Demise of the radio commentator: An irreparable loss to broadcast journalism |
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| Abstract: | Opinion on the airwaves, once the province of a select few exceptionally qualified journalist‐historians, is now the domain of strident talk show hosts and callers. Radio opens its microphones to public cranks, but not to those best equipped to offer a lucid point of view. The commentator—the gifted essayist whose function was to extract meaning and context from the day's news—is simply extinct, a relic of radio's Golden Age. The irony is, never has he or she been more needed. A grand tradition of broadcast journalism has been abandoned. This article looks back at three icons of radio news: H. V. Kaltenborn, Elmer Davis, and Raymond Gram Swing; the standards they set. . . and a forgotten legacy. |
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