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Many CBS insiders concede that inefficiencies do exist. The network's news budget has grown almost 250% in just nine years, and even allowing for inflation it is hard to argue that the quality and amount of coverage have proportionately increased. With limited broadcast time available, many CBS correspondents are underutilized. Some staffers noted wryly that Pappas got more airtime after being fired than before. "Who is really going to miss the Seattle bureau?" asks a veteran CBS correspondent. Stories in that area will now be handled by the Los Angeles bureau. Other bureaus will similarly pick up the slack elsewhere. "What we've done," says Stringer, "is redesign CBS News to move it into the 1990s, to make it more efficient."

CBS is left with about 80 reporters and correspondents after the cuts, roughly the same number as at NBC and ABC. Still, the reduction of manpower in the field "hurts us badly," says Evening News Executive Producer Tom Bettag. "What you're going to lose is a reporter on the scene when you wish you had a reporter on the scene. You cannot have less original reporting and not have the quality suffer." CBS, like both of its belt-tightening network rivals, will probably depend more often on footage from other sources, such as local stations and syndicated services. Indeed, Rather has already begun narrating more stories on the CBS Evening News, stories that might earlier have been handled by a reporter in the field.

The damage may be worse on other programs, since the Evening News and the network's second showcase, 60 Minutes, were relatively lightly hit. The CBS Morning News, for instance, lost 28 of about 75 positions; as a result, viewers will probably see less original material and more warmed-over stories from the previous night's news. Other cuts (29 of 71 positions were eliminated in the archives department, for example) will have a subtler impact. "When you have diminished resources for research and for library footage, you go with a less polished production editorially," says one producer. "That may not be evident to the viewer. But you know it."

The biggest problem CBS faces is the now widespread internal belief that the news organization's best days are behind it. "The people who are left seem more depressed than the ones who were laid off," says Bonnie Arnold, a Washington producer who was let go. Some big names have been working to rekindle confidence. 60 Minutes Executive Producer Don Hewitt and Correspondent Mike Wallace met with Tisch and urged him to spell out his plans more specifically, but indicated they were reassured that he still backs a strong news operation. Walter Cronkite, the former anchorman who now sits on the CBS board of directors, reportedly had a shouting confrontation with Tisch, but emerged from a board meeting last week with a measured endorsement of management. "I think the necessity of getting that fat out of the budget is definitely there," he said. "I only quarrel over the tactics."

His successor, Rather, even felt compelled last week to make an on-air attempt to rally the troops, signing off Wednesday's newscast on behalf of "your can-do CBS Evening News." The question that remains, of course, is whether CBS News can do with less.