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Each week we invite someone from outside PE to weigh in with their thoughts about CBS News and the media at large. This week, we asked Marty Kaplan, associate dean and professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication. Kaplan has been a White House speechwriter; a Washington journalist; a deputy presidential campaign manager; a Disney studio executive; a motion picture and television producer and screenwriter; a radio host; and a blogger. Below, Marty wonders what would be lost if the CBS “Evening News” no longer existed. As always, the opinions expressed and factual assertions made in “Outside Voices” are those of the author, not ours, and we seek a wide variety of voices. Here’s Marty:

What would be lost if CBS brass pulled the plug on the “Evening News”?

Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t an obituary, and no one yet knows where the Nielsens will settle. I’m asking a different question, about the core purpose of the program. What would be lost if it went dark?

Not revenue. There are other ways for CBS to win its share of the nearly $500 million in ad income that the three networks split in that timeslot, some of them doubtless less costly than the “Evening News” budget.

Reputation? Sure, the Tiffany network might take a hit among elites, but Wall Street might actually cheer, and it’s easy to imagine an abundance-of-platforms spin by Corporate that depicts outsourcing the “Evening News’” content to the Web, cell phones and affiliate cutaways as a savvy 21st-century media play.

Jobs? Maybe. But that handwriting’s been on the industry’s wall for a while, and the era of one-company careers in America is long gone.

What’s left – and it’s the thing I want to wrestle with – is what makes the news business different from the widget business, and different even from the entertainment business. It’s the reason journalism is protected by the Constitution. It’s why there’s any tension at all between the revenue motive and the public interest motive. It’s why the FCC doesn’t charge broadcasters for licenses. It’s what accounts for the continuing vitality of ideas like “the Fourth Estate,” “the public’s right to know,” and “speaking truth to power.”

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