The last of the old-line anchors

NEWS anchors just don’t hang around for more than four decades anymore -- if they last a contract term or two these days, they’re lucky -- which is one reason Hal Fishman’s tenure at KTLA-TV was remarkable.

Fishman, who died Tuesday at age 75, was the iron horse of Los Angeles broadcasting, the anchor who kept his voice steady and his mien serious even when the television station he called home lapsed into on-air silliness.

It’s trite to say the recently deceased will be missed, but in Fishman’s case it’s true: He was on the air so long it seemed as if he would always be there, a background presence to many, perhaps, but wholly absorbed into the larger cultural sensibility of Southern California.

KTLA Channel 5 (which, like The Times, is owned by Tribune Co.) bragged that he was the longest-serving anchor in the business, which is likely true. But that achievement had much to do with the fact that Fishman spent his journalism career at independent, non-network stations, where the pressure to score high ratings and try out the newest blond is somewhat less intense than at bigger outlets. In a 1985 Times profile, Fishman said he’d passed up working for larger stations because of the “tremendous freedom” he enjoyed at KTLA.

“In the current era, it’s unusual if not unprecedented for any news anchor in any market of any size to have longevity,” said Bill Carroll, vice president at Katz Media, which represents local stations.

Fishman was among the last generation of local anchors who became the public faces of their stations, Carroll noted. (Other examples include the aptly named Roger Grimsby of WABC-TV in New York, whose judge-like gravity was one of the wellsprings for Chevy Chase’s “Weekend Update” parodies on “Saturday Night Live.”) As more consultants have taken over local newscasts, Carroll said, newscasts have come to resemble one another nationwide; there is less room for idiosyncratic figures such as Fishman.

Many anchors comport themselves like cartoon characters, but far fewer endure so long that they inspire a cartoon character. Kent Brockman, the vain, morally flexible newsman on “The Simpsons,” is believed to be a composite of Fishman as well as another now-departed local newsman, Jerry Dunphy.

But Brockman doesn’t begin to capture the complexity of the real Fishman. Although he could do “happy talk,” local news’ theatrical filler that’s spawned a thousand parodies, it wasn’t where Fishman lived. With his no-nonsense demeanor and Brooklyn-bred bluntness, he was an antidote to broadcasting bubbleheadedness generally, and L.A. bubbleheadedness specifically.

His commentaries were earnest and didactic lectures, relics of his previous career as a professor (one segment that survives on YouTube finds Fishman soberly rehashing the finer points of constitutional law to shoot down a proposed amendment banning gay marriage).

And when KTLA entertainment reporter Sam Rubin spiced up a 1993 segment with a crack about Fishman wearing a dress in a previous gig, Fishman did not do the L.A. thing and “chill.” No, he pitched a fit, accusing Rubin of “slander” and threatening to walk off the newscast (Rubin was reprimanded and Fishman stayed).

That type of soap opera still happens at stations, but it’s largely beside the point these days. “News was once looked on exclusively as a public service,” Carroll said. “Now it’s a business, and anchors are part of the presentation of that business.”

Fishman and other more traditional anchors were notable because “they didn’t want to be lovable,” Carroll added.

Which may go a long way toward explaining why a generation of Angelenos became so comfortably accustomed to Fishman.

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scott.collins@latimes.com