Cbs News Forging Ahead

The Connie Chung situation remains unresolved but the “CBS Evening News” isn’t looking back.

Freed from the energy-and-attention-sapping distraction of an incompatible anchor team, senior staff members are now working to structure the broadcast around what might be called Team Rather: a cadre of experienced, knowledgeable correspondents who will appear frequently on the air to interpret and analyze hard-news stories with anchor Dan Rather and, in the process, distinguish CBS’ broadcast from those of its ABC and NBC rivals.

“We’d already been doing some of this,” said Andrew Heyward, “Evening News” executive producer since last fall. “But it had been overshadowed by you-knowwhat. For the past few months, all the attention paid to the broadcast from the outside has been about the anchor relationship and who covers what,” he said.

On the Chung front haggling continues over questions of compensation and the timing of Chung’s freedom to work elsewhere.

“I want us to be the best hardnews outfit in the business,” said Rather. “Now I think we have the best chance we’ve had in a while to demonstrate that.”