Other transcripts

Transcripts

November 26, 2004

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
· Cronkite Awards highlights
In-Studio Guests:


>> Michael Grant:
Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. Welcome to a special edition of "Horizon." Each year, the Arizona State University School of Journalism and Mass Communication honors a leader in journalism with the Walter Cronkite award of excellence. This year the school honored a legend at CBS news - Charles Osgood is one of the country's great broadcast writers and of course a long time anchor of CBS news, Sunday morning. In October, he was recognized at an awards luncheon at the Arizona Biltmore. Incidentally, this happened the day after the presidential debate at ASU, so you will hear several references to that event. Before we bring you Mr. Osgood's speech, a brief introduction from Walter Cronkite.

>> Walter Cronkite:
So it is our privilege to present Charles Osgood our ASU Cronkite award for his distinguished contribution to journalism. Charles? [APPLAUSE ] I am supposed to hand you this, but, just tuck it in your luggage and put it in that room full of those you have, and think of us when you recall this day and I'll present this to you, we'll be thinking of you. Thank you all. [APPLAUSE ]

>>Charles Osgood:
I'm sort of overwhelmed to see my life played out before me there on the screen. In the words of President George W. Bush and Senator John F. Kerry, I would like to say thank you, Arizona State University. I think both of them said it twice last night. I say it again now. It is just a wonder to me that I should be standing here. Obviously Copple was appalled. [ LAUGHTER ] At one time Copple and I had actually intended to buy radio stations. We decided we were going to be executives, and fortunately, our attempt to do that failed, and we both went on and did other things. This award, like the school that presents it, bears the most illustrious name in broadcast journalism. Walter Cronkite was the steady, trusted presence who reported the news to millions of Americans in tumultuous times. The man who told us about the civil rights movement, Vietnam, shared with us the sorrow of assassination, and the triumph of a man set on the moon. He was part of our lives. And the only reporter of those times [ INAUDIBLE ] no one before us and since has achieved that level of public trust and respect that he has, and for reasons that I will talk about, I don't think it's likely that anybody else ever will. Walter Cronkite stands alone. [ APPLAUSE ] Of course, Walter Cronkite is not just a legendary distant figure to me. I worked at CBS now for 38 years, and our times there did overlap quite a lot. I did many pieces for the CBS evening news and in Walter Cronkite's universe, the science broadcast that Walter did for, I don't know, how many years that was, two or three at least. And it was always a joy to work with Walter. Let me take that back, it wasn't always a joy. We at CBS news always thought of him as the 800-pound gorilla. I was not quite sure -- I do not have a particular strength in numbers, but it may have been a 900-pound gorilla. I have not worked that out. But Walter's clout was such that if there was something that Walter wanted to happen, it happened. If somebody wrote on the top of a sheet for a prospective story "Walter wants" that meant that story went on the air. I don't know whether Walter knows this, but we took advantage of his great prestige. In working on the evening news in Walter Cronkite's interviews, in talking with somebody, asking them to be on the broadcast, asking them to be a part of the piece that we were doing, we were much more effective in saying this is the CBS evening news calling, or this is Charles Osgood from CBS news, will you be on our broadcast. What we would say is, Walter want wondered if you would be kind enough to participate in this broadcast. We would invoke the name of "Walter" and it was effective not only in the halls of management at CBS, but it was also effective anywhere in America. So, to say it's an honor for me is an understatement. You know, I never went to any kind of journalism school. I never took Journalism 101. I never took a single course in radio or television. I never took a course in writing. I know many of you are probably thinking that explains a lot. [ LAUGHTER ] The only earned degree that I have is a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Florida University as you heard Ben Skully and others say. I have discovered that -- see, someone was to ask me my three biggest mistakes in some debate at some time, I would say, probably majoring in economics was the one, one of them. It certainly belongs on the list. Although I majored in economics, everybody really majored in philosophy. You had to take courses in logic, courses in ethics, and courses in some other subjects, like taukmology, whatever they are. But I think logic and others were good things and helped in the preparation of my -- I also spent a lot of my time hanging out at the extracurricular activity that was WFUD, and there, because we knew there wasn't that many years before, that Ben Skully had worked there and did the games. Vince Lombardi who had gone to the high school from which I graduated, he was the football coach at St. Cecelia's high school in New Jersey. He was somebody that was obviously a hero to everybody around there, the center was named the Lombardi center, but for me, the great thing was Ben Skully's radio station. And there, I worked -- if you can call it work -- I would come in during the summer to be there, not because I was -- I didn't think I was learning anything, I thought of it as fun. I still think that that was for me, the most important start in a career that really has been fun for all of this time. I agree with my late friend and predecessor on CBS Sunday morning that this is so enjoyable, really, that I just hope -- I don't want anybody to tell the business affairs department, but I would pay them to get to do it. You've seen some of the other things I was going to tell you about. The army band. I ended up writing songs. My roommate was a fellow name John CACIMUS. Together he and I wrote -- these were never big hits, but they sort of made their mark in a way. We wrote a song called black is beautiful. It was recorded by Nancy Wilson. My most successful song was one John had written as a march that had a trio section that needed a chorus, so I wrote that chorus. It was called "Gallant Men." Its greatest fame came when it was not sung but recited, Senator Edward McCain Dirkson in Illinois. It was a hit record. I think it got to be number 7 or something on the hit parade. That's what they used to call the top 40 or whatever they now call them. You couldn't dance to it. You could march to it, but you had to march very slowly. It was a ponderous sort of march. Anyway, I graduated from Florida in 1954, which means that I have been -- out of school now for 50 years. And it's hard for even me to get used to that. Nor can I get used to the fact that I've been doing something more than 10 years. It seems as if I just started yesterday. I still feel very much like the new kid on the block. But when I say "out of school," I think that's quite -- that's not quite true, because I've been attending the school of CBS news for all of this time, for 38 years and I have learned something every day, and you have to keep learning. I think that's one of the joys of being in this business. First of all, you get to meet the most fascinating people in the world, and secondly, you do learn something every day, and I think, you know, that's one thing that young people, particularly -- this is something I tell my kids. You will appreciate later on in your life that learning things is one of the great joys in life. It's not just some tedious chore or something you have to finish or something you have to turn in, but making knowledge your own is one of the -- is truly one of the great achievements, I think that -- one of the great joys in anybody's life. Now, why did I say that there will never be another Walter Cronkite? I can tell you that the people who worked with me, my colleagues today, are just as smart, just as dedicated, just as -- and to each one of them, nothing is more important than maintaining the highest ethical standards in our business, and journalism is -- they personify I think the very best in journalism, today as they did then. But the context has changed. The universe around us has changed. The environment in which we work has changed. At the time that Walter was doing -- most of the years that Walter was doing the CBS evening news, there were three possible network sources of news, and most people as I think Walter was certainly the main anchorman of the time, but now the competition comes from everywhere. And I think that has changed things. Also what has changed things is the structure, the administrative structure of the companies we work for. Men like Bill Bailey and Larry Goldenson and David Sarnoff, saw news as the crown jewel in their efforts in broadcasting. But something happened that at the time perhaps most people didn't realize it, but a friend of mine ran into Bill Small, a CBS executive who later became President of NBC news and President of UPI. Bill Small said congratulations, I hear that for the first time ever, CBS news has earned a profit, actually made money. And Bill said, this is the darkest day in the history of CBS news. He saw what was going to happen that we had never been a profit center before, but once you have become a profit center, then the suits over at the board would expect you to make a profit again the following year, only a bigger one. And it affected both sides of the ledger. You would have to on the profit and loss, when it came to income and expenses; you had to cut costs. That was one way that you would be able to increase the bottom line. If you are a profit center, you have a bottom line. If you are not, you don't. And the other side, too, how are you going to increase your income. Well, you consume advertising revenues. How could you increase advertising revenues? By reaching -- by having your broadcast more watched. Well, listen to them -- how are you going to do that? Well, you just going to have to appeal to demographics that you haven't been appealing to until now. You are just going to have to make yourself more attractive. In other words, really what I'm saying, and I think to some extent that's happened to all television news these days, that is, television news is a lot more about television than it is about news. A broadcast, I want you to know that there is a truth squad sitting right at this table. Rand Marson is the executive producer, Estelle is the senior producer of Sunday morning are here as the truth squad to make sure that I don't say this too much or don't misstate the case. I think almost anybody would agree that it's true that the competition and the atmosphere in which the news is produced these days has produced something which is rather odd and a paradox to that, although there is more news on television today than ever before, on cable, on satellite, coming at you at your computer. Although there is more news, the -- it is a very, very, very large lake that's about two inches deep, and it's not easy to - it isn't easy to explain why in any other terms that everybody is competing so hard for the same audience. I think that has happened. And by the way, while I'm talking about Rand and Estelle, I would like you to know, because this is the truth, that they have very much more to do with what happens on Sunday morning than I do. I think everybody -- I know Walter acknowledges it as well, whatever we do sitting at the anchor desk, sitting on the Sunday morning stool, whatever we do and take vows for, it's an awful lot of people that produce what we take credit for. I've always been willing, however to accept that [LAUGHTER]. My mother once said that when somebody gives you something, you should say thank you and take it, especially if it's something nice. Anyway, that's why I think it would be difficult for another Walter Cronkite to come along. The world has changed in a lot of ways and that's one of the ways that it has. He is sort of a shining beacon to us as to what could be, what was and what -- something that can be strived for. I have nothing against Viacom, nothing against CBS. In fact, they pay me well and I appreciate it very much, indeed I do. And they are good people and they are very, very good at what they do, but CBS is just now -- news is a smaller part of a much, much, much bigger operation. So you look at numbers much more. I have never -- I mentioned that I couldn't even count the number of pounds in the gorilla measurement for Walter. I also think that there are an awful lot of things now that are judged purely on a quantitative basis and a quantitative analysis. What's the optimum decision to make in the case, about whether to put a broadcast on the air or cancel it or -- it's not just in broadcasting, but it's all throughout business and academia, I guess and government and through our whole society. Because computers are so number-friendly, if you can't count it, it doesn't count. So I'd like to think that there are -- in addition to whatever quantitative judgments that they made, that there are qualitative judgments that have to be made, too. Things like character is a qualitative judgment, things like beauty. What is worthwhile? Can you always measure it? Can you put a number on it? I don't think so. And I came across a news story that illustrated this so well that I will -- actually reading an old news thing of mine. Computer studies were being done at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and another university in Japan to determine what features and characteristics made a human face beautiful. The Nature and the British Science Journal did a report and said that beautiful women everywhere have high cheek bones, large eyes and attractive men have strong chins. It seems to confirm one earlier study at the University of Louisville that concluded that the best eye width for a woman is 3/10 of the width of her face. The ideal chin length is one-fifth the height of her face. The visible eyeball should be 1/14th the height of her face, the nose less than 5% of the area of the face. The mouth should be 50% of the width of the face measured at mouth level. When that study came out, I wrote a love poem to a beautiful woman, which I will share with you now. We have no violins here (plays harmonica). My darling, whenever I look in your eyes, you transport me to some magic place. The width of those lovely and wonderful eyes is 3/10 of the width of your face. When I gaze on those wondrous features I love, you can't know how much rapture I'm in when I realize that one-fifth the height of that face is exactly the length of your chin. Those eyes so hypnotic, they are like a narcotic, a window to infinite space. Like a highball your visible eyeball is 1/14th the height of your face. That nose I suppose might be shaped like a rose, but with what else can I ever compare you. My tape measure shows that that cute little nose is but 5% of your facial area. You make my life complete with your kisses so sweet, you excite me my love like the devil, with your mouth I'm content, for its 50% of the width of your face at mouth level. So much for the bean counter [ APPLAUSE ]. Now, about the campaign so far, I'm not going to -- don't worry, some candidate or other. But I do think it's kind of sad what's happened to political dialogue in this country. We have become so negative, and it seems so much more effective, at least the pros seem to think, to tear the other guy down, than it is to explain what it is that you have in mind [APPLAUSE ]. I just made -- I just recently, within the past couple of minutes made the discovery that I cannot play the harmonica and sing at the same time. And I didn't bring my banjo this time or I would actually have used this. Mr. Raspberry, the columnist was given the Mark Hellinger award at a luncheon, where I was the MC. He read a poem that he didn't write, for which I appropriated and turned into a song, which I guess I will have to either just read the lyrics or sing without the benefit of accompaniment. It was based on this thought. If only we could put ourselves in the other person's point of view. How can two men like Kerry and Bush, stand on a stage and talk about how much they admire each other as a father, as you know, personal attributes, and then, you know, gouge each other's eyes out with every word that they say? See, I'm going to digress inside of a digression here to say that one of the things that Sunday morning has tried to do and this is based on something that came out of the original broadcast 25 years ago, and out of Charles' approach to what we do. He liked to imitate people that he admired. So do I, you know, artists and poets and photographers and people that we celebrate on that broadcast. You and I, you tell me, are not like the others, we like to talk people we admire. We're not supposed to admire them, we're supposed to investigate them, said Charles. He was, of course, kidding. I don't think you have to leave the subject in a pool of blood in order to have done a successful report on that person. I don't think you have to have your fangs bared and your claws deployed at all times. I think with claws unsheathed and leaving somebody actually with the feeling that something nice had happened. It's possible to do good journalism that way. But instead of that, in television, we do that thing of trying to tear each other down, if we would only just imagine if we were in their position, might not we think the same thing? How did they arrive at their conclusion? Couldn't we just imagine that we felt that way for long enough not to say that our opponent, if he disagrees with me, he must be a villain, he must be evil or stupid, because that is the -- certainly at least the subtext of all of this negative advertising. My opponent is evil. This poem is about a dinosaur. If I don't sing it, I'm just reading somebody else's material, so I'm going to sing some of it. Behold the mighty dinosaur, famed in prehistoric lore, not only for his power and length, but for his intellectual strength. We learn from fossilized remains. This creature had two sets of brains. One was in the usual place, the other at the spinal base. Thus he could think without congestion, on either side of any question. Those who bothered him a bit, he made more heads than tails of it. He could reason a piori, also a posteriori. Some say I'm like that noble beast, that stayed ten million years at least [ APPLAUSE ]. I am not going to talk any longer because we're running out of time, but I want you to know that I am deeply honored by this award. I love what I do. I have respect and take great pride in my profession and the people that I work for and that as someone once said, that's the way it is. Thank you very much. God bless you, and I will see you on the radio [ APPLAUSE ].

Back to the top