How to rebuild CBS news.

Some good advice for CBS News:

Especially in the new, splintered universe of news, there are enough people out there to serve--people who crave more than they're getting and will reward sponsors for bringing it to them. And a lot of those people are the prized viewers in their 20s and 30s who are bored to tears by most of what they see on television newscasts, and have come to distrust much of it.

I'm not in that demographic, but I'd be willing to watch if they focused on covering both sides of issues without the patronizing liberal attitude toward their audience. This is an opportunity to really do something great, but I'm not holding my breath that Les Moonves will have any bright ideas.

They could, and probably will, do worse than imitating the Newshour or Special Report with Brit Hume. I imagine they couldn't get an hour, because their affiliates wouldn't go along, but a fresh approach and some experimentation is in order. The star system has been dead for 20 years, but the media just don't know it yet. Maybe giving a headline rundown at the beginning, with links to the full story on CBS' website, and giving more time to one issue each day with real balanced coverage and explanations as to why we should care would be nice, but no yelling, and fewer media pundits and politicos.

On the other hand, a show like Washington Week In Review with a round table of people who can explain and ask intelligent questions about various top stories could work. C-Span's Washington Journal, which plays off the daily newspapers might work, but it would have to lose the call-ins. The main considerations are balance, compactness and accuracy. You can't get perfectly unbiased reportage, but you can make a consistent effort to get different viewpoints, instead of the same tired parades of liberals. And giving a minute to some humorists as a sort of live editorial cartoon, as Brit Hume does, couldn't hurt.