Never Flashy, Chancellor Often Shone

He was the quiet man.

In 43 years with NBC News, John Chancellor, who died Friday at 68, had seen it all and done it all, but he never flaunted it on-screen.

He certainly knew all the tricks of the trade but never seemed interested in being a hotshot personality. He was lousy fodder for the gossip columns. Instead, he came across like a friendly teacher. Thus did he win the nation’s trust as a reporter, anchor and commentator.

His trademarks were understatement, intelligence--and a twinkle.

On ABC’s “Nightline” on Friday, Ted Koppel paid tribute to the pioneering TV newsman, citing his self-effacing quality and writing ability.

Chancellor’s time at NBC seemed to pass so casually and gracefully that few may have realized his origins went back to the roots of TV news, which he helped develop.

In a 1993 interview, he noted that “when I started at NBC in 1950, I was one of its first television reporters. We only had three or four.”

In a way, Chancellor was NBC’s ultimate good soldier. Big story? Send John. Doing a documentary? Call John. Need a temporary “Today” show host? Get John. Challenge CBS anchor Walter Cronkite? Try John. How about a commentator for the nightly news? John again.

But Chancellor was far more than a man for all seasons. He seemed to represent what NBC stood for in the long years when it finished second in the ratings to CBS--a dignified runner-up.

NBC’s Chet Huntley and David Brinkley had been kings of the nightly news, but then the crown passed to CBS’ Cronkite. And Chancellor had to compete with him as anchor for nearly a dozen years in the 1970s and early 1980s.

It was still a time when the networks had a lock on TV, and so Cronkite, the leader, and Chancellor commanded a huge percentage of the audience.

So solid were their images that ABC boss Leonard Goldenson openly acknowledged it.

Goldenson said his network was left with “no one of comparable stature” to Cronkite or Chancellor after Harry Reasoner, following a disastrous anchor pairing with Barbara Walters, quit ABC in 1978.

Although Chancellor, a Chicago-born former newspaperman, avoided flashiness, his twinkle and essential cheerfulness led to his most famous TV moment.

When, at the 1964 national Republican convention, he was arrested for blocking an aisle during an interview, he left viewers with an unforgettable sight, good-naturedly reporting his situation as he was being led away and signing off with one of TV’s most memorable lines:

“This is John Chancellor, somewhere in custody.”

To the new generation, Chancellor was best known as commentator on NBC’s nightly news, a job he held from 1982 to 1993, with Tom Brokaw as anchor.

Again, no flash. Mostly middle-of-the-road views. Common sense. No ranting. No preaching. He actually seemed to think that viewers could figure things out.

When he announced his retirement a year earlier, in 1992, I asked some of his colleagues for assessments of him and other comments.

Brinkley, who had moved to ABC, said simply: “He’s been pretty damn good.”

Eric Sevareid, who had been commentator on Cronkite’s CBS newscast, had this observation:

“There’s a difference between objectivity and neutrality. If you approach things objectively, people will put up with it. They think you’re being honest, rather than one man blabbing out his personal opinions night after night. That’s easy, you know. Opinions are a dime a dozen. What’s important are ideas, ideas that have a chance of working. You have to think hard.”

Chancellor thought hard. You could tell. And the years of experience were paying off. A look at Daniel Einstein’s book “Special Edition,” a guide to network news programs in TV’s earlier years, illuminates Chancellor’s training for what was to come:

In 1954 and 1955, for instance, he took part in a number of broadcasts of NBC’s “Background” series, which was opening doors by using documentary techniques and “the newly devised process of electronic film editing.”

Among other topics, he profiled Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, examined the American Foreign Service and visited a small mining town where trouble was brewing as foreign product moved in.

His roots, in short, were well established and wide-ranging. And the big stories, overseas assignments, interviews with presidents, political conventions--and temporary job as head of the Voice of America at the behest of President Lyndon Johnson--all rounded out a career of great distinction.

In our time, Koppel’s “Nightline” has become probably the most respected daily network newscast. Like Chancellor, like Cronkite, like Charles Kuralt, Koppel’s quiet, low-key style has tapped into the nation’s trust, even amid criticism of the media.

Chancellor’s contribution to that national trust was invaluable. Fairness was part of his nature. And he was a gentleman. Who could ask for anything more?