A New Member Joins the Club

By Laurence Zuckerman

More than 1,000 journalists flocked to Iowa to cover last week's caucuses. But when the nation's television viewers sat back to watch the results, they found themselves, as usual, in the company of an elite few. Flipping through the channels, one could find Dan interviewing Bob Dole, Tom tangling with Pat Robertson, Peter and David congratulating Democratic Victor Dick Gephardt, and Bernie earnestly questioning Mike Dukakis.

Bernie? Yes, Bernie, as in Bernard Shaw, the Cable News Network's principal Washington anchor and the newest member of TV news's most exclusive fraternity. Although hardly a new face (at 47, he has logged 24 years in the business, the past eight anchoring at CNN), Shaw has come to personify CNN's transformation from the "Chicken Noodle Network" to a respected competitor of ABC, CBS and NBC. That status seemed to become official last December, when Shaw joined the three network anchors for a nationally televised interview with President Reagan, from the Oval Office, on the eve of Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev's visit to the U.S. Last month the anchor turned up as one of half a dozen presenters at the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University awards, TV's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prizes. But despite the attention, Shaw insists, "I'm not a star."

Indeed, at a network where round-the-clock anchor duties are shared by 21 journalists, Shaw's solemn delivery embodies CNN's no-frills style. "His philosophy is that the messenger shouldn't get in the way of the message," says V.R. (Bob) Furnad, the senior executive producer of CNN's campaign coverage. But Shaw is no shrinking violet. During the White House interview, he described the 1980 Reagan-Bush ticket as a "shotgun marriage" and asked whether that was why the President had not endorsed Bush's 1988 candidacy.

The son of a Chicago house painter and a domestic, Shaw was drawn to TV journalism as a child. Edward R. Murrow was an early hero, and he recalls wangling his way into both the 1952 and 1956 Democratic Party conventions: "When I looked up at the anchor booths, I knew I was looking at the altar." While serving in the Marines, the aspiring journalist met Walter Cronkite, who, he recalls, advised him "to read anything I could get my hands on." He started out in Chicago radio, eventually moving to Washington and television, joining CBS in 1971. Six years later, he jumped to ABC, where as Latin American correspondent he covered the Nicaraguan revolution and the mass suicide at Jonestown. In 1980, when CNN asked him to be one of its original anchors, Shaw was torn. Network bosses told him it would ruin his career, but Shaw disagreed. "Murrow was on the threshold of the new age," he reasoned. "I thought that a 24-hour news network had to be the last frontier."

Sometimes a spartan one. CNN bolsters its profits (an estimated $60 million last year) through a minimal use of high-cost graphics and glitz, and by maintaining a notoriously low-paid nonunion staff. Shaw does not divulge his salary ("It's between me and the IRS"), but insists that it is not comparable to the millions paid to his network rivals. In any case, the exemplar of CNN spareness takes a dim view of such excess. Says he: "Beware of anchormen who ride in limousines."

With reporting by Jerome Cramer/Washington and Gavin Scott/Des Moines