We need more shows like CBS Sunday Morning

For 45 seconds on the first Sunday of 2018, Americans saw the soothing side of a hard-hit locale.

The first three seconds resembled a Cat Trumpet YouTube upload. It was all silence and snowfall. Relaxing music lasting an hour, or two, or three, could not have been far behind.

Except the voice of CBS Sunday Morning host Jane Pauley cut in for nine seconds. She took the time she needed to explain that these were shots of Erie, Pa., a lakeside city that has brooked merciless wintry precipitation since Christmas.

Quickly adding, “birds of a feather are riding out the storm,” she left us in peace for another 33 seconds. The video reflected her introduction to an outro that capped 90 minutes of mostly light, fascinating and inspiring journalistic programming. This edition covered art history, two actors, the lasting appeal of Barbour coats and a teacher-to-mother kidney transplant.

With its concluding nature clip, CBS Sunday Morning started providing ASMR before there was ASMR. That custom typifies the show’s uniquely refreshing place in American TV news. It is the best time of week for the best possible escape from network norms.

For at least one window per week, one station settles down and gives light to the publicity malnourished. Its team tills the boundless fields of feature fodder, shrewdly churning out fresh varieties of firsthand findings.

But then, on CBS and elsewhere, it is back to reality. Face the Nation and its two chief competitors — Meet the Press and This Week — deliver more of what 24-hour cable news gives us, well, 24 hours a day.

Anchors and moderators talking to politicians and pundits about the same storylines as last week. Usually the same movers and shakers on different shows at different points in the day. Reactions to the same soundbites from other political news programs. Hardly any face-to-face discussions between reporters and newsmakers outside of studios and satellite feeds.

Granted, the Sunday morning network talk shows have their proud traditions. They deserve credit for pioneering the way voters hear what they need to hear from prospective and elected leaders. They provide a platform for the best reporters and analysts covering the most consequential topics.

But in this century’s news landscape, we get enough roundtables on cable networks. At what point do you hear all you need to hear from pundits about politicians and policy? How many voices and abstract viewpoints on polling, demographics, bases and “our political discourse” can one human head handle?

Human. There’s that word again. A human element fuels every topic worth reporting on and discussing, but that lifeblood gets less than its due attention.

One can only extract so much of that aspect from talking heads in a stuffy studio. While analytical back-and-forth between journalists has merit, it has made its place too expansive for anyone’s good.

To be sure, no networks — cable or otherwise — are letting on to much hurting for a shakeup. Plenty of people keep consuming talk programming on ABC, CBS and NBC when they air late Sunday morning. They then shuffle to CNN, Fox News, MSNBC or elsewhere to overdose on the same for up to another six-and-a-half days.

This does not mean the likes of ABC and NBC should not bother springing for their answer to CBS Sunday Morning. On the contrary, this news-talk overload signals the need for more diversion options. Consumers and overlooked newsmakers are waiting for benefits they may not be considering.

This situation evokes children’s author Mo Willems’ profile in The New Yorker Feb. 6, 2017. In the piece, he offered a self-assessment of several false starts to his career and how he finally got his break and stood out.

“You don’t give people what they want,” he told interviewer Rivka Galchen. “You give them what they don’t yet know they want.”

ESPN implicitly took that hint last May when it deleted one of its numerous sports talk shows. Granted, it purged the wrong program by cancelling the dignified Sports Reporters. But at least it filled that Sunday morning slot with more E:60 magazine reportage.

That, along with Outside the Lines, ought to give sports viewers a refreshing reprieve from the punditry pervading weekday sunlight hours. In that department, you need more than just game coverage and game talk. People want to humanize the household names and the less mainstream personalities who uphold the sports world’s axis.

The same basic principle holds true for the all-purpose networks. In fact, it is more vital there because these networks exist to illuminate people in all fields.

To its credit, NBC Nightly News finishes its half-hour of straight, short-order news with “Making a Difference.” Similarly, ABC World News Tonight has “America Strong.” But those pace-changing, spiritually enriching stories get barely two minutes of airtime.

A week’s worth of “Making a Difference” or “America Strong” barely eclipses the length of one CBS Sunday Morning segment. Even the shorter features on Pauley’s program tend to run for at least six minutes.

That is plenty of time for the story to sink in while it still has your attention. Nothing is rushed, but a lot is revealed. More importantly, even those who will stay tuned for Face the Nation afterward will have had a healthful break.

The other three-letter, single-digit channels can do more on this front. They have nothing to lose and plenty to gain, as CBS Sunday Morning can only cover so much. An all-winners Easter egg hunt of compelling, lighthearted and informative narratives perpetually awaits.

And these networks clearly have the resources to join in. Their important investments in on-site reportage during massive man-made crises or natural disasters confirm as much.

So why can’t some of those resources pace themselves in calmer, everyday settings? As much as we need our courageous Richard Engels, we also need our curious Mo Roccas.

Foreign happenings are more than just how a given country’s government and our own have influenced affairs. They also bear pleasantly surprising similarities to our own cultural elements, like Kitto Katto (Japanese Kit Kats).

And then there is all of the seven-day talk from network personalities about the lack of attention paid to Middle America. Yet most networks never shoot any Sunday morning reports outside a New York or Washington studio.

Established entrepreneurs may crash the news cycle with a comment to one outlet or on social media. But no one’s story starts or ends when it erupts.

That was why, late last month, Pauley was apt to ask, of Warren Buffett, “What’s he really like?” As she characterized her curiosity, that question stemmed from Buffett’s well-known status as “a legend of modern commerce.”

The material from that starting query yielded a nine-and-a-half-minute profile. And Pauley found that “Buffett built his fortune one nickel at a time, beginning at age seven.”

CBS Sunday Morning can only cover so much. An all-winners Easter egg hunt of compelling, lighthearted and informative narratives perpetually awaits all news networks.

Up-and-coming innovators and their ideas warrant similar background exploration. Through a CBS Sunday Morning report, they can explain the finer points of their pursuits and pathways.

There is an immeasurable deluge of that activity in various professions and projects that are only indirectly impacted by politics. Unfortunately, that deluge is drowned out by comparatively vague commentaries on who should support whom and who can expect to win what in a campaign.

At other points, the cable commentary turns to the ugly side of sociological sagas. Even when the all-purpose channels go in-depth on non-household names, they do so with grim narratives.

Look no further than NBC’s Dateline or ABC’s 20/20. Those primetime programs tend to offer slower-paced timelines of murders and manhunts. They are where, instead of politicians and pundits, active experts discuss disastrous specters and how to stop them.

Like political talk shows, those programs have their place. Ditto CBS’ other Sunday magazine bookend, 60 Minutes. But for all of the darker features that air after dark, there should at least be equal time for the equivalent in daylight.

Americans collectively work and live on varied schedules during the week. That is why they benefit from their comprehensive choices of time to get roughly the same takes on the same storylines on their preferred news network.

But generally speaking, Sunday morning programs should reflect the day’s relaxed vibe. The only people sweating and stressing over such programs should be network employees and executives trying to one-up each other’s untold revelations.

But don’t worry. When their work is done, they can join us in savoring a minute of meditative, all-American nature clips.