“60 Minutes-Style Segments” Included In CBS Evening News Experiment

Expanding on Tuesday’s USAT story: CBS News “has begun to record and edit prototypes of how that broadcast could soon look,” the NYT’s Jacques Steinberg reports this morning.

“One version opens with a five-to-seven-minute presentation of the news of the day by John Roberts, the network’s chief White House correspondent, complete with ‘two-ways’ between Mr. Roberts and several reporters. After a commercial break, the pace of the broadcast slows, and two or three ’60 Minutes’-style segments are presented, albeit not at ’60 Minutes’ length, the last of them light and more humorous. After another break, Mr. Roberts, who is neither seen nor heard introducing those segments, returns to wrap up the broadcast with a good-night.”

That pilot was “one of several.” And Andrew Heyward says we shouldn’t read anything into the fact that Roberts hosted the pilot. “It’s not a casting call,” Heyward said. “This is not a test of who should be on the evening news. It’s a test of how best to present a broadcast that plays a distinctive and important role in today’s crowded news landscape.”