Former CBS reporter and CNN analyst Daniel Schorr discussed the current state of media and other topics with Sam McManis of the Sacramento Bee. Schorr, now 91, works for NPR as a commentator, and has just written a book, “Come to Think of It” about politics and the media.
Schorr laments the push by the web and other medium to inundate with news information. “In my day, as a newspaper man, radio man and television man, I had the feeling I was telling people something they wouldn’t otherwise know,” he said. “That’s no longer true. I’m glad I’m not 20 years younger, because I’d be very discouraged.”
Although Schorr says he watches CNN daily (as well as C-SPAN), he doesn’t exclude the network in his critique. Schorr says he prefers working in radio, as he is now, to his time at the television outlets. “In many of the (reports) I did for CBS and CNN, you got to read the teleprompter, got to get the right shade of Max Factor to put on,” he said. “You got to go out and stand on a street corner to say it, because saying it in the studio doesn’t look exciting enough.”