Thus we are treated to the spectacle of Dan Rather, a well-respected fellow who regularly goes off his rocker with self-importance. The most recent example of this occurred when --just as most of us had blessedly forgotten his wacky tale of being accosted by someone blurting out "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" -- Rather felt it necessary to call attention to this silliness all over again by performing the song of the same name with R.E.M. This sort of gesture is supposed to convince us that Rather is a regular guy, with a sense of humor about himself. And once again: Who cares?
Sawyer doesn't make mistakes like that. It's always risky to point out similarities in married couples, but it's long struck me that one quality shared by Sawyer and her husband, director Mike Nichols (Wolf, The Graduate), is a finely tuned sense of irony, a tendency to be wryly mordant rather than backslappingly jovial. That Sawyer manages to make her manner seem both shrewd and honest is no small coup. Neither is the fact that she makes every story, no matter how slight or heavy its subject matter, carry equal weight. In the postmodern newsroom, she's the anchor of ephemera.
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