Friday

Remembering David
Brinkley, the man

He said what others only mumbled. He was a pip.

By Toni Fitzgerald

   He was smart and he was wry. He knew when to let the news speak for itself and when to add his own clipped, measured observations.
   He never sucked up or sucked wind. He had enough color to make Richard Nixon’s enemies list and enough sense to label Sen. Joe McCarthy a loudmouthed liar, enough ego to demand that his boss at NBC be fired and enough humility to walk away quietly from the network that was his home for decades when that request was denied.
A man of wit and candor, he did not talk down to his audience, but was adept at talking down to the targets of his carefully weighed commentaries, such as when he spoke disbelievingly about the IRS tax plan for a nuclear war.
“In areas of the country hardest hit, delinquent taxpayers will be given a little extra time. Otherwise, taxes will be collected as usual," he dryly informed viewers.
   When 82-year-old David Brinkley died Wednesday night at his Houston home from complications of a fall, the news world lost an insightful commentator and newsman who influenced news operations and helped determine the character of a young industry.
   “The one function that TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were,” he once said, seemingly foreseeing the age of round-the-clock cable news that emerged as he slowly eased off the air.
   In an era where anchors have become more bland and more interchangeable despite more diversity, Brinkley was an acerbic personality who literally grew up in front of the camera.
   He got his first reporting job for NBC at age 23. He remembered through his entire life the moment when he saw his first TV camera being wheeled in to the NBC Radio studios. From that moment on, he was one of the young reporters who embraced the medium, and one of the few who actually looked comfortable appearing on-camera as others struggled to go from unseen radio personality to publicly scrutinized television personality.
   He instinctively “got” the future of television news – brief, to the point and, at times, pointed – en route to becoming part of the legendary “Huntley and Brinkley Report” duo with Chet Huntley on NBC’s nightly news.
    He and Huntley made an impressive team, with Huntley the handsome ying to Brinkley’s less striking yang.
   In today’s world of pretty, preening news anchors, perfectly exemplified by the man who now hosts “This Week,” George Stephanopolous, Brinkley was unapologetically plain.
   “I don’t try to put a show on the air, be bright and vivacious, because it’s just not my nature,” he said.
He and Huntley broadcast from different cities but shared a strong knowledge of politics and interest in the sociology of political parties.
The two also shared an embarrassed distaste for the signoff line they’ll be forever remembered for.
   Even those who came of age during the Brokaw-Jennings-Rather years have heard it before: “Goodnight, Chet.” “Goodnight, David.” The homey gesture made viewers feel as if they knew these two approachable news anchors.
   In fact, they loved them better than anyone else on the air – from its 1956 inception to Huntley’s retirement in 1970, “Huntley and Brinkley” ruled the network news.
   Walter Cronkite, though older in age, was then a mere upstart by comparison, with audiences totally devoted to David and Chet.
   Brinkley did not change with the times, nor would his audience have wanted him to. He risked the wrath of his hometown of Wilmington, N.C., through his unsympathetic coverage of southern segregationist policies, so rankling a young TV station manager named Jesse Helms that Helms hired a conservative to present dueling commentaries.
   That was just Brinkley’s way. He wasn’t out to offend or anger people. He simply felt a duty to present the news as he saw it, and sometimes that could get him in trouble.
   After Huntley retired and Brinkley endured other NBC co-anchors such as John Chancellor, the veteran journalist threatened to quit in 1981 unless the network fired “that SOB,” NBC News president Bill Small.
   The network let Brinkley walk to ABC, where he pioneered the modern Sunday morning news show. There he became known as a political moderator who added his own thoughts only at the end of the show, with his biting, amusing commentaries.
For some, their strongest memory of Brinkley was his comment during the 1996 election night coverage that President Clinton was “a bore.” True or not, the observation (made when Brinkley thought his microphone was off) became Brinkley’s unfortunate legacy; he retired from “This Week” that year.
   Brinkley wrote three books, the first a 1998 bestseller called “Washington Goes to War.” The next two were less serious and more flavorful, reflected in their titles: “David Brinkley: 11 Presidents, 4 Wars, 22 Political Conventions, 1 Moon Landing, 3 Assassinations, 2,000 Weeks of News and Other Stuff on Television and 18 Years of Growing Up in North Carolina,” his 1995 autobiography, and “Everyone is Entitled to My Opinion,” a 1996 collection of “This Week” closing commentaries.
   Brinkley refused to use other people’s scripts, as became the increasing trend throughout his 50 years of broadcasting, insisting that he could not read anyone’s words on air but his own.
   He had an odd delivery style, marked by a stop-and-go speech pattern that actually developed quite accidentally while working for NBC radio by underlining different words on his page to be sure he gave them the right emphasis.
   His voice was nowhere near as buttery as current NBC newsreader Tom Brokaw, and his face not as presentable as MSNBC heir apparent Brian Williams.
But like him or not, Brinkley knew his news. The news world truly lost an icon Wednesday.
   Goodnight, David.

-Toni Fitzgerald is a staff writer for Media Life.

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