Broadcast Pioneers

Lowell Thomas (1892-1981) was an American writer, actor, radio broadcaster, and traveler remembered for publicizing T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia). Thomas was a relentless self-promoter, and he persuaded railroads to give him free passage in exchange for articles extolling rail travel. When he visited Alaska, he hit upon the idea of the travelogue, movies about faraway places. He pioneered the use of motion pictures in reporting news with his multimedia shows on the First World War. Working with a new form of journalism—movie newsreels—was a natural step for him, specifically, Fox Movietone News in the 1940s.

Thomas helped establish the broadcast news format. The newscast’s steady factual style reflected his newspaper experience which was distinct from the sensational staccato of his contemporary, Walter Winchell whose background was from Broadway’s vaudeville. With clear elocution—owing to his doctoral degree in speech —and a worldly air, he calmly delivered the news along with nonpartisan commentary.

In 1945, Thomas received the Alfred I. duPont Award. In 1971, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. Five years later, President Gerald Ford awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1989. The Thomas Mountains in Antarctica are named for him.

Broadcast Pioneers

Walter Cronkite (1916-2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981. Cronkite received numerous honors including two Peabody Awards, a George Polk Award, an Emmy Award, and in 1981 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Jimmy Carter. He was the only non-NASA recipient of an Ambassador of Exploration award. Cronkite is vividly remembered for breaking the news of the assassination of John F. Kennedy and reporting into the wee hours on the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Cronkite reported many events in his career, including bombings in World War II, the Nuremberg trials, combat in the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Iran Hostage Crisis, and the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, civil rights pioneer Martin Luther King Jr., and Beatles musician John Lennon. He was also known for his extensive coverage of the U.S. space program. Considered universally the dean of broadcast news, he is known for his departing catchphrase, "and that's the way it is", followed by the date of the broadcast. The phrase was often used in parody.

Perhaps due to his low register voice, his mustache, and his comforting tone, in certain circles, he was affectionately referred to as "Uncle Walter." Cronkite served in an era when politically biased reporting was kept under wraps. His political leanings became a bit more forthcoming after leaving his anchor post.

Broadcast Pioneers: The NBC Three

Edwin Newman (1919-2010) was an American newscaster, journalist, and author, known for a 23-year career in television news with NBC beginning in 1961. Newman specialized in reporting breaking news, reporting for Republican and Democratic conventions, and as a moderator for Presidential debates. He was also known for his dry wit on and off camera.

Sander Vanocur (1928-2019) was an American television journalist who focused on U.S. national electoral politics, primarily for NBC News and ABC News. He served as White House correspondent and national political correspondent for NBC News in the 1960s and early 1970s. After his service in the United States Army, he began his journalism career as a reporter on the London staff of The Manchester Guardian and also did general reporting for The New York Times.

Garrick Utley (1939-2014) was an American television journalist and reporter, joined NBC News in 1963 as a researcher in Europe for The Huntley-Brinkley Report as a Foreign and Principal correspondent. His reporting on the Vietnam War has the distinction of being the first full-time television correspondent to cover the war on-site. The versatile Utley was also an anchor, frequently substituting for NBC's John Chancellor. 

From left to right above, Edwin Newman, Sander Vanocur, and Garrick Utley

Broadcast Pioneers

Howard K. Smith (1914-2002) was an American journalist, radio reporter, television anchorman, and political commentator. He was one of the legends of early television news broadcasting. His initial "K" stood for Kingsbury.

Smith's career blossomed by 1940, when he was sent to Berlin, joining the CBS network under Edward R. Murrow, making him one of the original members of the team of war correspondents known as one of Murrow Boys. Smith returned to Berlin to recap the German surrender in May of 1945.  went to London for CBS with the title of chief European correspondent. CBS sent him to London in 1947, to make a broadcasting tour of most of the nations of Europe, including behind the Iron Curtain.

Smith was embroiled in a contract dispute with CBS in 1962 for editorializing during a broadcast. He was subsequently fired. With his move to the ABC network, Smith reported on the Robert F. Kennedy assassination, moderated political debates, and assessed President Lyndon Johnson's presidency. Smith became the first national television commentator to call for Nixon's resignation over Watergate. Smith remained a co-anchor at ABC until 1975.

Smith was honored five times with various awards, spanning 1955 to 1963. He made a number of appearances in motion pictures and television as himself over nearly a twenty-year period starting in 1964.

Broadcast Pioneers

Douglas Edwards (1917-1990) was an American radio and television newscaster and correspondent and is regarded as the first "anchorman" of a nationally televised, regularly scheduled newscast by an American network. His four-decade career was contracted to the CBS network.

Born in Oklahoma, he and his widowed mother moved to Alabama in 1932. There the teenage Edwards was paid $2.50 a week to be a "junior announcer", a disc jockey, and to fill any lapses during broadcasts by reading poetry and even singing (after a fashion) occasionally. After college, he remained intent on working in radio, and between 1935 and 1940, he found employment at a small station at WSB in Atlanta and at WXYZ in Detroit where he served as a newscaster and announcer. His big break was an offer from CBS Radio in 1942 to move to New York as an assistant announcer and understudy to journalist John Charles Daly.

In the fledgling days of television of 1947, Edwards was chosen by CBS to host the 1948 Democratic and Republican national conventions. Edwards presented news on CBS television every weeknight for fifteen years, from 1947 until 1962. Initially aired as a 15-minute program under the title CBS Television News, the broadcast evolved into the CBS Evening News and expanded to a 30-minute format in 1963 under Walter Cronkite, who succeeded Edwards as anchor of the newscast. Edwards retired from CBS in 1988.

Twentieth Century Talkers

 

John Charles Daly (John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly, 1914-1991) was an American journalist, radio and television personality, ABC News executive, TV anchor, and game show host. 

Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, by eleven his home was in Boston, Massachusetts where he attended Tilton School, eventually graduating from Boston College. He became a reporter for NBC Radio and, later, CBS and was the first national correspondent to report the attack on Pearl Harbor and the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. 

With television on the brink, by 1950 he became the host and moderator on the CBS panel show produced by Goodson–Todman, What's My Line? The show lasted 17 years, with Daly hosting all but four episodes of the weekly series. During this time, Daly became the vice president in charge of news, special events, public affairs, religious programs and sports for ABC and won three Peabody Awards. There was no conflict with What's My Line? because he was employed by Goodson-Todman Productions, not CBS. Daly's closing line on the ABC newscasts was "Good night and a good tomorrow." In 1959, along with the Associated Press writer John Scali, Daly, above far left, reported from Moscow on the infamous "Kitchen Debate" between First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev and Vice President Richard M. Nixon.

He filled in occasionally on NBC's The Today Show, making Daly one of the few people to work simultaneously on all three networks. One memorable broadcast during the show was when Harpo Marx was promoting his book Harpo Speaks. Marx caused such on-camera chaos for Daly, he became completely convulsed in laughter during the live telecast. 

Note: He provided the voice of a CONELRAD for a 1954 broadcast of The Motorola Television Hour on ABC titled Atomic Attack, which showcased a suburban family dealing with the aftermath of a hypothetical H-bomb attack fifty miles away. It was later reflected in the 1962 film, Panic In The Year Zero. CONELRAD (Control of Electromagnetic Radiation) was a method of emergency broadcasting to the US public in the event of an enemy attack during the Cold War.

Twentieth Century Talkers

 

Dew Pearson (Andrew Russell Pearson 1897-1969) was one of the best-known American columnists and radio commentators of his day. He was known for his fearless approach toward high-level politicians, often creating friction. Pearson saw journalism as a means to challenge those he thought to be working against the public interest. He has been quoted as saying, "I just operate with a sense of smell: if something smells wrong, I go to work." Though he sounded fierce in print, in life was gentle, even stately.

Born in Evanston, Illinois, to Quaker parents, Pearson served with the American Friends Service Committee from 1919-1921, directing postwar rebuilding operations in Peć, which at that time was part of Serbia. In 1924, he taught industrial geography at Columbia University, and from 1925 to 1928, continued reporting on international events. By late 1932, Pearson and Robert S. Allen secured a contract with the Scripps–Howard syndicate, United Features, to syndicate a column called Washington Merry-Go-Round. Pearson's column not only revealed embarrassing news items but expanded his criticism of the Roosevelt administration's conduct during World War II. He dug into post-war investigations about the FBI, Preston Tucker, and Senator Joe McCarthy. At the time of his death, his column was syndicated to more than 650 newspapers, more than twice that of others.

In addition to radio, Pearson appeared as himself in a number of Hollywood movies, most notably in the 1951 science fiction classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still. Character actor Robert F. Simon, who somewhat resembled Pearson, played him in the 1977 NBC television movie Tail Gunner Joe, a biopic of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Television Talkers: The Early Years

 

John Cameron Swayze (1906-1995) was an American news commentator 
during the 1940s and 1950s who later became best known as a product spokesman. Born in Wichita, Kansas, Swayze initially sought to work as an actor. However, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 curtailed acting roles on Broadway and he ended up in radio by 1933.

Swayze hosted the radio program Stranger Than Fiction. In addition, he worked in sports, writing about and broadcasting football games, and took part in early experimental television broadcasts. By 1940, Swayze was working full-time doing news updates for Kansas City's KMBZ. He broadcast news items prepared by United Press Kansas City bureau overnight editor Walter Cronkite. By 1946, Swayze was hired by NBC as director of news and special events for its Western Division. Two years later, NBC produced The Camel Newsreel Theatre, a 10-minute program of daily events using newsreel film, which Swayze narrated and often scripted.

Eventually, NBC executives tired of Swayze's flamboyant delivery style, in contrast to anchorman Douglas Edwards's comparatively low-key delivery on CBS. The ouster offered him various television roles as a game show panelist and product pitchman. For twenty years beginning in 1956, Swayze became widely known as the commercial pitchman for Timex watches, subjecting Timex watches to grueling physical tests. After retrieving the watch, his authoritative delivery was perfect for the company's slogan, "It takes a licking and keeps on ticking." 

Broadcast Pioneers

 

Eric Sevareid (1912-1992) was an American author and CBS news journalist, one of a group of elite war correspondents who were hired by CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow and nicknamed "Murrow's Boys." Sevareid was the first to report the Fall of Paris in 1940 after the city was captured by German forces during World War II. Severeid had pointed views away from the reporting microphones, especially during his later personal commentary segments, that sometimes divided his viewers into two camps.

Blessed with an old-school vocal delivery, Sevareid's work during World War II was at the forefront of broadcasting. He was a commentator on the CBS Evening News for thirteen years, winning Emmy and Peabody Awards. Sevareid's demeanor was one of authority and trustworthiness, all brought to the airwaves with intelligence. From 1959 to 1961, Sevareid was CBS's roving European correspondent, contributing stories to CBS Reports during that time. Sevareid joined Walter Cronkite on CBS television with a commentary about the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the road ahead for the new president, Lyndon Johnson. He retired from the CBS network in 1977 but continued to contribute with independent projects, even playing himself on an episode of the sitcom Taxi in 1980.