Daniel Schorr is Gone

Thank you for breaking this news LittleK. I've been listening to NPR since about 1995, a mere minute's worth in Daniel Schorr's very and respectable career.

A giant has left the airwaves and he will be missed.

NPR has been slipping in commentary and remembrances of him today.

One of the most moral and respected journalist in the world.

BBB

From a generation of reporters, not paid toadies.

What I remember is his voice.

A very admired and respected man.

Oh no---thanks for breaking the news, but what a loss! I only started to listen to Daniel Schorr when I moved to America. But I always liked how unpretentious, relaxed and plainspoken he was without ever dumbing anything down. And he had a backbone, too! I remember a long interview with him about what it was like to be an independent-minded journalist during the Nixon era. Chilling stuff. But somehow he managed to never let them break him.

His sharp intellect and excellent memory, to say nothing of his objectivity, made him a roll model, someone to point to and say here is a reason to respect senior citizens; here is a reason why journalism is important.

A very poignant commentary considering the events of this week:

Listening to the NPR tribute to Schorr, I feel his loss more than I felt the loss of Walter Cronkite. Who will keep the flame of journalism alive?

i never made it beyond the rookie job and I longed to switch to book publishing and to become the next Nan Talese (ha), but, in my heart, I was always a journalist.

I think closing the foreign bureaus was a mistake of the magnitude of the US dismantling the national rail system. I say that not because I am a romantic or because I think backwards, but, because despite technical innovations, despite occasional lulls in the utility of institutions like journalism and rail travel, there are ideas that are basic, so good and so vital that we, as a society, turn our backs on them at our own peril.

The internet is not necessarily more democratic although it has allowed intelligent and introspective people a voice. The internet is the 100 Years War and the Wild West rolled into one improbable ball, lawless, destructive and disordered.

Schorr was sometimes lawless but never disordered and certainly never destructive.