Bob Edwards began his profession at NPR as a newscaster after which hosted All Issues Thought-about earlier than shifting to Morning Version. He is pictured above in 1989. Max Hirshfeld for NPR disguise caption
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Max Hirshfeld for NPR
Bob Edwards began his profession at NPR as a newscaster after which hosted All Issues Thought-about earlier than shifting to Morning Version. He is pictured above in 1989.
Max Hirshfeld for NPR
Bob Edwards, the veteran broadcaster and longtime host of Morning Version who left an indelible mark on NPR’s sound, has died. He was 76 years previous.
NPR’s Susan Stamberg says Edwards’ voice grew to become a part of the morning routine for tens of millions of People.
“He was Bob Edwards of Morning Version for twenty-four 1/2 years, and his was the voice we woke as much as,” she says.
When listeners first heard that voice, they may have imagined a determine of nice authority, an avuncular newsman wearing a pinstripe go well with. However that was not Bob Edwards.
He was the consummate newsman
Margaret Low began on the firm in 1982 as a Morning Version manufacturing assistant. Now CEO of WBUR in Boston, she served for 3 years as NPR’s senior vice chairman for information. She says Edwards at all times walked within the door proper at 2:30 a.m., however he was informal.
“He was tall and lanky and wore denims, and I feel, if I keep in mind proper, was kind of just about at all times in an untucked flannel shirt.”
Low says Edwards’ seeming casualness belied a seriousness — about radio, concerning the information and particularly concerning the artwork of writing. Like a number of of his contemporaries at NPR, he studied writing at American College with former CBS journalist Ed Bliss.
“He used to say that Ed Bliss sat on his shoulder as he wrote,” Low recollects.
The truth is, Edwards’ Washington, D.C., workplace missed CBS Information.
“I’ve this whole picture of Bob sitting in his workplace on M Road and it could be darkish outdoors as a result of it could be the midnight, and he confronted the window over CBS Information,” Low says. “And he could be typing on his handbook typewriter with these actually, actually huge keys, and they’d go click on, click on, click on, and behind him you’d hear … the AP and Reuters wires.”
Edwards, Low says, was the consummate newsman.
“He was a complete information man, and I feel understood the information deeply,” she says. “And in some methods he kind of set the bar for a way we method tales, as a result of he would convey these tales with a type of simplicity but additionally with actual depth, and be sure that they someway resonated. And that is lasted.”
“As an NPR listener myself, I’ll at all times keep in mind Bob Edwards’ deep heat baritone and the assured ease of his supply. …” NPR President and CEO John Lansing says in an announcement. “Bob Edwards understood the intimate and distinctly private reference to audiences that distinguishes audio journalism from different mediums, and for many years he was a trusted voice within the day by day lives of tens of millions of NPR listeners.”
‘Mr. Cool’ and Crimson Barber
Edwards began his profession at NPR as a newscaster after which hosted All Issues Thought-about with Susan Stamberg. She says their kinds typically clashed.
“We had 5 good — if rocky — years collectively, till we kind of bought each other’s rhythm, as a result of he was Mr. Cool, he was Mr. Authoritative and straight forward. I used to be the New Yorker with 1,000,000 concepts and an enormous snigger. However we actually adjusted moderately properly.”
Stamberg remembers Edwards for his humor, a high quality that was typically on show in his a whole lot of interviews with newsmakers, authors, musicians and singers.
One in all Edwards’ longest-running radio relationships was additionally considered one of his listeners’ favorites: his weekly dialog with sports activities broadcasting legend Crimson Barber.
Sports activities broadcaster Crimson Barber with NPR’s Bob Edwards in 1992. Edwards talked to Barber each week on Morning Version. AP disguise caption
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AP
Sports activities broadcaster Crimson Barber with NPR’s Bob Edwards in 1992. Edwards talked to Barber each week on Morning Version.
AP
Edwards finally wrote a guide about his radio friendship with Barber, the primary of three he authored, together with a memoir, A Voice within the Field: My Life in Radio.
Edwards’ method helped set the tone for NPR
Edwards left NPR after the corporate determined to take away him as host of Morning Version. Although his many followers protested mightily, Edwards closed out his final present on April 30, 2004. He ended his tenure simply because it began, by interviewing considered one of his radio heroes, Charles Osgood.
“You had been the primary particular person I interviewed for Morning Version, and I wished you to be the final,” Edwards instructed Osgood on air.
Edwards went on to host his personal interview present at Sirius XM Radio and continued to be heard on many public radio stations on Bob Edwards Weekend. However Margaret Low says his contribution to NPR won’t ever be forgotten.
“He kind of set the tone and the bar for all of us,” she says. “He understood the facility and the intimacy of our medium and captured the eye of tens of millions and tens of millions of people who find themselves nonetheless with us at this time.”
