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Douglas Edwards And The News

J

joeybabe25

Doug Edwards was CBS' anchor for 15 years and I have yet to see any kine, tape or film that amounts to much.

Walter Cronkite's first 30 minute newscast is on YouTube (most likely preserved because of that, and the fact that he had a long chat with JFK on the inaugural cast.

Has anyone ever seen a nightly Douglas Edwards And The News that aired between 1947-62? And a question to those who remember DE as a newsman; how were his credentials viewed by other news hounds and in general.

Also is there a book about Douglas Edwards or an autobiography?

Last note; I wrote him a fan letter when I was 15 in 1973. I had become enamored of all things "early 60's" and I thought Douglas Edwards was being wasted on CBS Radio. He sent me a very nice return letter and a signed photo. I have heard and read that he was one of the nicest guys in the business.

Joe
 
I, too, have always liked Douglas Edwards. I think it says quite a lot that even after he was replaced on the CBS Evening News by Walter Cronkite that he remained at CBS. In addition to TV, he was also on the CBS Radio Network. In fact, one of his weekday newscasts also introduced a soap opera called "Wendy Warren and The News". She would be featured on the newscast with a women's feature and then after the news ended, her the program began.
 
I guess there's always controversy when CBS replaces one anchor for another. Certainly Edwards wasn't happy when Walter Cronkite replaced him on the CBS Evening News. But he was a good CBS soldier, staying on for quite a few years after that.

His schedule was several CBS Radio newscasts in the afternoon and early evening as well as one or two TV updates that CBS and NBC used to do a few times a day at :55 past the hour during the soap operas and game shows.

I was lucky enough to meet him briefly around 1980 at the CBS News building on West 57th Street (a reconverted dairy building). A friend had gotten a producer's job with CBS News and was giving me the nickel tour. It was about 10 minutes after 7pm and Edwards had his coat on, ready to leave. We introduced ourselves and he shook our hands. It was interesting that he had just done the 7pm radio news and was out the door by 7:10. I guess when you're a pro, there's no need to hang around once the last newscast has been delivered.

Wikipedia has a good write up on Edwards...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Edwards
 
EJ204 said:
I guess there's always controversy when CBS replaces one anchor for another. Certainly Edwards wasn't happy when Walter Cronkite replaced him on the CBS Evening News. But he was a good CBS soldier, staying on for quite a few years after that.
Click to expand...

Didn't he do the local channel 2 news after leaving the tv network?

Joe
 
From his 1990 obit:

"He was one of the first television reporters to work on location, providing an on-the-scene report when Puerto Rican nationalists shot five congressmen in the House of Representatives in 1954 and an exclusive eyewitness account of the sinking of the Italian liner Andrea Doria in 1956. That year, he won the George Foster Peabody Award for ''best television news.''

It's not a bio, but the link below (starting with pg. 38) is from the book, "Anchoring America." It gives a pretty good analysis of Edwards' career and how Edward R. Murrow wasn't really a big fan of his:

http://books.google.com/books?id=tA...A#v=onepage&q="douglas edwards" "cbs"&f=false
 
Sorry about that. If you put in "Douglas Edwards" and "CBS" in Google Books, the book should be at the top. As noted, Edwards' section begins at p. 38.
 
In interviews he had said that at the time, he felt getting moved from radio to television might
have ended his career. He was very well-established on radio as a member of the William L. Shirer
team of war correspondents. Conversely television was seen as something of a novel toy, and in
his mind feared he might never be heard from again.
 
In Gary Paul Gates' history of CBS News, "Air Time," he recounts
that Edwards anchored CBS's 1948 convention coverage (both
conventions were held in Philadelphia, which had a microwave
link to New York) and that afterwards Frank Stanton personally
called him about anchoring the early-evening newscast CBS was
planning. Stanton sold him with the ideas that (1) none of the
"Murrow boys" were what he was looking for, and (2) television
was only going to get bigger and Edwards more famous than Murrow
(I don't think that quite happened).

Cronkite used to tell a story about the day CBS announced that
he was replacing Edwards; he looked up and there, standing in his
office door, was Edwards, who came in, offered to shake hands, and
told Cronkite to let him know if there was anything he could do for him.
"That was the classiest thing I ever saw," said Cronkite.

Edwards was not entirely happy with being demoted to the daytime
television newscast and the radio newscasts; he had hoped to get
the weekend news or maybe some "CBS Reports" documentaries. His
only other steady exposure was on the 1980s Sunday-morning religious
program "For Our Times."

But as John Cameron Swayze's producer told Don Hewitt, "At least your
guy had the class to stay in the business. I mean, he didn't go out and
become a watch salesman." (reference to Swayze as spokesperson for Timex)
 
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