David Brinkley has died

Wonderful journalist, broadcaster and author - his professionalism and wittiness was a breath of fresh air. Sometimes the things he said were so funny, he laughed at his own humor, which was OK and fitting. Just watching him get the giggles made me laugh, too.

---BumbleBeeBoogie


David Brinkley Dies
Veteran Broadcaster Dead at 82
June 12 ?- Veteran ABCNEWS reporter David Brinkley has died.

Brinkley died Wednesday night at his home in Houston of complications from a fall. He was 82.

"For those of us who were privileged to work with him over his long and outstanding career, we know that he set a shining example for everyone in broadcast journalism," ABCNEWS President David Westin said. "ABCNEWS has a richer heritage because of his many contributions to the network."

Brinkley and his first wife, Ann, divorced in the 1960s and he married Susan Benfer in 1972. He leaves four children, including Alan, who is an American Book Award-winning historian, and Joel, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.

Considered by many to be the premier broadcast journalist of his time, Brinkley covered every president, starting with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, until his retirement in 1996. His career spanned more than 50 years, most of it in Washington, much of it spent hosting what became a Sunday morning staple, ABCNEWS' This Week With David Brinkley.

Brinkley's colleagues at ABCNEWS praised his distinctive style of reporting.

"He was the first person who believed you could give a little edge to your closing commentary on the broadcast, and I think we all, those of us who were viewers, we all found him refreshing," said ABCNEWS' World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings.

ABCNEWS' Diane Sawyer credited Brinkley with improving both the substance and style of television news.

"He saved journalism from terminal earnestness," she said.

From Cub Reporter to Network TV Star

Brinkley got his start in journalism when he was a high school student in his native Wilmington, N.C., writing for the Wilmington Morning Star.

His father, a railroad man, died when Brinkley was 8 and his mother showed little interest in the five children she was left to raise alone, he once said. Since he was much younger than his four siblings, Brinkley took refuge in books.

"I would go every day after school and stay till it closed … That's really where I learned what little I know. I once took out Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West. The librarian said I was the only one in Wilmington who would ever read it, so she gave it to me. I still have it," he told the Washington Post in 1974.

When he was 15, a teacher saw his talent for writing and suggested a career in journalism.

After his discharge from the service in World War II, he landed his first network job, at NBC. He was assigned to cover the White House for NBC radio when he was only 23.

His big break came when he teamed up with Chet Huntley to cover the 1956 political conventions. NBC executives liked the pairing so much they handed them the evening news slot. Brinkley's pithy, authoritative onscreen style helped the show garner first place in the ratings battle against CBS' Walter Cronkite.

The New York Times gave the show and Brinkley high marks, raving that a "quiet southerner with a dry wit and a heaven-sent appreciation for brevity has stolen the television limelight."

A 1960s survey once found that them team of Huntley and Brinkley had more name recognition than the Beatles. In the course of his career, Brinkley won just about every award they hand out in the business of journalism, including 10 Emmy's, three Peabody Awards, and the highest honor the nation can bestow on a civilian: the Medal of Freedom Award.

Their program produced perhaps the most famous sign off in the history of broadcast news, though the pair was never fond of it themselves.

"Huntley and I both disliked, 'Good night Chet, good night David,' " he once reflected. "We didn't like it."

A Sunday Fixture on This Week

When he moved to ABCNEWS to create This Week With David Brinkley, the veteran newsman brought his insider view of politics, but also drew viewers with a lively free-for-all discussion between Brinkley, Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts, and George Will.

During the hour-long show Brinkley played the objective moderator, but he also revealed some of himself at the end of each show in a short commentary. One favorite topic was an announcement by the IRS on how they planned to collect taxes in the wake of a nuclear war.

"It says in areas of the country hardest hit, delinquent taxpayers will be given a little extra time. Otherwise, taxes will be collected as usual," he said.

When he retired after his some 60 years in journalism, Brinkley said he looked back with satisfaction.

"If I were 20 years old, I would try to do the same thing again, all of it," he told a New York Times interviewer ?- his son Joel ?- in a February 1997 profile. "I have no regrets. None at all."