In the run-up and aftermath of Ann Curry’s messy break with the “Today” show, there was one matter that didn’t get much attention: that television’s most prominent Asian-American news anchor lost a plum spot on the national stage.

During Curry’s tearful goodbye June 28, she reflected on her role as role model: “For all of you who saw me as a groundbreaker, I’m sorry I couldn’t carry the ball over the finish line, but man, I did try.”

For many young Asian-American journalists, anchors like Curry, and Connie Chung before her, have been “inspiring”, says Doris Truong, National President of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA).  “Their success is our success,” says Truong, who likens community pride for Curry and Chung to that felt for pro basketball’s Jeremy Lin earlier this year.

“Ann Curry was, and is, a role model for young Asian-American journalists,” says former CNN anchor Carol Lin, now a lecturer at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.

Lin says Curry “played a role in breaking through the glass ceiling…[and then]  grew into a world when social media really demands that it’s less about the personality, more about the quality of the story.”

With viewers, and the media, focusing debate on Curry’s personality and abilities – rather than on her ethnicity – Lin says it begs a central question: “Are we beyond the question of race, and a

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Hard to imagine, but there have only been five anchors of the “CBS Evening News” (six if you count the pairing of Dan Rather and Connie Chung). And it was 50 years ago today, that the original went on the air. “Walter Cronkite with the News” debuted on April 16, 1962 as a 15-minute newscast.

As Bob Schieffer explained on “Face the Nation” Sunday, the show expanded to a half hour in 1963 and became known as the “CBS Evening News.”

“Over the years, I have been asked many times, ‘what was he really like?’” said Schieffer who anchored “Evening News” in 2005-2006. “I always reply, ‘he was off camera exactly the way he was on camera.’ There are not many of those, but he was just the way you would want him to be.”

Mark Whitaker, Jim Walton, Anderson Cooper, Erin Burnett, Piers Morgan and Ken Jautz

Last night CNN feted its newest anchor, Erin Burnett, at Robert restaurant at The Museum of Arts and Design in Columbus Circle, just a few hundred feet from CNN’s NYC headquarters. Overlooking Columbus Circle and the southwest corner of Central Park, guests watched the city fade into night, while clips of Burnett preparing for her show played on a loop on TV sets spread throughout the space.

Just after 7:30 PM, CNN/U.S. executive VP Ken Jautz and CNN managing editor Mark Whitaker made some brief remarks. Jautz commented that Burnett is extremely passionate about news, and that anyone expecting a curt reply when asking her what she is working on is in for a long conversation.

Burnett then addressed the crowd and thanked them for their support. Her manager John Ferriter was in attendance, as was her fiancee David Rubulotta. Jautz and Whitaker got shout-outs, as did CNN Worldwide president Jim Walton and CNN ad sales chief Greg D’alba, both of whom were working the room.

The party also drew a packed room of boldface names:

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Soon-to-be-former ‘CBS Evening News’ anchor Katie Couric will be a smash in syndication, Maury Povich and Connie Chung predict.

“Of everybody, Katie has the best chance, not of replacing Oprah, but of getting Oprah’s audience to give her a good, long look,” says Povich, a syndicated heavyweight for two decades. “She has a great personality for daytime television.”

“She’ll be good. In fact, she’ll be great,” says Chung, co-anchor, with Dan Rather, of ‘CBS Evening News’ from 1993 to ’95, and Povich’s wife. “Even though she’s never done a talk show, I guarantee you she knows how to do an hour.”

Couric’s five-year contract is up June 4. CBS, which reportedly has offered a deal that includes syndication and a continued presence in news, is said to have the inside track.

To Povich, a self-described “scrappy 72,” the key to Couric’s success in syndication will be in her displaying “all her vulnerabilities.”

“You have to say to your audience, ‘Look, we’re imperfect human beings.’ That’s why they can relate to you. Once Katie gets the ‘news anchor’ tag off herself, where she’s inhibited in so many ways, she can just be Katie. That’s all she has to do.”

“Just being Katie” didn’t pry “CBS Evening News” out of third place. Still, that does not mean she’s a failure, according to Chung, 64, who is not unfamiliar with the F-word. Her forced on-air marriage to Rather (left) was, from the beginning, an ugly divorce waiting to happen.

“The times just aren’t right for network anchors anymore,” she says. With Big 3 newscasts hemorrhaging viewers, “what can

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In a Q&A with The Wrap’s Dylan Stableford, CNN/US President Jon Klein confirms that anchor Campbell Brown will be “hosting her show until the end of July.” A CNN spokesperson tells TVNewser no firm date has been scheduled.

Brown’s departure comes as CNN has announced her eventual replacement, a new debate program with former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and columnist Kathleen Parker. In The Wrap interview, Klein was asked about the network’s change in stance on “opinion-based programming:”

We’ve never resisted opinion. If you’ve watched our election programming, we’ve quite famously had a wide range of opinions on those shows. What we have resisted is having our anchors insert their personal points of view for an hour and shoving them down people’s throats. What we want to do here is facilitate lively, smart discussion, with multiple points of view. It’s not that we’re suddenly endorsing one side or another. This country already has a super-conservative network and super-liberal network.

Klein says he had been evaluating the new duo over the last two months, reading Parker’s columns and seeing Spitzer “on various shows,” which indicates that Spitzer’s recent stints at MSNBC played a part in landing him the CNN job. Klein also said that replacing Larry King “is not a priority” at the moment.

The NY Post today quotes a number of unnamed CNNers who say they are dismayed with the new hires and the reflection on the network’s brand. Former CNN 8pm host Connie Chung tells The Post, “It’s sadly comical… and this is terribly disillusioning. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will give you more solid journalism than this program could possibly give.”

> Interesting: It was roughly three years ago — July 26th, 2007 — that Campbell Brown and Jon Klein announced that Brown would be the host of a new evening show on CNN.

This story appeared on the mediabistro.com Morning Newsfeed. Click here to subscribe and get the morning’s media news in your inbox.

Anyone predicting a Diane Sawyer – Katie Couric “cat fight” come January “needs to get a life,” says Connie Chung.

“It’s a chauvinistic question,” explains Chung, 63, Dan Rather‘s co-anchor on “CBS Evening News” for about a minute and a half in the early ’90s. “The question should be, ‘How will Diane do against Brian [Williams] and Katie?’”

“Good Morning America’s” Sawyer, 63, will replace retirement-bound Charlie Gibson, 66, as anchor of “ABC World News” beginning in January, ABC announced yesterday. She’ll take on Williams’ No. 1 “NBC Nightly News” and Couric’s No. 3 “CBS Evening News.”

Wonder if Couric’s executive producer, Rick Kaplan, will take down the framed photograph of Sawyer on his office “anchor wall”? He was her E.P. on ABC’s “PrimeTime Live’ when it launched in 1989. Also in the gallery: Walter Cronkite, from Kaplan’s earlier CBS hitch.

While Sawyer was the obvious choice for “World News”, the sudden timing of the news caught many in the industry by surprise, including Chung.

“I never thought Charlie would give up the chair,” she says.

“I’m shocked,” says Emily Rooney, 59, of Boston’s WGBH and former E.P. of “World News Tonight.’ “He’s only 66. I don’t know why he would want to retire if the affiliates are happy. I’m always suspicious. My gut is that they promised her this.”

Jim Bell, E.P. of NBC’s champion “Today,” is relieved he won’t have to compete with Sawyer anymore, but says he’s surprised ABC “would tinker with ‘GMA’. It seemed like they were all in a good place.”

Were they? Who knows? ABC kept Sawyer and Gibson under wraps yesterday.

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Tonight, PBS’ Gwen Ifill will appear as a part of the “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” special, primetime run. For the 10th Anniversary celebration of the show, original host Regis Philbin returned and introduced a new life-line called “Ask the Expert” where contestants can talk to a different celebrity expert each night.

So far, most of the experts have been familiar newser faces including Sam Donaldson, George Stephanopoulos, Wolf Blitzer, Cokie Roberts, Candy Crowley, and Connie Chung.

You can see some full episodes from the past week here.

Les Moonves, Katie Couric and Sean McManus at St. Bartholomew church for the funeral for Walter Cronkite.

We’re keeping our eye on CBSNews.com and the funeral service for Walter Cronkite which will begin at 2pmET. Already at St. Bartholomew in Midtown Manhattan we’ve spotted Bill Plante, Bob Schieffer, Aaron Brown, Maggie Rodriguez and Harry Smith; Steve Kroft chatting with Linda Mason, who was the first female producer on the Evening News and is now an SVP at CBS News. One pew in front of Mason is Katie Couric who is seated between CBS News & Sports president Sean McManus and CBS Corp. CEO Les Moonves.

ABC News president David Westin arrived around 1:20pm and is sitting with Diane Sawyer.

Also, Connie Chung, actors Jerry Stiller and his wife Anne Meara. Brian Williams arrived on the church steps at 1:25 followed by Barbara Walters and Charlie Gibson arriving arm-in-arm at 1:27pm and Tom Brokaw and wife Meredith at 1:35pm. A few minutes later Andy Rooney arrived with his son, ABC News correspondent Brian Rooney. NBC News president Steve Capus, Dan Rather, Don Hewitt, former 60 Minutes correspondent-turned-NBC anchor Meredith Vieira also spotted.

Again, you can watch coverage of the service on CBSNews.com…

Brian Rooney and his father Andy Rooney arrive at St. Bartholomew Church

> 2:20pm: From Andy Rooney’s eulogy: “Walter was such a good friend. I can’t get over it… I just feel so terrible about Walter’s death I can hardly say anything. Please excuse me. Thank you.”

The cable news networks are dipping in to the funeral while NY1 in New York City is carrying the funeral live.

Click continued to see a list of some of the other tvnewsers in attendance, and more pictures from after service..

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TVNewser has been tracking several on-air incidents among MSNBC anchors during the first couple of days of the DNC. (Read about them here, here and here.) Now MSNBC management is speaking out.

MSNBC president Phil Griffin told Variety the Olbermann-Scarborough, Shuster-Scarborough, and Olbermann-Matthews clashes (some more tension-filled than others) have no significance.

“Look, it happens,” Griffin said. “Everyone is working hard here, and people are passionate about their feelings, and this is the rough-and-tumble world of politics. It wasn’t the first time and probably won’t be the last. The main thing is, this does not define us. Don’t make more of this than it is.”

Meanwhile, a “high-ranking MSNBC journalist” tells Politico’s Michael Calderone, “The situation at our channel is about to blow up.” Calderone adds, “Two other MSNBC sources said some of the testy on-air exchanges between Keith Olbermann and other network personalities were a public glimpse of much more intense behind-the-scenes turmoil.”

As for the criticism that MSNBC continues to move heavily toward the left of the political spectrum, which may only be adding to the behind-the-scenes and on-air tension, Griffin says, “Look, when Keith anchors, he plays it straight down the line. This is our team. They’ve served us well. We love ‘em, and we’re going to be at the Republican convention, and it’s going to be great. And I don’t have any hesitation.”

> More from The WSJ: Connie Chung weighs in. “My reaction to that is: ‘Grow up!’ They have to just grow up.”