Trust is what makes a news person fine

Brian Williams' problems brought to mind a poem, "Richard Cory," that my high school English teacher read. One line described the glamorous Richard Cory,

"In fine, we thought that he was everything." Another line read, "he fluttered pulses when he said, 'Good-morning,' and he glittered when he walked."

As a former NBC fellow, I admired - and resented - Brian Williams. He is about 800 times better looking and a foot taller than me. He was the anchorman of NBC News, and I was not. "In fine, we thought that he was everything."

The cosmic takeaway in the Brian Williams story is … in fine, nobody has everything. Not the rich, not the glamorous, not the remainder of us mere mortals. To paraphrase another insightful mere mortal, "We're all just Bozos on the same bus." No disrespect intended to the original Bozo.

Recently, I published a book on Amazon about CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite and his all-star team of journalists, "Walter Cronkite's Army." Mr. Cronkite was "the most trusted man in America." Some of that trust resided in the fact that "Uncle Walter" never aspired to be anything more than a good human being and reporter. He strived to be as objective as a journalist could be, not a funny guest on a talk show.

I met John Chancellor once and discovered that he had a fantastic sense of humor. Chancellor was the anchorman of NBC News long before Brian Williams held that chair. I asked John Chancellor why we never saw his sense of humor on TV. He looked at me, a bit surprised by the question, then answered that displaying humor on TV just wasn't appropriate for an anchorman.

I never thought of Walter Cronkite or John Chancellor as Richard Cory types. In fine they did not have everything, nor did they pretend to. Mr. Cronkite was a bit overweight. Mr. Chancellor was plain looking. But I trusted them, as did millions and millions of others. Probably, that's as fine as a human can be.

Sandy Fries

Glen Ellyn