Television: The Age of Reasoner

Choosing TV news anchor men by Nielsen ratings may seem like the next worst thing to letting Agnew do it. But last week ABC in fact picked its man through a survey, and the choice made excellent journalistic sense. The network hired away CBS's Harry Reasoner to replace Co-Anchor Man Frank Reynolds.

Though deeper in correspondents and smarter in production during the last 18 months, the ABC evening news has never been able to command more than about 20% of the three-network audience. All that was missing, ABC News President Elmer Lower concluded, was...