Thursday, November 09, 2006

On Ed Bradley

This one hurts.

I'm on nearly five journalism-related e-mail listservs. My inbox was flooded with the news; his name appearing over and over and over and over, like the night in HS when my high school basketball team heard Billy Joel's Piano Man five times in the same ride from a game in northern New Hampshire. Repeated mention is almost certainly immediate tribute.

Confused, I'm asking myself the most obvious, if not ignorant, question.

Ed Bradley was sick with leukemia?

He was.

You are going to hear a lot of journalists say that Ed Bradley was part of the reason they got into journalism. That Ed Bradley's professionalism was a model for young journalists everywhere. That when Ed Bradley, one of the most respected and most visible journalists of our generation, covered a story, he worked harder than anyone.

For me, it was his voice.

The deep, sandy sound that came down from tip of his toes, laughed passed his legs, barreled up his stomach through his throat, meeting the air with a royal defiance. Yes, a voice fit for a king.

He got to ask people questions with that thing.

I recall the Duke Lax story he did last month. He seemed all together, as he always did. He asked the tough questions. He conversed. It was a journalistic clinic, watching Ed Bradley cover a story.

Go by and check out Richard Prince's stuff. It's got lots of quotes from the pioneer, including this great lesson for all the young journalists who want to stay in the business:

"My formula for success has three elements: the talent you're given, the hard work you do to get better at whatever it is that you do, and a certain amount of luck. And I always found that the harder I worked, the better my luck was, because I was prepared for that."
continue...

Posted by Darren Sands at 1:58 PM | link

Read or Post a Comment

Thanks for this.
I was the only one who was upset in my newsroom. Then again, I'm the only Black journalist in my newsroom.
SIGHHHHH.

Posted by Blogger -_- @ 7:08 AM, November 13, 2006 #
 

why should we care about your high school in Northern New Hampshire? This blog sucks.

Posted by Anonymous Anonymous @ 2:36 PM, November 16, 2006 #
 

Didn't really follow the brother's work but he was uplifiting us by doing what he did. An actually I am getting tired of this cancer culprit. Is it the air, the food, the meds, what causes it? RIP brother and after all that work I hope heaven awaits you. Jean

Posted by Anonymous Anonymous @ 7:46 PM, November 18, 2006 #
 
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