anchorman (1952?)

[Bonnie Taylor-Blake]

Sam Clements had passed along:

> From a story in the _Mount Pleasant(IA) News_ 28 Nov, 1952
> page 6/col 4 (Newspaperarchive)
>
> (The entire article talks about newspeople who had just covered the
> Convention.)
>
> <<Walter Cronkite:  Our favorite(with Clifton Utley) of this
> trial by TV.
> Solid, sure reporting, amazingly neutral manner under every
> circumstance(*until the Chicago/Rather thing--sc)  with no
> compulsion to
> inject excitement or color where none exists; an ideal anchor
> man, by far the best of CBS-TV's team.>>
>
> The story is headlined "NY (INS)"  but no author.
>
> So, did Hewitt coin the name only days before this writer?
> How did this writer learn of the coinage?


I think we can at least back this specific usage of "anchor man" up a
few weeks to November 4, 1952:  CBS took out display ads in *The New
York Times* (pg. 36) and *The Los Angeles Times* (pg. 21) encouraging
viewers to watch its election-night coverage and featuring "Walter
Cronkite; 'anchor man' as he was for both political conventions."


But it bears pointing out that writers for *The New York Times*, at
least, had referred to other types of TV personalities as "anchor men"
before the conventions had taken place, though not precisely in the same
sense.

[From Murray Schumach's "TV Panel Anchor Man; Affable Herman Hickman Is
Not Infallible," 10 December 1950; Pg. X15.]

   Herman Hickman, probably the first man to parlay pigskins
   and poetry into a television contract, was having trouble
   with a memory usually infallible.  The man who had memorized
   countless yards of poetry, assorted classical rhetoric and
   mazes of razzle-dazzle football plays could not recall how
   he came to be a permanent panel member for "Celebrity Time,"
   televised each Sunday night, (WCBS-TV:  10-10:30).

Arthur Daley also mentions Hickman's appearance on "Celebrity Time,"
holding that "Herman became a regular, the most solid anchor man any
quiz show ever had."  [From "The Fabulous Herman Hickman," 28 October
1951; Pg. 34.]  (Hickman had been a football coach and profession
wrestler, so "anchor man" -- which, as Dave has pointed out, already had
a well-established usage in sports -- wasn't too much of a stretch.)


More significantly, though, Leo Cherne had already referred to Lawrence
Spivak -- host, chief questioner, and producer of "Meet the Press,"
NBC's news/interview program -- as an "anchor man" in March 1952, before
the summer's political conventions had taken place.

[From Leo M. Cherne's "Biggest Question on TV Debates," *The New York
Times*; 2 March 1952; Pg. SM14.]

   In one typical and stimulating "Meet The Press" session
   Bertrand Russell confronted a panel of journalists.  There
   was no presentation of what the noted philosopher believes
   on any one subject.  Nor, as a matter of fact, did the program
   leave an understanding of any one of the hundreds of
   controversial views he has articulated in a long life.  What
   emerged from the television screen, and what undoubtedly
   remained in the minds of the viewers, was the personal contest
   between acidulous Lawrence Spivak, anchor man on the "Meet The
   Press" panel, and Lord Russell.


I suppose, then, it's possible that by the summer of 1952, "anchor man"
in a broadcast sense was not unfamiliar to those who read press reports
about the media; in July, Mickelson and/or Hewitt may have simply
finetuned its usage to fit Cronkite's leadership role in election
broadcasts and later on a nightly news program.

-- Bonnie Taylor-Blake