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Frank StantonFrank Stanton
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Session:         Page of 755

things separate anyway. And yet, by the very fact that you have the graphics of Hollywood being used on the evening news, it's sometimes difficult to know when the news is over as you move into entertainment. Which is one and which is the other.

Q:

Was the first time that soundtrack was used so extensively during the Gulf War, with the evening broadcasters? Each station seemed to have its own music to go along with the war news.

Stanton:

Well, that's a technique that I deplore. But I guess after I retired and after Dick [Richard S.] Selant retired, we introduced or CBS put music behind the news again. When you're listening to an important speech or something of that kind, there isn't any band playing music. You know, but the documentarians, for the most part, and some of the hard news people, want to have a signature, if you will, of music.

I don't object to a signature of the sound of a typewriter, if you will, because that's certainly a part of the newsroom. But to bring in Aaron Copeland's music, doesn't seem to me to be playing the way the game should be played.

Q:

To backtrack again, going back to the news broadcasting as it developed in the war, and after the war, and public affairs programming as it developed. What were your responsibilities during the war, say, for the presentation of news? Did you have any direct responsibilities in regards to the work that --

Stanton:

When you're talking about the war now, which war?





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