Richard S. Salant started in television in 1952 as vice president of the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and corporate officer to Frank Stanton, who was president of CBS. A Harvard-educated lawyer, Salant worked in government and private practice for 12 years before switching industries. His corporate experience was fueled by his lifetime commitment to such issues as freedom of the press, ethics in news production, and the relationship of government, corporate broadcast management, and news production. His longevity in the television industry stemmed from such intangible qualities as skillful conflict resolution that minimized public debate, the ability to isolate issues from complex events, and verbal clarity in articulating his position.

Salant served almost a decade as vice president and corporate officer, with no experience or training as a journalist, before Stanton appointed  him  president  of the CBS News division in 1961.  The  appointment drew immediate and strong protest from Walter Cronkite, Charles Collingwood,  and  Eric  Sevareid, who were distressed at the unprecedented  appointment of a lawyer and feared constant legal scrutiny of news judgments. However, Stanton, reacting to CBS President William S. Paley's impatience at the second-place standing  of  the  news  division,  believed   that  the   appointment would bring positive change. When  that failed to materialize by 1964, Salant  was  moved  back to his previous position, only to be reappointed by Stanton in 1966 after Fred Friendly's sudden  resignation as president of the news division. By the end of 1967, CBS News was in first place, remaining there for Salant's tenure. The strength of his advocacy for the news division earned Salant the title "patron saint of broadcast journalism ."

  Years before he rose to lead the news division, Salant used his legal knowledge, from 1953 through 1959, to represent CBS in Washington, D.C., in congressional hearings and forums pertaining to broadcast regulation and rights. He learned the structure of the industry for his speeches and testimony on issues such as subscription television, UHF (ultra frequency)NHF (very high frequency) allocations, monopoly rulings, coverage of House hearings by broadcasters, and the barriers constructed to free expression by section 315 (the "equal time rule") of the Communications Act. He argued that Congress's ban on the journalistic use of cameras and microphones in its chambers relegated broadcasters to second-class status. and he posited that section 315 prevented the free pursuit and airing of information. From his participation in the complex discussions of these legal issues, Salant slowly derived the position that news should be based on information the public needs to know to participate in a democratic system, not on what they would like to know . On that principle, Salant made the controversial decision to  introduce the CBS Morning News with a serious, hard-news format, in opposition to the entertainment format of the morning shows of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). Even when the CBS program lagged far behind its competition. Salant adamantly refused a change in program content.

Salant had a passion for the potential of television news, and starting in 1961 he brought a meticulous set of policies to the news division so that the ethics and credibility of news remained unscathed. These policies ranged from the sweeping change that separated sports and other entertainment projects from the news division to detailed guidelines for editing interviews. His directives banished music and sound effects from any news or documentary program. They stopped the involvement of news personnel in entertainment ventures. They terminated the news division's practice of providing outtakes of news stories to the Central Intelligence Agency or any other government bureau. They both limited the use of and marked all occurrences of simulations. In 1976, these guidelines and policies were compiled in a handbook, CBS News Standards. Responding to changes in the world, on April 15, 1979, Salant added guidelines on covering terrorists and hostage situations. News division employees are required to read the handbook and sign an affidavit agreeing to comply with the guidelines .

In 16 years as president, Salant looked at small and large policies for their potential contribution toward building a credible public image for CBS News. He spoke out against the news division creating "personalities" to market programs. He was especially concerned for the potential harm of docudramas, which, if not consistently marked and explained as fictionalization, might be taken as news products by the public. Most troubling to Salant was the network's lack of supervision over news emanating from CBS-owned stations. Integrity and credibility came in a package under the CBS name, and the package extended, in his view, to the local level. Even when CBS affiliates vehemently objected to the CBS Evening News' critical perspective on the Vietnam War and the government, Salant refused to alter journalistic judgments.

Throughout three critical periods in American his­tory (the Vietnam War, the civil rights era, and Watergate), Salant's continuous examination of broadcast ethics and news judgment set the pace for other networks and the industry. When Friendly resigned as president of CBS News in 1966 because network executives declined to preempt regular daytime programming in order to air the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearings on Vietnam, Salant reiterated the importance of news judgment under the criterion of selective coverage. Congress, Washington, and the president would not, he argued, control airways with a selective coverage policy. The networks were responsible for alternative ways of reporting, such as evening news specials, half-hour news summaries, and the provision of alternative voices.

Salant realized that his background in the CBS corporate arena would always cast doubt on his decisions. His record of wrestling more broadcasting time for news in prime time as well as daytime eventually changed that. In fact, Salant's inside knowledge of CBS helped the news division to move from a 15- minute newscast to a 30-minute one, and he led the network to institute weekend editions of the CBS Evening News. Under his guidance, CBS started a full­ time election unit; created additional regional news bureaus outside New York and Washington; launched 60 Minutes, Magazine, 30 Minutes, Calendar, and the children's series /11 the News; began a regular one-hour documentary series called CBS Reports; produced many investigative and controversial documentaries; and covered the Watergate affair with more than 20 one-hour specials on the events. During Salant's reign, the CBS News division jumped from 450 employees to 1,000, and the annual budget increased to $90 million in 1979, up $70 million since 1961.

These accomplishments were not Salant's most difficult. He succeeded, with great pain, in insulating news division personnel from the wrath of corporate criticism and deflected movements against the division's autonomy. In two documentaries where CBS business interests were criticized in a manner that could have potentially created serious repercussions, Salant deflected pressure from CBS executives. "The Trouble with Rock" (CBS News Special, 1974) accused Columbia Records of payola, drug use by executives, and paying organized crime figures to protect artists. "You and the Commercial" (CBS Reports, 1973), revealing the questionable persuasive strategies of advertisements aimed at children, angered executives at the highest levels of the network. When CBS President Paley vehemently objected to Cronkite's Evening News report on Watergate, the first by a network, and demanded the story never appear again, Salant defied Paley, airing a second part although reducing the number of issues covered. Whereas this action is open to multiple interpretations, Salant's decisions in 1973 are clearer. He supported CBS News journalists in a protest against Paley's call for the elimination of instant specials after presidential speeches or news conferences.

Salant continually addressed the volatile connection between news and corporate management in a pragmatic manner. He did not see the relationship as strictly adversarial, nor did he see it as polarized between two opposing sides. Every conflict was a path toward new strategies to apply in the future. Salant's brilliance as division president was grounded in the attitude and communication skills he brought to conflicts. He diverted escalating personal attacks and swung discussions back to issues.

Not everyone appreciated this strategy. When Friendly resigned, Salant referred to his action as a misunderstanding and explained CBS's strategy on the congressional hearings. When local affiliates called for less Watergate coverage and when they demanded Dan Rather's reassignment after talking back to the president at a news conference, Salant did denounce defiance and arrogance in any news division. But he turned the argument so that affiliates had to examine the central issue as a matter of news judgment: network news needed its independence, even if it was dependent on affiliates.

In one of the most widely discussed controversies of his tenure, the findings reported in the CBS documentary The Selling of the Pentagon (1971) put Sealant in a difficult and complex position. The government called congressional hearings and subpoenaed CBS documents, accusing the news division of manipulative editing and false claims. Again, Salant simplified the matter, accusing the government of infringing on the freedom of speech. He argued that  a  network  has  the right to be wrong and, even when wrong, the right not to be judged by the government. To support this view, he pointed to an issue with ramifications for the entire television industry: the government had the power to jeopardize free speech by its power to intimidate affiliates that carried controversial programs. Even in the midst of his defense, however, Salant was not afraid to criticize CBS or network news, and his attitude provided credibility to his position. After the confrontation with Congress, when CBS did something questionable-such as paying H.R. Haldeman $50,000 for an interview on 60 Minutes-an admission of wrongdoing was forthcoming.

On mandatory retirement from CBS, Salant immediately went to NBC, serving two uneventful years as a vice president and general adviser in the network. Only one Salant proposal for NBC received extensive coverage. He recommended development of a one­ hour evening news program, from 8:00 to 9:00 P.M., freeing the earlier prime-time slot for local news and saving networks the expense of an hour of dramatic programming. Salant finished his career as president and chief executive officer of the National News Council. This independent body, recommended in 1973 by a Twentieth Century Fund panel on which Salant served, was created in 1983 to make nonbinding decisions on complaints brought against the press or by the press. Faced by a hostile industry that wanted no monitor looking at its work, the council disbanded after one year. This attitude on the part of the industry was discouraging to Salant, especially considering the increased government attacks on media credibility that also functioned to maintain government credibility. Potentially, the council could do what Salant did at CBS: protect news standards and press freedom. But the networks had changed radically. By the mid- 1980s, news was a profit center, noted Salant, and these larger issues were irrelevant. Although Salant did not succeed in having the standards of broadcast journalism maintained, he set historical precedent with CBS News programming.