Clothes Make the Newsman

THE SHOWS: The CBS, NBC and ABC evening news with Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings, a trio of aging but still way excellent news dudes. All 6:30 p.m. weeknights on the Big 3 (Channels 2, 4 and 7).

THE RUNDOWN: Network news folk rarely show much sense of individual style and almost always lean toward the conservative. Being full-on beige is part of their jobs. No flash, please, we’re newsies. But some of the longtime network anchors have managed to create their own most subtle of styles.

TOO HIP: Chillster Dan Rather is usually put together the best, although at times he does stray dangerously close to mod. Presently he’s sporting that total Val cut on his head, with the hair clipped short on the sides and longer on top. On a lot of men his age, this young cut would look most poseur-like, but on him it works.

He hasn’t lost his penchant for stripes, but at least he’s pretty much confining them to shirts and ties. The ring on the middle finger is deep Melrose. Threadage scores big with Dan. He was the most ‘60s of the ‘casters in the early ‘70s (with a Sonny Bono mop and lapels wider than a disco floor) and turned very biz-like in the ‘80s with Jersey-bred pin-striped suits. Rather also gets the most points for location clothes. From his Afghan freedom-fighter outfits to his cop-for-a-nite jeans on drug bust ride-alongs, he dresses the part.

TOO COOL: Over the years, Threadmeister Peter Jennings has changed the least of the three. Always very put together in a Wall Street sort of way, right up to epaulet overcoats. He goes for conservative hip, more Esquire than GQ. He has the nerve (and ability) to try tie/shirt color and pattern clashings, wears cuff links and sports a pinky ring. Ugh. You just know he irons his jeans and wears those shirts with the lizard things on weekends. Like, loosen up Petester, you’re heading dangerously close to Barneydom. We’re talking totally non-non-heinous here.

JUST RIGHT: Dude-from-Sleepy-Hollow Tom Brokaw has turned disheveled into high art. Open collars on button-down white shirts, messed hair hanging over his forehead, like, he gives the impression of being fully submerged in his work. He always looks like he must have struggled through much world-breaking news to make it to the mike. While the PR people at NBC get him cleaned up and beiged out for a photo shoot or something every now and then, most of the time he appears to have slept in his very nondescript clothes. It is a most non-skank look on him; he totally pulls it off.