News anchors go the distance

NEW YORK -- Dan Rather couldn't go on. Tears welled, and his voice was strangled with emotion as he described the World Trade Center rescue site to David Letterman, who then grasped Rather's hand and quickly cut to a commercial. \nThe CBS anchorman broke down again on Monday night's "Late Show" while reciting the lyrics to "America the Beautiful" and observing the nation would never hear those words in the same way again. \nAs unelected national leaders, the near-constant onscreen presence of television's top news anchors -- Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings -- has magnified their words, slip-ups and displays of emotion in the days following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. \nEach logged long hours in what was, between Tuesday and Saturday, the longest unbroken string of coverage for a single news story in TV history. And with emotions raw for everyone, they have served as the journalistic equivalent of comfort food to a hungry nation over the past week. \n"By sheer default, they become comforters, they become parental figures, they become, in a sense, untrained psychologists in these situations," said Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. \nNBC's Brokaw said Tuesday that television has served as connective tissue for reeling viewers. "The comfort comes in the information they get and the context and in trying to strike the right demeanor," he said. \nBrokaw said he's tried to keep his emotions in check, but admitted to being blindsided by his feelings, particularly while watching rescue workers raise the American flag in the World Trade Center wreckage. \nWhile not passing judgment on his colleague, Brokaw said he's avoided appearances of the type that proved an emotional trigger for Rather. \n"I can't fault Dan for that," said Joseph Angotti, chairman of the broadcast program at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. "These guys are human beings and they're dead tired. These kinds of things happen when you get to a time like this." \nEven Walter Cronkite, Rather's predecessor, got choked up when he read The Associated Press flash that President Kennedy had been assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963. \nThe hours for each anchorman were crushing: Jennings was on the air almost constantly from 9:30 a.m. Tuesday to 2 a.m. Wednesday, then anchored ABC's coverage from 10 a.m to 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Over the weekend, he led a two-hour children's special. \nABC has been criticized for falsely reporting, in some cases along with several other news organizations, that several survivors had been found and that authorities had detained potential hijackers armed with knives at New York airports. \nYet few of Jennings' words attracted more attention than in the hours after the attack, when he was discussing the reasons for President Bush delaying his return to Washington. \nIntroducing a report by Ann Compton, Jennings said: "The president and his response to this is also part of the psychological package because the country looks to the president on occasions like this to be reassuring to the nation. Some presidents do it well and some presidents don't." \nThe remarks triggered hundreds of angry calls and letters to ABC News, saying Jennings was unnecessarily harsh on the president. (Jennings was too busy to be interviewed Tuesday, a spokesman said.) \nAngotti said he feared journalists, instead of being too tough, would be reluctant to ask difficult questions for fear of not appearing patriotic to an angry, grieving nation. \nDuring his Letterman appearance, Rather pledged support for President Bush. "Wherever he wants me to line up, tell me where," Rather said. "He'll make the call." \nHis stated support for a Republican president is somewhat ironic, since he's been a target of conservative activists dating back to his tough questioning of President Nixon during the Watergate crisis. \nOverall, Angotti said the experience of all three anchormen has been invaluable. Each has been his network's leading newsman about 20 years. \n"I think they've been exemplary," he said. "They have provided an example of how coverage of critical importance like this should be done. No one understands how difficult that job is." \nBrokaw said that although there have been glitches along the way, "I have never seen NBC News or any other organization respond as well to a story of this complexity and magnitude"