Anchoring America

Offering portraits of 19 anchors from the past 60-odd years of network news, Alan attempts to understand""who they were, why we watched them, how the news affected them, how they affected the news, and how they affected us as we took in the events of the day they related."" That's a tall order, and while his book falls short on some of those counts, it nonetheless delivers eyebrow-raising portrayals of some famous American newscasters. Not exactly journalism-school material, the book adopts a gossipy attitude, purporting to uncover Walter Cronkite as a ruthless competitor and pointing out that Edward R. Murrow never actually sat behind an anchor desk. Alan (Responsible Journalism) divides his book into chapters on""The Pioneers"" (Murrow, Douglas Edwards, etc.),""The Golden Years"" (Cronkite, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, etc.),""The Changing of the Guard"" (Barbara Walters, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Connie Chung, etc.) and""The Challenge of Cable News,"" which covers CNN. Though not entirely rigorous, this book may please readers looking for the rumors behind the news.