Ex-KCBS Exec Takes Over Troubled Rather Newscast

Erik Sorenson, executive producer of “CBS This Morning,” was named executive producer of the “CBS Evening News With Dan Rather,” the network said Wednesday. He replaced Tom Bettag at the helm of the troubled CBS News showcase, which has been lagging in third place in the evening-news race since the Persian Gulf War began.

The CBS evening broadcast has been the subject of internal debate for the past several weeks over how the program should be produced and what its proper role is now in a news environment where CNN frequently beats the networks to breaking news. It also drew criticism from reviewers who knocked the network’s slow start in war coverage and the performance by Rather. There have been rumors--uncommented upon by CBS--that Rather might be replaced or given a co-anchor.

The replacement of Bettag, who had been in the job since May, 1986, had been rumored within CBS on Tuesday. But according to CBS sources, he was not informed of the decision by CBS News President Eric Ober until after 11 p.m. (EST) Tuesday, following a live West Coast update on the Gulf War.

Rather also went into a meeting with Ober not long before Bettag’s meeting late Tuesday night. Rather was said to have been informed about the decision beforehand, but it was unclear how much of a hand he had in it.

Bettag and Rather have been close allies in a hard-news approach to the broadcast. Sorenson, a protege of Ober’s, comes from local news, having been a news director and station manager at KCBS-TV Channel 2 in Los Angeles during the 1980s.

Sorenson left KCBS in 1989 to take over “CBS This Morning,” and ratings have improved since then. While he added several California-based correspondents and increased the entertainment coverage on the morning program, he also stepped up its live coverage, using reports from CBS News correspondents and sending anchor Harry Smith to report live from the Gulf.

Sorenson, who was producing both the early-morning and the evening newscasts on Wednesday, was not available for comment on his plans for the “CBS Evening News.”

Along with Sorenson, CBS also promoted senior producer Susan Zirinsky to senior broadcast producer, the No. 2 slot on the evening news. Zirinsky, who was the model for the Holly Hunter character in the movie “Broadcast News,” is a longtime producer on the CBS newscast.

“Erik Sorenson and Susan Zirinsky are an elite team with a wide range of journalistic experience, talent and creativity,” Ober said in a statement. “I look forward to their leadership in the years ahead as they and Dan Rather, who led the ‘CBS Evening News’ through the 1980s, lead a new CBS News flagship broadcast in the 1990s.”

Bettag, a former “60 Minutes” producer who has been with CBS since 1969, was not immediately reassigned. His contract runs until May.

“The broadcast that we did last night--re-doing the program to include the late-breaking news of a Soviet peace ‘feeler’ from Baghdad--was one of our best,” Bettag said in an interview Wednesday. “It’s been a privilege to work with Dan Rather and this staff, and I came out of this with my reputation intact and not having to do anything (on the program) that I wouldn’t want to do.”