Bob Schieffer

HE was only supposed to fill in for six weeks. A year and a half later, Bob Schieffer finally wraps up his gig as the interim anchor of "CBS Evening News" this evening when he helms his last broadcast. For Schieffer, who is passing the baton to incoming anchor Katie Couric, the last 18 months have come as an unexpected yet pleasurable stint, one in which he managed to leave his mark, despite the temporary nature of his appointment.

"CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric isn't going anywhere, despite her difficulty in building a bigger audience for the show eight months into her tenure, former CBS News President Andrew Heyward said. CBS took a big but necessary gamble by bringing on Couric to replace Bob Schieffer in the chair previously held by Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite, Heyward said at a media conference in Manhattan on Wednesday.

Bob Schieffer said Tuesday that he's going to end his run as the anchor of "CBS Evening News" around Labor Day and that successor Katie Couric will take over in early September. Schieffer will leave his post after nearly 18 months helming the third-place "CBS Evening News," the only broadcast to gain viewers this season. But the 69-year-old newsman won't be disappearing from the airwaves.

Veteran CBS newsman Bob Schieffer, who has anchored "Face the Nation" since 1991, says he plans to step down from the Sunday morning political talk show with the inauguration of a new president. The start of a new administration next January provides a natural transition, he said. "That's when I'll stop doing what I'm doing now," Schieffer, who turns 71 next month, said in an interview this week. "But I'll still have some relationship with CBS, at least I hope so." Schieffer has talked retirement before.

CBS News on Wednesday tapped veteran Washington newsman Bob Schieffer as the temporary replacement for retiring anchor Dan Rather, who will leave "CBS Evening News" next month. Schieffer, 67, will start as anchor March 10, the day after Rather's final telecast. The network declined to specify how long Schieffer will serve, but said in a news release that it would be a "short transition period until the new format of the broadcast is launched."

Three weeks into his new job as anchorman of the "CBS Evening News," Bob Schieffer's folksy, conversational approach to stories has added a new wrinkle to a format that is among the most ritualized in TV news. Far more than competitors Brian Williams and Peter Jennings, Schieffer engages his correspondents in on-air conversations about their stories.

You'll have to forgive CBS News' Bob Schieffer for indulging in a baseball metaphor. It's that time of year, for one thing. For another, the task before him actually has "taken on a last-game-of-the-World Series atmosphere," as he puts it. There will be two other guys onstage with Schieffer when he moderates the final debate in Tempe, Ariz., on Wednesday, and chances are the performances of President Bush and his Democratic challenger, Massachusetts Sen. John F.