Journalist Ed Bradley dies

[shereads]

Of leukemia, at age 65. Vietnam war correspondent, first African American to act as White House correspondent for one of the major networks (CBS), frequent contributor to "60 Minutes," and winner of 19 Emmy awards.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6461954

http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/206/blurb200gc7.jpg

 

[shereads]

Video clips


Brief highlights of Ed Bradley's career with CBS News, worth seeing especially for his interviews with George Burns, Mohammed Ali and Lena Horne.

 

[shereads]

"I think when William Paley started this company {the CBS network} and for the years when CBS ruled the roost, his attitude was that he made money from "I Love Lucy" and the other programs he had on in prime time, and that the news division was his gift to the American people. It was a public service, not something that he expected to make money on.

"And I think that radically changed with the advent of 60 Minutes, because 60 Minutes became wildly popular, reached number one in the '70s, the '80s and the '90s, the first broadcast to do that... still finishes in the top 20, far ahead of any other news program, and still makes money for this company, so that you have a corporate shift in that you don't have someone who sits there, as Mr. Paley did, and say, 'I'm not interested in making money from this news division.' The news division today is like any other division: It's expected to earn its way."

~ Ed Bradley on the state of American television journalism

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Ed Bradley

 

[Alessia Brio]

I used to fantasize about him.

 

[MagicaPractica]

Wow. Slight shock.

 

[Guest]

I didn't realize he was that young.

 

[amicus]

While I am not one to ignore, "ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee..." I have sort of an affinity for the late Ed Bradley and his left wing cohorts, Mike Wallace and Dan Rather and the liberal bias they expresses and glorified on broadcast television over the past 40 years.

Bradley and I were of about the same generation...my first job in radio wasn't the glorious $1.50 an hour he got, but a paltry $1.00, but he was a bearded black man in the 60's and 70's, the darling of the media and the affirmative action poster boy for a generation.

Unlike most of you, who are just too young to know, I noticed Bradley's career on television and CBS's 60 minutes, he became the 'token nigger' and was unabashedly presented as such.

His interviews with Muhammed Ali (the boxer) and Lena Horn, the jazz singer, (yes, I watched the Charlie Rose memorial also), illustrated his special 'in' with the black community that so endeared him to the liberal community.

But I watched, over the years, much more than that, and although he recieved 19 Emmy Awards, as someone pointed out, in the hundreds of his appearances I never once saw an award winning performance, insight or compassionate vision of a news subject that was broadcast.

Now we all understand the connections and ties between the entertainment world, both in Hollywood and New York City, the screen and the stage and musicians that accompany them, and the 'liberal' literature by popular authors that get to be plays and movies and the obscene sights of liberals giving liberals awards on stages, but, for goodness sakes, how about just an ounce of objectivity?

No, this is not sour grapes, just a reality check for some of the usual suspects who get away with the media blitz without criticism.

Not this time.

amicus...

 

[Guest]

Ami -

You're such a dick.

Find another thread to bash liberals, 'kay?

 

[shereads]

While I am not one to ignore, "ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee..." I have sort of an affinity for the late Ed Bradley and his left wing cohorts, Mike Wallace and Dan Rather and the liberal bias they expresses and glorified on broadcast television over the past 40 years.

Bradley and I were of about the same generation...my first job in radio wasn't the glorious $1.50 an hour he got, but a paltry $1.00, but he was a bearded black man in the 60's and 70's, the darling of the media and the affirmative action poster boy for a generation.

Unlike most of you, who are just too young to know, I noticed Bradley's career on television and CBS's 60 minutes, he became the 'token nigger' and was unabashedly presented as such.

His interviews with Muhammed Ali (the boxer) and Lena Horn, the jazz singer, (yes, I watched the Charlie Rose memorial also), illustrated his special 'in' with the black community that so endeared him to the liberal community.

But I watched, over the years, much more than that, and although he recieved 19 Emmy Awards, as someone pointed out, in the hundreds of his appearances I never once saw an award winning performance, insight or compassionate vision of a news subject that was broadcast.

Now we all understand the connections and ties between the entertainment world, both in Hollywood and New York City, the screen and the stage and musicians that accompany them, and the 'liberal' literature by popular authors that get to be plays and movies and the obscene sights of liberals giving liberals awards on stages, but, for goodness sakes, how about just an ounce of objectivity?

No, this is not sour grapes, just a reality check for some of the usual suspects who get away with the media blitz without criticism.

Not this time.

amicus...

You're right, amicus. Being born black is the easiest route to the good life. Being white is an unfair burden and the only thing standing between you and a highly regarded career in journalism.

Now go away. You should be ashamed of yourself.

 

[shereads]

dignity, style and substance

From CBS News online:

Bradley joined CBS News as a stringer in its Paris bureau in September 1971. A year later, he was transferred to the Saigon bureau, where he remained until he was assigned to CBS News' Washington bureau in June 1974. He was named a CBS News correspondent in April 1973 and, shortly thereafter, was wounded while on assignment in Cambodia. In March 1975, he volunteered to return to Indochina and covered the fall of Cambodia and Vietnam.

Other hour-long reports by Bradley prompted praise and action: "Death by Denial" won a Peabody Award for focusing on the plight of Africans dying of AIDS and helped convince drug companies to donate and discount AIDS drugs; "Unsafe Haven" spurred federal investigations into the nation's largest chain of psychiatric hospitals; and "Town Under Siege," about a small town battling toxic waste, was named one of the Ten Best Television Programs of 1997 by Time magazine.

Bradley's significant contribution to electronic journalism was also recognized by the Radio/Television News Directors Association when it named him its Paul White Award winner for 2000, joining distinguished journalists such as Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite and Peter Jennings as a Paul White recipient.

More recently, the Denver Press Club awarded him its 2003 Damon Runyon Award for career journalistic excellence. Bradley also received the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards grand prize and television first prize for "CBS Reports: In the Killing Fields of America," a documentary about violence in America, for which he was co-anchor and reporter.

Bradley's work on 60 Minutes gained him much recognition, including a George Foster Peabody Award for "Big Man, Big Voice," the uplifting story of a German singer who became successful despite birth defects. In 1995, he won his 11th Emmy for a 60 Minutes segment on the cruel effects of nuclear testing in the town of Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan — a report that also won him an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award in 1994.

In 1983, two of Bradley’s reports for 60 Minutes won Emmy Awards: "In the Belly of the Beast," an interview with Jack Henry Abbott, a convicted murderer and author, and "Lena," a profile of singer Lena Horne. He received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton and a 1991 Emmy Award for his report "Made in China," a look at Chinese forced-labor camps, and another Emmy in 1992 for "Caitlin’s Story," an examination of the controversy between the parents of a deaf child and a deaf association.

In addition to "In the Killing Fields," his work for "CBS Reports" included: "Enter the Jury Room," an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award winner that revealed the jury deliberation process for the first time in front of network cameras. A series of stories from 1979 were award winners, including: "The Boat People," which won duPont, Emmy and Overseas Press Club Awards; "The Boston Goes to China," a report on the historic visit to China by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which won Emmy, Peabody and Ohio State Awards, and "Blacks in America: With All Deliberate Speed?," which won Emmy and duPont Awards.

Bradley's coverage of the plight of Cambodian refugees, broadcast on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite and CBS News Sunday Morning, won a George Polk Award in journalism.

He also received a duPont citation for a segment on the Cambodian situation broadcast on CBS News' "Magazine" series. He covered the presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter during 1976, served as a floor correspondent for CBS News' coverage of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions from 1976 through 1996, and has participated in CBS News' election-night coverage.

Prior to joining 60 Minutes, Bradley was a principal correspondent for "CBS Reports" from 1978 to 1981, after serving as CBS News' White House correspondent from 1976 to 1978. He was also anchor of the "CBS Sunday Night News” from 1976 to 1981 and of the CBS News magazine "Street Stories" from January 1992 to August 1993.

A lifelong fan of jazz, Bradley took on a side gig in recent years as radio host for "Jazz at Lincoln Center," for which he won one of his four Peabody awards.

What was Bradley's secret to getting such renowned stories? Schieffer said it was all in his style.

"Ed knew everyone from Jimmy Carter to Jimmy Buffett. He made people comfortable. He wasn't the bulldog type reporter like Mike Wallace," Schieffer said. "He set people at ease and got them to talk. Sometimes that was in their interest and sometimes it wasn't. But he was like Columbo, who had that disarming style and the knack of getting that last answer out of someone."

60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft said: "I think the thing that made him terrific was his presence. There was a dignity about him... a perfect mix of style and substance."

 

[Trinique_Fire]

Wow. When I opened this thread I was like who the hell is this guy, but when I saw his picture, I remembered.

I used to watch 60 minutes at a REALLLLY young age with my mom. I think Ed Bradley's face is one of the first major ones in my life. That and Rooney's.