Salant, Richard S.

(b. 14 April 1914 in New York City; d.16 February 1993 in Southport, Connecticut), attorney without journalistic training who served as president of CBS News for sixteen years, and was noted for his commitment to ethics in journalism and an independent news media, as well as for numerous innovations in television news.

One of two children of Louis Salant, an attorney, and Florence Aronson, Salant attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, where he edited the student newspaper (his only formal journalism experience) and graduated cum laude in 1931. Salant graduated from Harvard with a B.A. degree magna cum laude in 1935. He made Phi Beta Kappa and wrote an honors thesis on the lunar influence on romantic poets. He then earned a Harvard law degree in 1938 and served on the editorial board of the Harvard Law Review. After law school Salant entered government service with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal administration in Washington, D.C., serving as an attorney with the National Labor Relations Board from 1938 to 1941 and in the solicitor general’s office in the Department of Justice from 1941 to 1943.

On 14 June 1941 Salant married Rosalind Robb, with whom he had four children. During World War II he served in the navy from 1943 to 1946, attaining the rank of lieutenant commander. After the war Salant joined the New York City law firm of Rosenman, Goldmark, Colin and Kaye, where he represented the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) in various legal matters, including litigation against the Radio Corporation of America—National Broadcasting System (RCA-NBC) over the future of color television broadcasting. Network executives were impressed by his work, and in 1952, in what Salant described as the “best move I ever made,” he left the law and became a CBS staff vice president. In 1955 Salant divorced Rosalind Robb, and on 31 December 1955 he married Frances Trainer, with whom he had one child. In 1961 he was appointed president of CBS News and a member of the CBS board of directors. Salant designated Walter Cronkite as network anchor, and launched the first half-hour network evening news television broadcast, expanding the program from fifteen minutes of airtime. In 1964, when Fred Friendly was appointed CBS News president, Salant briefly returned to duties at CBS corporate headquarters, but came back to head the news division once again following Friendly’s resignation in 1966.

Salant presided over CBS News until 1979, an era that included the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, and the Watergate scandal, an extremely challenging period for the news media. Despite his lack of a journalistic background, Salant enjoyed a reputation as a standard setter for ethics and integrity. He vehemently opposed blurring the line between news and entertainment. The sound judgment of news professionals was, in his view, more important than popularity or ratings. “Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have,” is an oft-quoted Salant axiom. He staunchly defended the independence of CBS News against external and internal interference, refusing to censor or withdraw news stories that might offend major network advertisers; defending controversial news broadcasts, including the 1971 documentary, “The Selling of the Pentagon,” and resisting pressure from the Nixon administration over Vietnam and Watergate coverage. Salant made the decision to produce 60 Minutes, which went on to become the premier news magazine show in broadcast history. He also hired such notable correspondents as Mike Wallace, Roger Mudd, Dan Rather, and Diane Sawyer. He dismissed Howard K. Smith for editorializing in news stories, and arranged the resignation of Daniel Schorr following his release of a classified government document. Salant is also credited with opening up opportunities for women and minorities at CBS News.

Forced by CBS’s mandatory retirement policy to leave his post at the age of sixty-five in 1979, Salant was honored with numerous awards, including the George Polk Memorial Award, the Alfred I. Du Pont—Columbia University Award, the George Foster Peabody Award, the Society of Professional Journalism Award, and the International Radio and Television Society Gold Medal. Reluctant to withdraw from active journalism, Salant immediately joined rival broadcast network NBC as vice chairman, with specific responsibilities to strengthen the NBC news division. He failed, however, to attain his primary goal of expanding NBC’s evening news broadcast to a full hour. He left NBC in 1983 to become president of the National News Council, an independent industry organization established in the post-Watergate years to restore public confidence in the

news media by investigating reader and viewer complaints of unfair, biased reporting. A year later Salant announced the dissolution of the News Council because of a lack of support from major media organizations.

During retirement Salant lectured frequently on broadcast journalism, particularly on quality and ethics issues. He was sharply critical of the new corporate owners of the television networks, who seemed to him to be more interested in profitability than in the social responsibility of network news, and worried that media credibility was jeopardized by the shift towards more entertaining, less serious coverage; the disappearance of in-depth documentaries; and ratings-based editorial decisions. He died of a heart attack while speaking on news media ethics to a senior citizens men’s club. Salant is regarded by many as the architect of modern broadcast journalism. His most important contributions include his lasting imprint on the format of broadcast journalism as we know it today. The thirty-minute evening news program is now the standard. The in-depth reporting of 60 Minutes achieved institutional status in American society, and the program’s news magazine format was widely emulated. Many of the correspondents he hired remain household names. His steadfast defense of the First Amendment and the independence of the news media and advocacy of ethical practices continue to serve as a point of reference for broadcast journalists. While his disapproving views on the blending of entertainment and news are often dismissed by some television executives as outdated, Salant’s perspective still has sway with practicing journalists and helps shape the debate within the industry.

Salant’s posthumous memoir, Salant, CBS, and the Battle for the Soul of Broadcast Journalism (1999), edited by Susan Buzenberg and Bill Buzenberg, provides valuable insights into Salant’s philosophy, values, and career. An in-depth profile, “Never a Newsman, Always a Journalist,” Broadcasting 96, no. 7 (26 Feb. 1979): 90–94, traces Salant’s major career accomplishments. Obituaries are in the Washington Post and New York Times (both 17 Feb. 1993) and Los Angeles Times (18 Feb. 1993).

Jerry Bornstein