the ice queen. We sat down, and she was well read, informed, graceful, exuberant. And I said, 'Go on television and be Diane Sawyer. Just go be yourself.' And she did. It was always there."

'New York' magazine reported in 1991, "When producers of the 'CBS Evening News' changed a typeface on the show's opening graphics, William S. Paley was on the phone, demanding to know why he hadn't been consulted."  Typefaces were said to be the most important feature of text, giving subliminal messages and because of its power to create a sense of recognition and trust.

Speaking to the 'BBC News Magazine' in July 2010, typeface designer Julie Strawson elaborated, "Everyone recognises the BBC just from three characters in Gill Sans. It's an icon. If you wrote BBC in a flowery font people wouldn't recognise it." Reporter Tom de Castella noted, "Banks are particularly aware of this, with companies like Barclays creating their own branded font to reinforce a sense of security at a time when fear of fraud and scamming is high. Around the world, organisations spend so much time and money changing their typeface."

Selecting a font, was said, similar to getting dressed. 'BBC Magazine' learnt, "Just as one chooses an outfit according to the occasion, one decides on a font according to the kind of message you are seeking to convey." Julie Strawson continued, "Some people find serif best because, like handwriting, it helps the eye to link the letters. With sans each character is completely separate, there's more white space which is why some find it more readable."

Increasingly, people became more aware about the impact of fonts. Fonts producer Jonathan Barnbrook told the BBC, "A good typeface creates an emotional response in relation to the message it is conveying. You're trying to get that tone of voice right - you can shout or whisper. And you want to sum up the spirit of the age, because they do date quite quickly. Typography is so closely associated with language so you can express irony and get the whole complexity of emotion in there."

Typeface designer Bruno Maag told the BBC the Swiss font Helvetica, "If you think of ice cream, it (Helvetica) is a cheap, nasty, supermarket brand made of water, substitutes and vegetable fats. The texture is wrong and it leaves a little bit of a funny aftertaste. Lower case Ss are notoriously difficult to get right. But in Helvetica it's not straight - you want to go in there and tighten it up. And the 'a' looks so woolly and ill-conceived, it really winds me up."

However, of the Swiss font Univers, "It's the true modernist typeface. There's no fuss and schmuss about it, it's a clean, tight design. If Helvetica is Julia Roberts - pretty enough - then Univers is Uma Thurman - really cool."

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