PHOTOS, PAGE 1

       Editor and prime reporter is Doug Terry, a veteran television and radio reporter in   Washington, DC, (details below)

CNN is reported to be near a contract to have Piers Morgan replace Larry King on his nightly talk show. Piers who? This is a shocking move by a news channel that once represented the heart of American news efforts and which became well known largely because of Larry King and his program.

FROM THE NY TIMES:

“Larry King Live”is the biggest vacancy on television this year and the prospect of “Piers Morgan Live” starring a foreign-born talent show judge has baffled many people inside CNN.

Mr. Morgan, 45, is actually an A-list interviewer in his native Britain, and he has essentially been rehearsing for CNN by hosting Piers Morgan Life Stories,a series of well-received and high-rated interviews with bigwigs like Gordon Brown and Simon Cowell, on the British network ITV.

If you needed any further proof that the leadership of American media outlets is bankrupt, look no further. Do we really need a British born television interviewer and judge on America’s Got Talent to come here and help us understand America? This is an insult to everyone practicing broadcast journalism and extended interviews in American television. Apparently, America doesn’t have enough talent even to staff up its own news channels.

I am sputtering with contempt for this dumb move. It, frankly, kinda makes me glad that I left daily news reporting many years ago, because this is the kind of thanks, a slap across the face, that hard working, dedicated reporters get for 20 or 30 years of working, reading, analyzing and living through America and her problems.

I am convinced that the CNN brass would make such a move largely because they feel a need to install someone in the job who is “known”. Well, I, for one, had never heard nor read the name Piers Morgan before this evening. He ain’t known to me.

Plus, they should have remembered this: Larry King was not that well known before he showed up at CNN 25 years ago. He was a national radio talk show host, to be sure, but he was on the obscure and often ignored Mutual Broadcasting Network from 12 midnight to 5 AM, five nights a week. That is not exactly what you would call stardom.

He had been a radio guy for a very long time before he went to CNN and that experience certainly paid off. He was, in my mind, a master at what he was doing at Mutual and he became a trade mark presence at CNN during the early years. CNN and King, in effect, made each other successful.

Now, CNN is more important, more of a big deal and so they go off and hire someone who doesn’t belong, five nights a week, on American television. The big issues revolve around our elections, our democracy, our economic problems and, occasionally, our foreign policies and involvement in the world.

The late Peter Jennings, Canadian born and bred, was a fine news anchor and, after a long time in the job, I would say he overcame his place of birth to become a defacto American. After a long while, he stopped saying   “do-lar” for dollar, and “bean” for been and he certainly seemed to know our elections process as well as anyone else. But who can say what would have happened if we had had a major network anchor at ABC News all those years who had some American passion for what was happening in this country and who could forge those views into outstanding news coverage?

It would be easy to say I hope Piers Morgan falls on his face. Who cares? The insult of putting a foreign born person into this kind of key role will last as long as he does.

Being on television every night is a form of the new American presidency. It is, at times, every bit as important as the person who sits in the White House. Those who are big deal anchors and interviewers don’t often use that power and influence in ways that are readily apparent, but, if nothing else, news people on television help to guide us through times of great doubt and crisis, just as great presidents have. Some of the power of the presidency has shifted to television and presidents readily know this, especially Clinton in the past and, now, Obama, who wants to be one television, if he can, constantly.

I don’t have any idea what kind of show will emerge from Piers Morgan live, but there is no way it could approach the importance Larry King once had. Instead, CNN is reducing its flagship programming to just another television show, just another option in the 120 channel universe. That’s a shame.

Doug Terry, 7.13.10

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