Longtime Washington political operative and government affairs consultant Mike Johnson recently wrote this piece about his friend, colleague, and longtime professional associate Charlie Gibson, following Gibson’s retirement as anchor of ABC World News.
Missing Charlie Gibson
ABC’s World News anchor Charles Gibson’s departure got not nearly enough notice in mainstream media. Understandable in this careening world of ours.
Charlie’s retirement is a big deal, a very big deal—particularly for you, dear reader. Gibson, transitioning from anchor to anachronism, is emblematic of the end of an era.
He is of the Cronkite era, i.e., a serious, objective, understandable, standards-based, profitable, reliable, and professional journalist. Most older viewers expected their news anchors to be cut from the Cronkite cloth, and many have been—Huntley and Brinkley, Reasoner, Walters, Reynolds, Chancellor, McNeill, Lehrer, Jennings, Brokaw, and—Charlie Gibson. They were, for the most part, street-smart journalists with solid reputations; their news was the truth, and their reporting of it so important you had to tune in.
It appears their time has passed. Charlie probably knows it. He implied as much in an e-mail to his colleagues: “I think it is an opportune time for a transition—both for the broadcast and for me.”
Lincoln once said that any man can stand up to adversity, but if you really want to test his character, give him power. Charlie exercised power and did it with character and grace for more than 40 years, from covering race in Lynchburg, Virginia, to contributing more than a touch of class and character to the evening news. He countered the image of the blow-dried TV personality with his lousy taste in ties, the waddle in his walk, and cheap reading glasses—none a hallmark of today’s anchors.
But he knew more about policy issues than policy makers, he had keen political instincts and he understood people and what motivates them. As a reporter covering the Hill, he was smart, intellectually stimulated, inquisitive, and meticulously fair, particularly to those with little power. He asked the right questions and dug deep into issues, more than was required for television sound bites.
Charlie Gibson was a correspondent not a celebrity and his pursuit was news not entertainment, sensationalism, or salacious titillation. For the most part, he has been a deliverer of news, not an advocate or an adversary. (Just don’t ask Sarah Palin.) He distinguished between information and knowledge and attempted to filter the former and impart the latter.
We will miss Charlie Gibson. More than we know. I hope people will one day look up from their iPods and wish he and his ilk were back on the big screen. Of the ancient 36–inch variety.
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