NEWS ANALYSIS : Burke at CBS: On the Outside Looking In

Exactly two years ago this month CBS Inc. Chief Executive Laurence A. Tisch declared his hope that the appointment of David W. Burke to the presidency of CBS News would be the last time the tradition-steeped organization ever had to go outside for an executive to run its news division.

With that, David Burke became an outsider in the most inside of institutions. On Thursday, he was out again.

Burke, the highly regarded No. 2 executive at ABC News under Roone Arledge, had been brought aboard to quell nearly five years of internal turmoil and sliding ratings at the once-proud CBS News. Burke’s mandate was to beef up CBS News by getting more programs on the air and recruit some top-name talent.

Tisch also expected Burke to stop CBS News staffers from leaking unfavorable stories to the press.

But almost from the day he arrived, Burke clashed not only with Tisch and his coterie of powerful advisers, but also with executives and staffers throughout the news division. Despite his diplomatic polish and a lifetime in back-room politics--before joining ABC he was an aide to former New York Gov. Hugh L. Carey and Massachusetts’ Sen. Edward M. Kennedy--he in the end was unable to maneuver himself into the network’s inner circle of executives.

Pointedly, the CBS statement issued early Thursday regarding Burke’s departure dispensed with the usual PR formalities. There was no mention of a resignation reluctantly accepted, but simply an announcement that Burke “would be leaving CBS News on Aug. 31, 1990.”

His replacement, as expected, is a long-time insider, CBS Television Stations President Eric W. Ober, a 24-year company veteran and former senior CBS News executive. Considered by CBS brass to be a team player, Ober will likely be expected to trim the news division’s $350-million budget.

Burke, an old-fashioned type of executive who believed that managers should be given a free rein to run their shop, had decidedly different views about CBS News than did his bosses. Insiders say the disagreements which led to his ouster were not related to budget matters, such as the highly expensive coverage of the Persian Gulf crisis, which is costing CBS News $400,000 a day.

Instead, the problems had to do with Burke’s aloof management style and his reluctance to consult with the CBS hierarchy before he made major management decisions.

“He was so remote and so hard to deal with,” said a senior CBS News executive.

Problems had been building over the last six months.

One of the most damaging, insiders say, involved the multimillion-dollar effort to launch and later retool “Saturday Night With Connie Chung.”

The prime-time news magazine had begun last season with “dramatic recreations” of news events that had been popularized by tabloid TV. Then it abruptly shifted to a more conventional news magazine-interview approach. But last month Chung, its highly paid anchor, announced that she would not be available for regular broadcasts because of her desire to have a baby. The news was said to have angered CBS Broadcast Group head Howard Stringer, a former News division president.

The show’s sudden shifts of direction hurt Burke’s credibility.

Another such shift came earlier this year when “60 Minutes” commentator Andy Rooney was accused of disparaging blacks and gays in an interview with a gay-oriented magazine. Burke first suspended Rooney, then reversed himself under pressure from his superiors.

The forced flip-flop severely undercut Burke’s authority, and was in stark contrast to the way Burke had been accustomed to operating at ABC News.

Another incident involved his choice of Paula Zahn as a co-anchor on “CBS This Morning.” Although CBS executives consider the Zahn hiring from ABC News “a real coup,” Burke nonetheless did it without properly consulting Stringer and other senior CBS executives.

In addition, some inside CBS felt there had been a return to the “Dan cult”--that is, the tailoring of CBS News operations around its temperamental anchor, Dan Rather. There had once again been complaints that Rather was grabbing too much air time at the expense of other correspondents.

In fact, in many ways Burke’s presence had actually diminished Rather’s power. In the days before the executive’s arrival, Rather was not only the anchorman but a de facto executive decision-maker within CBS News, deciding which producers got to work on what broadcasts and collaring staffers at will to work for him. Burke, with the support of senior management, clamped down on that.

Only four months ago, in the most visible challenge to Burke’s authority, Tisch ordered that all the cameramen and technicians at CBS News should report to CBS Inc. senior vice president Edward Grebow, whose responsibilities include overseeing building maintenance and computer operations.

The move severely limited Burke’s ability to assign cameraman and technicians on shows as he saw fit. As part of Tisch’s attempt to control costs by integrating sports, news and entertainment divisions--a move that Burke opposed--camera operators must now work in all three areas.

Some observers suggested the problem lay in Burke’s attempt to move from No. 2 to No. 1. Burke, who had spent his life working behind the scenes, may not have easily made the transition from the loyal and effective colonel to the role of the general.

As Arledge’s second-in-command at ABC, his role was to carry out unpopular decisions and policies. But, as the colonel, he never had to explain his actions.

At CBS, Burke found himself quite able to act, but without the skills to smooth any resulting ruffled feathers. He retreated, and in an organization that already considered him to be an outsider, that made things even worse.

“His style was office-bound and he didn’t get around the institution very much,” said one senior CBS executive, who did not want to be identified. “You always need a team give-and-take,” the executive said, asserting that Burke instead kept his own counsel.

Despite all the personality conflicts, however, Burke did quiet down the tumultuous news division and restore some semblance of order. Colleagues agree that his most glorious moment was CBS News’ award-winning coverage of the Tian An Men Square massacre in China last year, when the network spent millions of dollars and sent hundreds of staffers to produce what Burke liked to describe as “exhaustive coverage.”

Burke is also credited with stabilizing the morning news program, which before he arrived had suffered through a slew of anchor teams and formats in the previous four years.

Still, in the end, none of that was enough for quintessential insider organization. “Maybe if everything was going better his aloofness would not have been a problem,” one high-ranking executive reasoned. “But the place was not being managed the way we want it to.”