J$P Instant Transcript! Eric Burns on ABC's inaugural coverage and the CBS Evening News.

From Fox News Live, January 21 2005:

BRIGITTE QUINN [FOX NEWS]: Two tv news networks making headlines this morning. Some radical format changes could be in store for CBS as Dan Rather gets ready to give up the anchor chair. And a help wanted ad on the ABC News website looking for military funerals scheduled for inauguration day. Let's get an explanation. Eric Burns, host of Fox NewsWatch, in particular, of the ABC story, what exactly did they want people to do?

ERIC BURNS [FOX NEWSWATCH]: Actually, Brigitte, there are several stories here, and they're all ABC stories, and in total they add up to a picture that's not very heartening for them, it would seem to me. What you mentioned, the funerals, on their website, they were asking people, as you said, it's a help wanted ad. If you know of any funerals, of people who have been killed in Iraq, and if you know of any families who are opposed to the war and want to talk, please get in touch with us. They wanted this to be part of their Inauguration Day coverage. And frankly, why shouldn't it be? It's a big national celebration, but there are millions of people in this country not celebrating another four years for George Bush. What troubles me about it is not that they had an intention to do a story like this if it were there, but that they wanted it so badly they were soliciting for it. And I think what it does is it entitles conservatives to say, with all justice, if John Kerry had been elected President, would you, ABC, have posted are there any still-angry Swift Boat veterans out there and would you come in?

BURNS: Now I said there's more to ABC, that has a lot of people upset. Nightline, the night before the inauguration, did a program on voting irregularities in Ohio and the extent to which they might have influenced the race. And Good Morning America led on Inauguration Day, the first story they did was an interview with a woman whose son had died in Iraq, who was protesting the inauguration. Again, that's a very valid story to do, but on Inauguration Day, is that your lead? So as I said at the beginning, you put all these together, and it certainly seems, although some are more justified than others, that ABC had some points that it was very concerned about making on Inauguration Day.

QUINN: From ABC to CBS, and this idea of when Dan Rather leaves, rotating anchors, which is unusual to say the least. Typically people tune in, they know that they're going to watch a certain person in a certain time slot.

BURNS: Well they've had teams before, obviously Huntley-Brinkley the most successful. ABC some years ago tried a three-headed anchor team, Peter Jennings, Max Robinson--

QUINN: Oh I forgot all about that one.

BURNS: --and I've forgotten, Frank, what was Frank's name, I've forgotten too?

QUINN: Not Reynolds?

BURNS: Frank Reynolds, yes. He was the third at that time. And these things never work. The extraordinary thing--

QUINN: Dan Rather-Connie Chung.

BURNS: Dan Rather-Connie Chung. And the reason they're getting so much attention is that Les Moonves, who's the head of all this, said that there might be a role for Jon Stewart on the program. Which tells you one thing above all others. CBS has become not the Tiffany Network any more, but the Desperate Network.

QUINN: Eric Burns, you can catch more on Fox NewsWatch with Eric Burns tomorrow...