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thatcrazycajunThe House of Murrow and Cronkite has lost another of its best and noblest. Scant weeks after the death of Christopher "In the News" Glenn, Ed Bradley, for 26 years a fixture on CBS News' crown jewel, 60 Minutes, and a frequent contributor to many of its other programs, has died at only 65 years of age, taken by leukemia. CBSNews.com has the full story. (Thanks to ![[info]](https://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
tovahs for the heads-up.) Nothing but praise flows from his colleagues at all networks today, and rightly so. (No less an icon than his 60M co-host Mike Wallace called him "a reporter's reporter.")
I weep for the news, not only for his family, friends and co-workers but for the profession and for all us viewers who lose by not having his sonorous baritone and dogged newsman's instincts to bring us the day's important information. Nor should we forget that he was one of the earliest and highest-reaching African Americans in TV news, along with Bernard Shaw and the late Max Robinson.
ADDENDUM, 7:00 pm: Having just watched The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric tonight pay tribute to Bradley and seen so much more of this man than I had ever even known, I bawl like a newborn all over again at knowing he is gone. I wish to God above I had been lucky enough to know Ed Bradley personally, as these people he worked with and interviewed and mentored and helped did. Not just a journalist, in the best sense of that word, but an astounding human being in his warmth, his generous spirit, his humor, his gutsy courage, his boundless enthusiasm for life and reporting. A quiet philanthropist, a caring teacher, a loving husband, a champion for his friends and co-workers...and a lover of music in all genres, but most especially jazz, counting Wynton Marsalis, Jimmy Buffett and Aaron Neville as personal friends, and even sitting in with them on occasion. A regular at my beloved New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, he was, and I know his heart must've broken as mine did to see the city's agony after the floods of Katrina--and it must've soared as mine did, too, to see JazzFest back this year in all its raucous glory, better than ever.
If you wonder why the Columbia Broadcasting System is called "the Tiffany network," if you wonder why its news organization is held up as the gold standard for broadcast journalism the world over, even if you had never heard names like Murrow and Cronkite, Rather and Wallace, Reasoner and Sevareid, Stahl and Safer...all you would ever have to do is look at this man and his work to see the reason. (And thanks to the voluminous video and audio archives of his work freely available for sampling at CBSNews.com, you can...and you should.) We are all the poorer for his loss...but also all the richer for his having lived and worked among us. He raised the bar for what it means to be a reporter, and to be a person.
In a taped excerpt tonight, Bradley is shown saying, "If I died and got to the Pearly Gates, and St. Peter asked me, 'What have you done to earn admission?' I'd just say, 'Did you see my Lena Horne story?'" Oh, Mr. Bradley, I promise you, you will not have to justify your admission in the least; in fact, I would be aghast if ol' Pete didn't just throw the gates open wide and say, "Come on in, Ed! Great to see you!" Rest easy and free from pain at last, sir...and thank you from the bottom of this old news junkie's heart.
tovahs for the heads-up.) Nothing but praise flows from his colleagues at all networks today, and rightly so. (No less an icon than his 60M co-host Mike Wallace called him "a reporter's reporter.") I weep for the news, not only for his family, friends and co-workers but for the profession and for all us viewers who lose by not having his sonorous baritone and dogged newsman's instincts to bring us the day's important information. Nor should we forget that he was one of the earliest and highest-reaching African Americans in TV news, along with Bernard Shaw and the late Max Robinson.
ADDENDUM, 7:00 pm: Having just watched The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric tonight pay tribute to Bradley and seen so much more of this man than I had ever even known, I bawl like a newborn all over again at knowing he is gone. I wish to God above I had been lucky enough to know Ed Bradley personally, as these people he worked with and interviewed and mentored and helped did. Not just a journalist, in the best sense of that word, but an astounding human being in his warmth, his generous spirit, his humor, his gutsy courage, his boundless enthusiasm for life and reporting. A quiet philanthropist, a caring teacher, a loving husband, a champion for his friends and co-workers...and a lover of music in all genres, but most especially jazz, counting Wynton Marsalis, Jimmy Buffett and Aaron Neville as personal friends, and even sitting in with them on occasion. A regular at my beloved New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, he was, and I know his heart must've broken as mine did to see the city's agony after the floods of Katrina--and it must've soared as mine did, too, to see JazzFest back this year in all its raucous glory, better than ever.
If you wonder why the Columbia Broadcasting System is called "the Tiffany network," if you wonder why its news organization is held up as the gold standard for broadcast journalism the world over, even if you had never heard names like Murrow and Cronkite, Rather and Wallace, Reasoner and Sevareid, Stahl and Safer...all you would ever have to do is look at this man and his work to see the reason. (And thanks to the voluminous video and audio archives of his work freely available for sampling at CBSNews.com, you can...and you should.) We are all the poorer for his loss...but also all the richer for his having lived and worked among us. He raised the bar for what it means to be a reporter, and to be a person.
In a taped excerpt tonight, Bradley is shown saying, "If I died and got to the Pearly Gates, and St. Peter asked me, 'What have you done to earn admission?' I'd just say, 'Did you see my Lena Horne story?'" Oh, Mr. Bradley, I promise you, you will not have to justify your admission in the least; in fact, I would be aghast if ol' Pete didn't just throw the gates open wide and say, "Come on in, Ed! Great to see you!" Rest easy and free from pain at last, sir...and thank you from the bottom of this old news junkie's heart.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-15 11:29 pm (UTC)