What's the Frequency, Paul

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What's the Frequency, Paul This is the page for more information about "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?"... my "newsicals" consisting of narration music and soundbites .

Each program is 59 minutes long and sets the week's news to music. . Episodes air and stream on various Pacifica stations, The Public Radio Exchange (prx.org) and other non commercial outlets. This program is produced/hosted by Paul Fischer... former writer (24 years) for Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News and former News Director of 2 Pacifica Radio stations (WBAI NY and KPFA Berkeley). After retiring from CBS News, I have returned to my roots in public
radio.

09/01/2026

on one level it's laughable.

Trump, Vance, Noem et al are attempting to turn "another mother for peace" into a "weather underground" bomber...and now trying to demonstrate it by releasing an ICE viewpoint video of it...with an iphone in one hand and a gun in the other. ( Wait, what? Ice and Border Patrol don't have bodycams???)

But on most levels, this is just terrifying.

And one more instance where Trump and Co are now making the claim a reality.... We can do anything we want. We have absolute immunity.

Which brings me to...why i just had to watch The CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil last night...when i heard he was anchoring from Minneapolis...and ABC World News Tonight was not.

This was going to be a good way for them to show what they mean when they say they will cover the story without the usual "experts" and "academics".

And that's what they did.

And as the segments and interviews from the scene rolled...it wasn't even a matter of whether i agreed or disagreed with the views expressed.. instead, .it dawned on me that this was nothing very new at all.

This was "vox pop" and MOS or "man on street" interviews...a staple of filling news time since as far back as i can remember...and that's a long, long time.

And it isn't even just news ...this sort of "sampling" of opinions has been a staple of late nite from Steve Allen to Kimmel ( though to different ends..or at least i hope to different ends)

And in this particular place on this particular story...talk about more heat than light. There's a lot of anger out there. Not a surprise. But when you have to bleep your pretaped "locals", what's the point you're making?...especially when the state and local officials are so angry, they also have to be bleeped.

It was all so intense, i can't even remember if the cbs evening news actually contained any news on what happened in Minneapolis...

By contrast, Muir stayed home in the studio and left the onscene reporting to others.

I learned a lot more from that broadcast..which included a "tick tock:...like the NY Times did...demonstrating how this was not "self defense against an American terrorist"...without actually having to say so.

( an aside...World News and David Muir seem more like the CBS Eve News I worked for...for nearly a quarter century. I recently discovered the Exec Producer is a former fishbowl senior producer at Eve News. It figures.

One last thing. About Dokoupil's closing thought.

You're the one who talked about "earning people's trust". Maybe you should work on that before you share your thoughts on a sensitive subject.

And yes, i totally understand "closing thoughts" and how they need to strike a careful balance.

I was never a fan of "closing thoughts" during my tenure on evening news...even when they were well done..and even when i was the one who wrote them.

The idea i guess was "big thoughts" for nights when there was " a big story."

I think "endnotes" worked better for the broadcast and for the audience on regular news nights...
World News does a version of that almost every night...some work better than others..but you get a sense of Muir from them...and it's clear the whole newscast is a reflection of his sense of the news of the day...and it's done without him ( not, HE) making himself ( not HEself)the center of attention.

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07/01/2026

a few observations about the new incarnation of The CBS Evening News.

You can like or not like the return to "the newsroom" look...instead of the video walls of magic.

You can like or not like the "location" broadcasts (We used to do the same during Dan's tenure)

You can like or not like Dokoupil's punchier writing/delivery style....and the "personal" endnotes and what they portend about where the evening news is headed.

You can like or not like the lineup of stories and allocation of time devoted to them.

You have to like that they went for and got Venezuela's opposition leader for an interview.

You have to be aghast at the way they marked the 5 year anniversary of the Jan 6 attack on The Capitol. No, not the lack of time they spent on the story, but the way they treated it like Jan 6 is some kind of he said/she said clash of views. Any attempt to portray Jan 6 as something other than Trump's push to stay in office through the use of violence is a lie. There are not 2 competing views of Jan 6th. There is what happened. And there is Trump's lie about what happened. The CBS Evening News gave equal weight to Trump's lie about what happened.

A couple of reviews mentioned the tech snafu the first night when the prompter and the graphic disagreed as to whether the story was about Sen Mark Kelley or something else....and reviewers impliied there was something sneaky about a clean version being posted later.

This is standard operating procedure. When there's a mistake in the first feed, it's fixed for later feeds. Been that way at the evening news before the internet even existed.

So far, i don't think evening news with Tony Dokoupil and Bari Weiss has given viewers who bothered to sample it any reason to switch from World News Tonight.

Likewise, if you're a Fox News fan, why would you need to switch?
Katie got a huge sample her first week...but sank quickly back to 3rd place and stayed there.

Here's the thing: It's been a long time since CBS Evening News wanted me to work there.

Now, i think they don't even want people like me to watch it.

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04/01/2026

Well, I'm glad they canned the road tour and got Dokoupil to anchor tonight's evening news.

But if this is what they wanted to do with the evening news, why didn't they just hire John Roberts back?

I know you shouldn't judge things by opening night...the trouble is this is not a play, it's a newscast...and on this one, never was heard a discouraging word about Trump's action in Venezuela.

Not a hint of skepticism.

Not in the headlines. Not in the news section 1. Not in 3 sections of Q and A with Def Sec Hegseth. Not in the closing section.

I guess they couldn't find anyone who thinks it might be a bad precedent that Putin might use to sn**ch Zelensky out of Ukraine.. or why there's so much more talk about oil than about drugs..or even regime change?

But they had time to mention..at least 3 times...the approving crowds of Venezuelan refugees in Miami.

( I guess they didn't hear about the possibility that Stephen Miller might now want them to go home to Venezuela..whether they want to or not).

Sorry. This version of the CBS Evening News is not the droid i was looking for.

My reaction was more like the the audience reaction in the original version of The Producers" when they finish "Springtime for Hi**er."

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03/01/2026

Good luck, Tony Dokoupil.
I first wrote for the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in 1981. I was the political writer of The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather for 24 years.
So with that as context, a few thoughts. First, I really want you to succeed.
Statements of principle?
The fact that you have to say out loud that you won't be cowed by your corporate masters says more about the place you work for... than your work at the place.
That's not to say that your CBS News predecessors had no occasion to buck "corporate". It's that it wasn't necessary to make a point of it.
It was to be expected. It went without saying.
When Bari went to 60 Minutes and asked why don't people trust you...i don't know what they said.
But i do know the answer. Whatever faults we have...and we have plenty...there was a hard right army relentlessly attacking network reporting..and CBS News reporting in particular..because we made administrations, corporations and VIP's look bad for good reason.
It wasn't subtle. But it worked. And Trump perfected it.
No matter how many times Trump says the 2020 election was stolen, it's still a lie.
No matter how many times he says January 6th was a love fest, it's still a lie.
No matter how many times he says "affordability" is a hoax, it isn't.
The big lie worked in the 1930's.
It works in the 2020's.
For much of my tenure on the evening news we had one core principle...not stated for the public, but for when we met twice a day for the "lineup" meetings for that night's broadcast: "We don't waste your news time."
Better still...just don't do anything Katy wouldn't do.

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24/12/2025

Memory flash: There used to be a joke at WBAI...memorialized years later in a program called " The Christmas Coup Comedy Players..or CCCP.
It was named after one of the interminable internal battles for control of the station ( a non commercial, listener sponsored, counter-culture 50 thousand watt beacon broadcasting from the top of the empire state building...smack in the middle of the fm dial....99.5 megahertz.
The staff took over the transmitter to prevent management changes... a takeover that lasted for days.
Fast forward. This Christmas Eve there is a real battle for control of CBS News. No one is storming the transmitter. It doesn't work that way anymore. These days the battle for hearts and minds takes place online and on social media.
You may want to note there is a bit of a Christmas truce underway....no one is threatening to quit out loud and no one is threatening to fire people out loud.
There is a silent scream of a pause following Bari Weiss's pulling of the 60 Minutes piece on shipping migrants to a brutal megaprison in El Salvador..
You may want to note this comes as the new owners of CBS would need Trump administration approval for their latest megamerger... a hostile takeover of Warner Bros Discovery...which would include CNN.
You may want to note that Trump..who has resumed attacking 60 Minutes since the previous CBS owners paid him millions to settle his earlier complaint about a 60 Minutes piece...is now demanding that CBS fire Late Show host Colbert IMMEDIATELY.
You may want to note that Mega Trumper, Steven Miller...who refused to comment on camera for the pulled CBS 60 Minutes piece...the lack of administration comment being one of the reasons Weiss gave for yanking the piece...Steven Miller went on Fox News to comment.....among other things..demanding that 60 Minutes producers be fired.
You may want to note that CBS added a voice over to the top of last night's broadcast of The Kennedy Center Honors...a billboard calling it " The Trump-Kennedy Center Honors on CBS"..
That doesn't happen without approval from the top...only in this case, is it the top of the network or The White House.
The Christmas Coup Comedy Players...2025 Edition.
To paraphrase the old saying....History repeats itself....first as farce, then as tragedy.
Yes, that turns the quote on its head...to reflect how American democracy is being turned, too.

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Each program is 59 minutes and devoted to the news of the week mixed with music. Episodes air and stream on various Pacifica stations, The Public Radio Exchange (prx.org) and other non commercial outlets. This program is produced/hosted by Paul Fischer... former writer (24 years) for Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News and former News Director of 2 Pacifica Radio stations (WBAI NY and KPFA Berkeley). After retiring from CBS News, I have returned to my roots in public radio.