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from Gainesville, Florida Mhm five Live presents conversation from the University of Florida, a discussion of social, political, scientific and religious issues of the day. Your host is Dr Michael began in professor of history and Ethics, an assistant dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida.

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Hello, I'm Mike Gannon and welcome again to conversation. My guest on this conversation is Bob Edwards, host of Morning Edition on National Public Radio. Bob, Welcome to campus. Thank you. It's great to have you here for a number of reasons, particularly since you've come to help us observe the second anniversary of W F T F M R National Public Radio station here in north central Florida.

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And it's nice to have you here on the program as well, because so many of us wake up to your golden voice every morning. And to your very thoughtful, incisive interviews with many, many interesting people, Um, I noticed that people who like radio seem to dress alike.

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It's the uniform it seems to be. The blue blazer, the khaki trousers, the blue shirt. It's safe, you know, it's it's inoffensive, it's yeah, but this isn't what you normally wear on the air, I'm told. No. In radio, you have the luxury of wearing whatever you like, And for me, it's just being comfortable.

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And I'm fond of jeans, T shirts and in the wintertime flannel shirts and no doubt many cups of coffee at the hour at which you were. That's right or hours because those of us who listen to your program here from, Well, what is it, 6 to 8 or something like that only.

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Hear the first part of your working day? Yeah, it does go on from there. Well, obviously, I If I'm going to do a lot of interviews, I can't do them on my schedule. I can't expect people to come in that obscene hours of the morning to talk on the radio, so I'll continue through noon.

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At least I can get people doing leaving. That's a hardship, particularly with musicians and artists and the like, who don't like to get up before the sun gets very high in the sky. So that that's kind of rough getting them. You know, Bob, I wonder if the people who uh, first established themselves as great pioneers in radio news and I'm thinking of Edward R.

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Murrow and the great crew that he collected during the Second World War. I wonder if they ever envisioned a time in which a news broadcast such as your own would have musical bridges between stories? Oh, no, I don't think so. Um, they were pretty straightforward back in those days, Um, Merle did a lot of interesting things.

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He started the CBS World News Roundup where he would have reporters calling in from the capitals of Europe, talking to one another. It sounds it's like nothing today. But that was an extraordinary achievement in those days, particularly technically, the signal would go in and out. So, yes, that would be strung together by baling wire and paper clips.

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I mean, they had to link up short wave and microwave and everything else to be able to broadcast. This was hardly the satellite age then, but they did it. And it was an extraordinary breakthrough in communications. And what it did to the newspaper business at the time was had a big impact there.

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The extra was dead. You didn't need it anymore. And bulletins you heard now on radio, you heard it almost as it was happening. Um, And during the years just before the operation of the war and the opening years of the Second World War, we had for the first time, foreign correspondents who were broadcasting live from Paris from Berlin after the war was underway from the Normandy beachheads and so forth.

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No media had ever know medium had ever been able to do this before. The war changed a lot because what you had mainly in those days were commentaries. You had the likes of Gabriel Heatter and Bo Carter. They would do basically commentary. They were going for 15 minutes, and they would be news and comment.

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The only thing like it today, I think, is Paul Harvey. Yes, that's right. HB Carlton Born Who are all the others? Well, many people out in the audience will remember them, but they were the editorial pages of the year Westbrook, Pegler, Westbrook, Van Voice and all of those.

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But after the war, and and, of course, during the war you had correspondents reporting news from all around the world and is of course, very crucial. At that time, Merrill assembled people for their minds. He didn't care about their speaking voice. Um Mm. Eric Severeid, for example, was hardly an orator and even offered to quit because he felt he was an embarrassment tomorrow.

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But Merle said no. You stay on. Winston Burdette finished Harvard in three years. Um, Howard K. Smith was a Rhodes scholar out of tillane. This was the type of person he wanted. He wanted someone with a mind. He didn't care how pleasantly that was worth. Telling what Charles Colin.

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Colin would? Yeah, he was one. And another very bright man. He was. I think he was a Harvard man to very, very bright. And Ned Calmer. Yes. Well, Robert Trout. Robert Troll. John Daly? Yes. Oh, that's taking me back. Robert Trout. Um, these were men who were assembled by a true genius.

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A person who had a vision of what radio could become a man who set the standard for news and thank the Lord. He was there at a time when standards were being set. Um, if it had been another type of individual, someone who believed in perhaps a bit of yellow journalism, a little sensationalism, um, tabloid style news, who knows what radio and then later television journalism would have been, so it was important to have a Murrow in there at that time.

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Likewise, in sports, Merle hired Red Barber, who began his broadcasting career here in Gainesville. Um, and Red set the standard for sports journalism because Red was not just an announcer, Read was not a sports commentator. Red was a reporter and he considered a journalism, and he still does.

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And so there was another standard set another field. Yes, I asked Red if he wished to name his all time All Star national baseball team National League baseball team. He said no. He would prefer not to do that, to tell you the truth, because he never wished to get that emotionally involved with the players, and indeed, that when he traveled with the Brooklyn Dodgers and later with the New York Yankees, he would eat in the railroad dining car with them if there was a seat there.

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And obviously it was the place where he should sit. But he did not linger with them. He did not play cards with them, never went to their hotel rooms, never visited them at their homes, nor did he ever have baseball player visit him in his home.

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He kept his distance. He was a reporter. His job was not to become involved with people emotionally, but to describe actually what was happening on the field. It's a shame, more reporters, and I mean straight news reporters don't follow that example. You find a lot of them being wined and dined at various affairs in Washington.

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It's, um it's boring. Yes, well after, even if I could fit it into my hours and even if someone would invite me and if you did have another suit besides the so used to not wearing ties. And then the dog barks at me when I wear a time, the kids don't know.

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Children don't recognize you. That's very strange, Bob. Have you ever been placed in a position such as George Will found himself in recently and which he was not involved emotionally, perhaps, but certainly in a political way with a news story and then commented on the new story afterwards without recognizing or acknowledging the fact that he had had a certain involvement with it.

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You ever found yourself either attempted to do such a thing or found yourself in the position of that same sort from which you cannot extricate yourself. Hardly. George. Well, and I'm moving entirely different social circles. I just got an image of George spinning around, um, moving in social services.

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No, George is a close friend of President Reagan's. I don't think I've ever been a close friend of a county commissioner, much less a president. No. You don't see any ethical dilemmas facing you for him. I see them. Yes. No facing you in the work that you do.

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All right. Well, it happens to be a matter of some discussion now in journalism, just what all journalists to do. And we were just saying journalists not to report the story and not get involved with their news sources getting back to Murrow, he gave broadcasts from London during the blitz which anybody who was alive at the time and listening to the radio will never forget I among them.

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And they had a wonderful fascination because he was able to transport the listener to a foreign site just with his opening words. This is London, and I felt as though I was in London. Yes, well, that's that is radio. Murrow knew that, and the the better people who are still in radio know that, too.

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Um, we'll make a picture for you. Actually, you will make the picture from what you're hearing, a picture will form in your mind and it'll be the best kind of picture because you're forming it. There can be no mistake about it. Um, people who meet me are often disappointed in the way I look because I don't look like the mental picture that they have with me.

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And they want that picture reinforced. They don't want me looking like me. Oh, you look exactly as I pictured you. Youthful, handsome, with a glint in adventurous glint in the eye, right. It's that adventurous glint. I think that maybe that doesn't work. Um, no, The pictures in television, you would think, would be a plus, but they aren't always.

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Sometimes they're distracting, particularly if it's a reporter just standing up there talking to you because you're watching the hair, the outfit, what's going on and back. But you're not listening, and I'm paying attention. Um, and they're getting better at this, but often television reporters will tell you what they're going to show you.

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Then they'll show you and then They'll tell you what you've just seen and then give their name and where they are. They're getting better at that. But Berlin would create a picture. You were at the blitz. No question about it. You heard the anti aircraft fire?

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Yeah. There's deep throated sirens I'll never forget. Plus, he put the he put the microphone down on the ground as they were going to the shelters as everyone was going underground, and he wanted you to hear that they weren't running, that this had come to be kind of business as usual.

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These are these these hearty Brits just kind of taking all of this in stride. Um, it was more than just a bare bones description of events. It was real radio. After the war, he began CBS reports as well as the World news Roundup. And I see it now.

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Yes, and see it now, which were televised visits to homes of celebrities or major, That was person to person. Oh, is that right? Now is in half an hour, right? I'm sorry. See it now as a recreation of historical events? Yes. He had a lot of no wrong again.

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That was 20th century how many programs did he start? And Cronkite did 20th century Now? He started to see it now, which was a half an hour documentary, often tackling one subject, uh, those That's the vehicle, if you will, in which he did his McCarthy programs.

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He did person to person, which was the visit to the celebrities homes, and he was criticized a great deal for that. You know? Why should the great journalist Ed Murrow will be in the home of Harpo Marx or somebody, which is a very fine program if you ever get to Syria?

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And Harper never talks and the whole thing that they do an interview, Oh, barrels Part was very good. Um, but he got criticized for that, and his answer was that he was through person to person, delivering an audience, perhaps for see it. Now, um, and see it now.

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I'm distracted there because I was thinking of something else that he did on the first. See it now, going back to the Radio World News Roundup, where you could have multiple capitals talking different correspondents. They did a little television trick. They had a camera showing you the Pacific Ocean and a camera showing you the Atlantic Ocean.

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And then they had the two monitors side by side. And then they showed you that two oceans at one time kids stuff today, right? But coast to coast in the early fifties, that was fabulous. You're looking at both oceans at the same time you had to be there.

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Maybe, You know, the use of the term monitor reminds me of one of the most innovative radio programs, which I think NBC put on Saturday afternoons about the whole weekend. It was 20 or 30 years ago, and that was a program somewhat like what you're doing now.

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Yeah, it was heavy on the entertainment. I'm trying to remember the news content of monitor. I think they would do Yes, they would do longer news reports of them Did features Bob and Ray on the entertainment Regular feature. Now, generally, now they're in public radio. Jean Raymond was a whole Raymond was a host, all right?

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And that struck me as great radio. And again I wondered why we didn't have that before the date that monitor began. And I can see a certain connection. Perhaps some of the people who came out of the monitor experience, where the creative geniuses behind what's done and all things considered the program on which you first served as a co host on NPR and morning edition radio commercial networks, abandoned radio.

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The money was in television, and that's where they went and dragged the sponsors with them. You know, in the early days of television, the reporters on radio didn't want to make the switch. Uh, and you got really a kind of second. You got the B group of reporters at first on television because the guys in radio that was where it's at radio, this newfangled thing.

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Television wasn't gonna go anywhere. They weren't going to give up there. They're hit shows. They're hitting news shows on radio. So they they only went to television after television became a success without them. Uh, John Cameron Swayze when that big a deal when television began and I'm trying to think of the Douglas Edwards Yes, Douglas Edwards, who preceded Walter Crimes, the first evening news anchor, and he's still in television.

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That's how young television is. And he was a radio broadcaster who was moved up into the TV anchor would have moved up or move down in his expression. Exactly. Yes, I should use that move laterally or down on television became a big deal. What happened? They moved, dug out and put Walter Cronkite in.

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So they were back to Walter. Didn't want to do television in the early fifties. Well, he was a former U. P. I reporter. He was a print journalist and got into radio during the Second World War. As I remember, but not with Murrow. Did he know he was still with you?

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P during the World War two and then he had been offered to John by more on it turned it down because he didn't want to leave you, p. And he thought he was making nice pay with U P and wasn't sure this broadcasting thing was There was any future in that.

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But after the war, he worked for a small group of stations and one of them being W T O. P. In Washington. Those are the call letters, and they're different now. WRC or W. It's now W D v M. Channel nine in Washington. Is WRC still in still on the operating station?

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Yes. Where did you get that great voice. It's a gland condition. I think I was born well. It is a striking voice. It's a very pleasant baritone range voice that everything's relative, though I've interviewed done Lou Rawls, for example. And when I'm sitting talking to Lou Rawls, I sound like a tenner.

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And I did another say I did not interview, um, James Earl Jones, but my voice is narrating this piece and Jones voices and, well, there's another one that just blows me away. And I sound like a tenor on that one as well. So everything is relative.

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Did you grow up in high school or college years wanting to go into radio desperately? Absolutely. It's all I ever wanted to do. Time I was in diapers. You must have had an idol. A hero out there much more. All being one of them, of course.

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No, I was. We had this big Xena through radio I still have in my house. Today is the only thing I have from the house in which I grew up. And fabulous instrument. Huge resonance Speaker. You bet you could get police calls ships at sea, short wave.

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And you know you could go to exotic places you got to remember Is this pre television So by radio you could go to Cincinnati. I grew up in law. You could go to W C K Y Cincinnati, W WLW go to Chicago and WLS WLS to Nashville And here the Opry or W S M New Orleans.

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And I forgot the college WWL studios in the Roosevelt Hotel, downtown New Orleans. And, you know, we were lower middle class family. It wasn't gonna go anywhere and never left a two state area. And this instrument took me all over the place and all these pictures formed in my mind or with the outside world with those world Clear Channel stations.

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You know, Bob, something that's characteristic of the South. You will not hear a Southern accent on a Southern radio station or television station above a certain wattage. Now it used to be 5000 watts was the cut off point and the reason why, except for Red, except for it was the only one allowed, Yes, Red Barber.

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But he he was unique, and, uh, he carried that distinctive Southern voice to his credit wherever he went. And it added to the the special quality of bread as a person. But the Southern accent as such was not favored by Southern audiences and still is not well.

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I worked hard to lose it. I had one. You had one and no Adams, who has my old job on all things considered the same deal he had At that time, we were told we were kids. You're not gonna get in the radio. You're not going to have a career in there if you keep the accent.

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And we worked very hard, particularly vowels, like I used to say, Ah, like an ice cream. Well, I don't say ice cream no more. You know, you worked on an eye and, you know, you really practice well when you mentioned the Clear Channel signals that reminded me of what I I speculate as a reason why the South does not like its own voice on the air, and that is the big time.

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Radio originated in Chicago, and when the major studios moved to New York City, they took the Chicago voice announcers with them, and the Chicago Sound became the normative sound for big time radio so that if you were listening to the radio and you heard the, uh, so called non accented Chicago voice on the air that was supposed to be class.

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And when your own local boy went on the air and spoke with an accent different from the Chicago voice, you decided that was not class and you did not want that. So when stations reached a certain state of development, say, 5000 watts, they determined we're going to be big time radio, which means we're going to import our announcers from the Midwest.

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You're probably right. But I always blamed it on Yankee Station managers. No doubt your theory, far more practical than my own, will prevail. I don't know. I figured they were imports carpetbaggers and then to run our radio stations for us. Well, there are a lot of carpetbaggers if you want to call them that.

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If you go to a station like W. I. S in Columbia, South Carolina. Most of the announcers there are from the Midwest. You know what? I think Watergate was a big breakthrough. I think it made the Southern accent fashionable, even chic. How so? Between Sam Ervin and Herman Talmadge and their attorneys, the Fred Thompson from Nashville was the minority counsel?

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Um, Howard Baker. Um, well, that's enough right there, Irwin especially. Yeah. And I think that plus the fact at that time, just a little earlier, Fred Graham showed up at CBS. Fred's from, I think, Eastern Tennessee. And, uh, that was the first time I noticed, other than a Red Barbara, a network Southern accent and I it was too late.

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Then I had lost it. I was three years into the business, I think, at that point, but I was turning cartwheels. I thought it was fantastic at last, a real Southern accent on a network. But I think that in Watergate started up. Now you hear them all the time.

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They're everywhere. Did President Carter's administration have anything to do? Perhaps. But I think by then it was rolling. Well, that's good. I I admit it. I do. I'm proud of it. And I I don't want to be like everybody else. I don't want I don't want a homogenized country.

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I think, you know, leave the civil war aside. I think regional differences are good. I don't want to see the mountains of Eastern Kentucky lose that culture. I certainly want to see them get modern medicine and everything else. But I don't want to see them lose what is theirs and what makes them special.

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Same way people in Florida, the Eskimos in Alaska are going to be no different than insurance executives in Hartford, Connecticut, if we, you know, if we all end up reading People magazine and watching the same TV shows. No offense to those people make an honest living, but But we're we're losing all these little cultural distinctions, and I hate to see that we are.

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And even within one state, namely Florida, which is so cosmopolitan because of the immigration from other states, were losing many of our distinctive tones and and vocal signals that made us unique. Uh, the old Florida cracker accent, as it's sometimes called, is yielding to a massive, homogenized voice, which is becoming more acceptable simply because of business practice.

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You're regarded as simply not being in the swim of what's happening in the new high tech society. Unless you speak in a certain way, it's unfortunate. Yeah, that's that's partly television. But before that, it was radio. Before that, it was whenever the railroad came into the rural parts of America.

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That's when it first broke down in eastern Kentucky. I've done a lot of reporting on the mountains to the Appalachian Mountains because it is my home state. I grew up in Louisville, and I wanted to get to it before it went away. And what you find there today are became arts and the fast food places, and I understand that you have not done much television, but that every once in a while you have embarked upon a special that has given you a lot of personal satisfaction.

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The Spoleto Festival in Charleston being one such example, and that brought you to the Southland. We hope that you'll come back to do more of those type programs. Well, you got any ideas? Sure, Florida is loaded with ideas. All right, we'll fix it up and I'll come back every chance I get.

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Why don't you like to do television? Well, it's strange. I don't know. You're hauling around a bunch of equipment. You've got to stop shooting when airplanes go over and and I don't know. The picture changes, and it's for editing purposes. It's very complicated radio. So easy radio.

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I can do a radio program with just the telephone. I can call anywhere in the world, and we don't have to worry about whether there's sun or whether we have lights or whether there are ties Are straight sound Crew. If you've got a telephone, you gotta sound crew.

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There it is. Unfortunately, it's a telephone company, but it's so easy. For one thing, it's a portable. I can take a portable tape recorder and a bunch of cassettes. Throw them in my pocket and I can go for hours with a single subject or moved through a crowd.

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Yeah, it's easy. For one thing, the editing is a lot easier. You can take it from beginning to end. As one individual, you're not calling in a bunch of editors. And as they do it, the other networks lawyers to look, uh, do you get away with things on National Public Radio that the commercial networks, radio and TV cannot get away with?

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Sure. In fact, they get away with it on their radio networks more than they would on television. For example, a reporter, a network reporter will say something in a radio newscast he would never say in a TV report because all the attention is on the TV report.

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That's the one the lawyers are watching. That's where the libel suit is going to come from. Um, and so they don't give a second thought of to it on radio. Ed Joyce, the president of CBS News, was complaining about this. Just, uh, the last radio television News Directors Association convention.

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The chilling effect that this lawsuit hysteria sweeping the land has had on news. Um, there are stories they have not done for fear of lawsuits, and you can hardly blame them, given what's happened to 60 minutes. Well, with only 30 seconds left on this program, let's watch our language the lawyers descend upon us.

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Uh, my guest has been Bob Edwards, the host of Morning Edition on National Public Radio, who was on campus at the University of Florida to help us celebrate the second anniversary of W. U F T F m our national Public Radio outlet here and for the surrounding 16 counties in north Central Florida.

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Bob, thanks so much for being with me. Shall we take our jackets and khaki trousers back to places where we rented them? Please come back again to join me on conversation. Thank you much. Mm hmm. Yeah. Mm. Couple of things. Yeah,