CBS’ Cronkite Sees an End to ‘Draconian Cuts’

Former anchorman Walter Cronkite, saying that last week’s cuts of more than 200 jobs and $30 million from CBS News had caused “a big morale problem,” nonetheless said Wednesday he would have resigned from CBS had he thought the situation hopeless.

“I do not think management is in a position to say there will never be any more cuts,” he also said. “But I do think that certainly there is no intention of any more major, Draconian cuts of this nature.”

Cronkite, a CBS board member, spoke at a sidewalk news conference moments after leaving a regularly scheduled board meeting presided over by CBS chief executive Laurence A. Tisch, who has been sharply criticized by many in CBS News for ordering the layoffs.

Another 214 CBS News jobs were cut in two earlier retrenchments before Tisch, a professed fan of hard news, took over at CBS in September after a high-level shake up that led to the ouster of board chairman Thomas H. Wyman.

When reminded that Tisch last year discounted chances of more job cuts at CBS News, Cronkite said, “This is a problem for those of us who remember his promises of the past, and we hope that he will prove his commitment to the news by his actions in the future.”

The veteran newsman, who stepped down as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” six years ago this month, also obliquely criticized Tisch for the rapid way the latest round of cuts--in which 14 correspondents were let go--was handled.

“I think there has been a vision of insensitivity that has worried a lot of us,” he said, adding that “I was at least partially reassured today that there has not been insensitivity, that that there is a concern.”

Asked later if he had been surprised and angered by the size of the layoffs, Cronkite said that hadn’t been the case, but rather that he felt “disappointment over the style of the cuts and the timing of the cuts. I think it could have been done better.”

“These are very, very sad and difficult days for us,” he said, adding, however, that the economic “realities are there.” He meant flat advertising revenue and competition from cable TV and local stations that is forcing belt-tightening at NBC and ABC, as well as at CBS.

In the case of CBS News, he said, there must of necessity be a re-examination of its operations.

“We have gotten fat and sloppy,” he said. “Now, we’ve got to be awfully careful, when that knife is being wielded, that we don’t get into muscle and bone. And I think we have in some areas.”

In response to a question, Cronkite denied rumors that he and several other board members were ready to resign because of the cutbacks ordered by Tisch.

The board meeting was attended by all board members except CBS Board Chairman William S. Paley, who was recuperating from a recent illness, a spokeswoman said.

Before going to the meeting, Cronkite shook hands with striking CBS news writers who had set up picket lines outside CBS’ black-walled headquarters here, and told them he would speak up for them during the meeting.

“I can say I spoke up for them in--I hope--the most vociferous terms I could muster in support of them,” he told reporters later. He declined to go into specifics.

A total of 525 news writers and other off-air news personnel have been on strike against CBS and ABC since March 2, when their contract expired.

Before Cronkite showed up, former Democratic presidential candidate Jesse Jackson briefly joined approximately 30 picketers walking in 20-degree weather outside CBS headquarters. He wore a sign accusing CBS of “union-busting” and called both the strike and the CBS layoffs the result of “unbridled greed and merger-mania.”

Criticizing Reagan Administration economic policies, Jackson called for “massive demonstrations” wherever large layoffs have occurred in the United States--the theme of the demonstrations to be “economic justice.”

He left after about 20 minutes.