NONFICTION - Dec. 16, 1990

ANCHORS: Brokaw, Jennings, Rather and the Evening News by Robert Goldberg and Gerald J. Goldberg (Birch Lane Press: $19.95; 399 pp.) Every night some 40 to 60 million Americans learn about the day’s events from the three intelligent, earnest, white, Protestant men who anchor the network evening news. Each of them is on camera for about eight minutes. Each receives over $2 million a year. The Goldbergs (father and son) have written an absolutely first-rate examination of the three men, and the way in which the news is put together--as well as the way the network’s new corporate owners have changed the process of choosing what goes on the air.

Money talks louder than ever: It determines whether a story is really important (will it cost too much to cover?). At CBS, one-sixth of the news organization was fired in the name of profitability; you have to wonder what stories we didn’t get to see because there weren’t enough people left to cover them.