Sauter, Fox: A Union of Mavericks

The Fox Broadcasting Co. debuted six years ago as TV’s so-called fourth network, but it has never had a full-fledged, national news division.

For this reason alone--this lack of an important, defining element of a great network--Fox has remained a fledgling entry in the eyes of many, despite its entertainment success.

Thus, this week’s appointment of Van Gordon Sauter, the controversial and experienced former president of CBS News as the new president of Fox News, appears to be of major significance to the young network.

For it means that Fox, already profitable and aiming for a seven-night-a-week schedule by the end of the 1992-93 season, now will be making a move to be considered a fully rounded broadcast presence with well over 100 affiliate stations as the outlets for its news and entertainment.

Fox’s owned stations, including KTTV Channel 11, have their own news operations. And the network already had made plans to expand nationally under a young executive, Stephen Chao, who was fired last month by Fox owner Rupert Murdoch for having a male model strip before a management conference that included dignitaries.

From a news point of view, the important thing is that the flamboyant Sauter, 56, now will be given the chance to develop, probably without corporate interference, the kind of programming he seemed to be aiming for at CBS, where his flashier broadcast style offended the Old Guard of the distinguished news division fathered by the late Edward R. Murrow.

In short, Fox and Sauter appear made for each other.

This is ironic. Sauter, a well-dressed, bearded, middle-aged man of charm, sophistication and intelligence who could pass for a Paris boulevardier , now will head the news division of a network that appeals mainly to a young male audience with programming notably lacking in almost any kind of elegance.

The link is that Sauter is impatient with the traditional forms and style of television news--the crux of his problems within CBS--and so, presumably, is his Fox audience. Furthermore, Murdoch has stated his own impatience with the similarity of most TV news and has promised that Fox will go its own way.

In short, the battle is joined. And probably never again will Sauter have a comparable opportunity to run things precisely as he wants in a news division. It’s a good thing he has a kind of cocky confidence--his critics would say arrogance--because he appears to have full control over his destiny in his new job, and therefore his reputation is on the line.

It has been on the line before, but usually with some corporate restraints. He had two Waterloos at CBS. One was making Phyllis George an anchor of CBS’ morning news program, a disastrous gamble that failed because of her gaffes and obvious unsuitability for the job, which also infuriated the Old Guard.

And, finally, he was swept out of CBS along with network boss Thomas Wyman in the mid-1980s during a major upheaval in which William Paley, the late patriarch of the company, and Laurence Tisch, a premier stockholder, seized back control of the broadcast organization as it was stumbling along badly.

The flip side of Sauter’s career is that his forceful impatience with what he considers outmoded has resulted in significant triumphs and turnarounds of troublesome events that might have daunted others.

As boss of CBS’ Los Angeles TV station, KNXT (now KCBS Channel 2), more than a decade ago, he turned the channel’s almost-invisible news programming into a formidable force by introducing a multihour evening format that his competitors eventually would imitate. Not since his departure has Channel 2 ever really been as combative and effective a contender.

At CBS, some of the criticism leveled at Sauter by news division staffers was that he allied himself too closely with the company’s corporate types. There was a time, in fact, during his spectacular rise, when he seemed only a whisker away from becoming chairman of CBS.

But there was also a memorable incident in which, without flinching, he accepted a major problem not of his own doing and turned it, in the view of some, into a rare example of historic corporate soul-searching.

The problem was a documentary he inherited at CBS News that was critical of Gen. William C. Westmoreland, former head of U.S. military forces in Vietnam, who sued the network because of the program.

An article in TV Guide charged that, in making the program, CBS violated some of its editorial rules. Sauter quickly ordered an in-house report investigating the charges, a move that offended some of the members of the proud news division.

But the thoroughly brilliant and fair report, by the widely respected, late producer Burton (Bud) Benjamin, while finding that CBS did indeed violate some rules, nonetheless won praise even from Sauter critics for its analysis. The Benjamin Report remains to this day a landmark model of honest self-appraisal by a news organization.

Besides the criticism he received for what many felt was jazzing up the news, Sauter also became a symbol to some angry CBS staffers of the impending and demoralizing staff and budget cuts that would afflict TV news organizations--and now are commonplace. Typically, Sauter indicated matter-of-factly the inevitable crunches that were overtaking TV news as the industry felt the same cold wind of change.

It did not make him popular, but virtually everything he indicated has come true.

The key point about Sauter’s appointment at Fox is that the network seems serious about news--although just what kind of news remains to be seen. Will it be a blend of “Cops,” “Studs” and “America’s Most Wanted”--or will it tread the line between news, reality shows and entertainment a little more subtly?

Will Sauter and Murdoch, two strong-minded individuals, remain on common ground if the going gets tough? And will the seemingly restless Sauter--whose career has ranged from CBS censor to Paris bureau chief to news anchor, commentator, columnist, TV critic, producer and network sports executive--remain interested in the job long enough to put Fox News on its feet?

He returns to an influential TV news job at an opportune time--with the arena altered, new forms evolving and even the current political campaign showing a changing relationship between viewers and the networks as longer, interactive programs take hold.

As it happens, Sauter is married to California State Treasurer Kathleen Brown, the sister of Jerry Brown, who helped instigate TV’s new long-form political exchanges during the campaign. What we have here, clearly, is a family with some very distinctive media mavericks.