Do you think it's a problem that fewer Americans now get their news from traditional sources? —Max Jacobson, New Haven, Conn.
We're better off. We have so many more choices. What happens is, of course, that the squeaky wheel continues to get attention. I have a little tool at my house—you should get one—it's called the remote control. You can go from those channels that are showing too much of Anna Nicole Smith to, say, BBC News.
This puts pressure on TV news people, he said, but it's better for consumers:
How do you think the role of the news anchor has changed over the years? —Kathy Crawford, Ossining, N.Y.
When I first got into the business, Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley were the only three people who were doing the evening news at the time. There were no all-news cable on CNN, MSNBC or FOX. Most of these journalistic enterprises were organized by and run by white middle-aged men from the Eastern seaboard. That was the prism through which the rest of the country saw the world. That's changed considerably now. The evening news anchors are competing with the internet. They're competing with the all-news cable channels all day long. They're also competing for the attention of a younger audience that doesn't go home at night and sit down at the dinner table with their parents and watch the news.
Brokaw, who majored in "beer and co-eds" in his own student days at the University of South Dakota, says a liberal arts education is valuable, too.
What would your advice be to to up and coming broadcast journalists? —Jen Ayres, Columbia, Md.
Get a broad base of education. I'm not a big fan of journalism schools except those that are organized around a liberal arts education. Have an understanding of history, economics and political science—and biology, these days—and then learn to write.
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