WPCNR WHITE PLAINS VOICE. By John F. Bailey. June 12, 2003: When I interviewed David Brinkley, it was 1966, and the 6 foot 3 anchorman was visiting the Ohio Wesleyan University campus in Delaware, Ohio, (where I was matriculating). Mr. Brinkley was appearing as part of a Lecture-Movie Series.
I was a campus radio station News Director at the time and naturally sought an interview. Tables turned, Mr. Brinkley, after answering hundreds of questions from a packed house at OWU’s Grey Chapel hall, graciously submitted to one more set of questions from a nervous young reporter on Vietnam, the peace process, the like, treating me with a respect and courtesy I remember to this day.
He was serious, thoughtful, measured in his responses with the wry wit, and not in love with himself, as so many “reporters” are today. That was obvious from the way he looked me in the eye, smiled, and sought to put my nervousness at ease.
David Brinkley had class, poise, and a single mindedness of purpose to report things as he found them. He died Tuesday evening in Houston from a fall according to the Associated Press.
Because of how he treated me that day, I always remembered him with respect, and modeled myself after his courteous easy going style, or at least tried to. Viewers of White Plains Week who remember Mr. Brinkley’s days as “interpretative foil” to his Montana-bred sidekick, Chet Huntley, will recognize my homage to him in the show’s blatant steal of the Huntley, Brinkley signoff, in which Mr. Brinkley would end the nightly NBC newscast saying, “Goodnight Chet,” and Mr. Brinkley would respond in his gravelly voice, “Good night, David, and Good night for NBC News.”
The Huntley-Brinkley team revolutionized convention coverage where they would be on the air for hundreds of hours straight it seemed, with Mr. Brinkley droning on like a politicalized Mel Allen with anecdotes and observations, eruditely, cleverly delivered adlib. Mr. Brinkley set the style for political commentating in a style uniquely his own. He used the appropriate word. Something today’s anchorpersons have no command of whatsoever.
Mr. Brinkley made you pay attention with his softspoken, in control style, that never rattled, with no fear of expressing his opinions of speeches, events, and directions matters were heading. He directed his own questioning, asked hard questions, and made the interview about his subject, not himself.
He was an original and can be said, in his style, to have elevated the profession of news reading to the level of news anchoring, anchoring being the art of getting at why things happened, and shedding light on where they are going and bringing out the story behind the story. This subtle elevation of the art of news created by Mr. Brinkley bringing what Edward R. Murrow did in specials, to the news every day was pioneering in an era where the media were far more pressured by politicians than they are today.
The Huntley Brinkley Report as Mr. Brinkley’s show was known was the first to use two anchors to deliver the news to hold viewers’ attention and it made NBC News instantly competitive with CBS, thanks to Mr. Brinkley’s colorful and thought-provoking delivery.
He was able to do this because he wrote and spoke in a style that was thoughtful. He strung together words well adlib and mastered the end of the sentence zinger, which is not an easy thing to do.
Mr. Brinkley did not style his hair. He did not dye it as he aged, as anchors do today. He did not have plastic surgery, or whiten his teeth. Up to his last few years, he would appear on camera for ABC with snowwhite hair his craggy aged face without pretentions. He reported. He was not the story. He called the stories as he found them, he did not spin them.
Good night, David, and thank you for U.S.A. News.