Cronkite, whose daughter had a small but spirited part in the film, bestowed on the completed work his half-hearted approval, but few other persons of stature in news production of that era followed suit.īased on his findings and suspicions about the future of news media, Chayefsky conceived of a film that would be entertaining as social commentary and a harbinger of possible abuses by those deciding from the control booth what - and whom - to put before the American public.įrom his earliest days as a 1950s TV writer, Chayefsky specialized in the cri de coeur - the impassioned harangue, as delivered by the common man. It is almost impossible to imagine a screenwriter being granted comparable access today to write anything other than anodyne, and it is certainly possible that we have the networks’ collective furor over Network, well-documented by Itzkoff, to thank for that change. He even chatted with the venerable anchors about their jobs. He was given unparalleled access to the three major networks in New York City, allowed to shadow various executives over the course of their clockwork days. In researching the script for Network, Chayefsky noted this change at the local level. Yet even as early as the mid-1970s, many local affiliates surrendered all pretense to being indifferent to ratings in favor of the sort of tabloid stories that today we might call, in their internet form, clickbait. In this way, they would lend “value and prestige” to the otherwise pell-mell business of television. The news divisions at each of the three major networks were to be free from the bridle of the profit motive. Or rather, what networks would do to achieve ratings was circumscribed by certain boundaries of good taste: the “remarkable service” the networks provided was - and, to a decidedly lesser degree, continues to be - mandated by law in exchange for permission to make private use of publically owned airwaves during every other hour of the day. It moves from remarkable to amazing when you realize that the ultimate responsibility for the network news divisions has rested in the hands of the same businessmen who have shaped the rest of American television as it exists today.Īs these proud words suggest, ratings once were of lesser importance within the value system of network news. For a large and diverse nation based on a concept of consensus, it’s been a remarkable service, all the more remarkable when you realize that this service has had to coexist on that small plate of glass in your home with car chases and sitcoms, with football games and soap operas. The benefits which have come from an open reliable flow of information during a time of crisis are almost incalculable. In his 1988 memoir, Prime Times, Bad Times, Ed Joyce reflected on the traditional role of nightly broadcasts during his tenure as president of CBS News: Since Network’s release in 1976, something has happened to TV news. Scott, and even Walter Cronkite himself, five or so years before he retired from the actual airwaves at CBS. Before Peter Finch was cast as Beale, the part was offered to Jimmy Stewart, George C. In a similar vein, Network’s Howard Beale was conceived as the consummate TV man in stately decay. The Beales possessed stately airs amid abundant squalor - a mother and daughter sniping constantly at each other and yet enchanted by the idea of appearing on screen. As Dave Itzkoff relays in his brisk, engaging, and comprehensive Mad as Hell: The Making of Network and The Fateful Vision of The Angriest Man in Movies (2014), Chayefsky subsequently noticed the Beales of Grey Gardens and nabbed their surname for his film’s maniacal protagonist. “THE BASIC JOKE,” Paddy Chayefsky wrote in his notes for the script that would become the film Network, “is that the networks are so powerful they can make true what isn’t true and never even existed - The networks are so powerful they make the ravings of maniac … true.” The name of that “maniac” during the script’s earliest stages was “Kronkheit,” a perversion of the connotations that Walter Cronkite’s name lent to television news between 19: reassurance, composure, and objectivity. “During this discussion, you will experience a little sense of home. “We move toward a full discussion of the problems,” they murmur.
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