Producers

Development

The modern dominance of the producing role in broadcast news can be traced back to early television network news programming in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Prior to television, most radio news was written and produced by the reporters and anchors who also delivered it. Two of the earliest network news programs were Edward R. Murrow's See It Now (1951–57) documentary series, and the weekday evening Douglas Edwards and the News (1948–62) on CBS. The names behind those news programs are almost as famous as the faces and voices viewers knew so well. Fred Friendly, who went on to (briefly) serve as CBS News president, was Murrow's producer and Don Hewitt, later the creator and executive producer (until 2004) of 60 Minutes, was the creator and producer of the Douglas Edwards broadcast.

At the network (CBS, NBC, and ABC) level, producers such as Friendly and Hewitt had a great deal of influence over their broadcasts. They managed the content working closely with the anchors/hosts of the programs, but those anchors would by the 1960s have the final say on editorial decisions. In a practice begun by CBS's Walter Cronkite, anchors of the major broadcast network evening newscasts carry the title of “Managing Editor” which suggests their editorial power over news [Page 1133]content. At most local stations, however, the role of the news producer developed much later.

In early local television newsrooms, individual reporters and the assignment desk were the focal points for coverage decisions, and news anchors might more typically decide the order in which the stories would be broadcast. If there was a producer, that person was really not much more than an assistant to the anchor, helping with writing, distributing scripts, and maybe sitting in the control room during the live news program to help with timing. But most early producers in local television news had little editorial control or decision-making power.

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