Brinkley's mother was an austere, religious woman who disapproved of her bookworm son's reading habits on the grounds that using electric light bulbs at night attracted mosquitoes, and he was at times forced to go outside and read under the light of the street lamp.
He began writing for the local newspaper while still in high school, and after graduation spent a year at the University of North Carolina and then the North Carolina National Guard, from which he was discharged when misdiagnosed with a kidney ailment. In , he traveled to Washington, D. A quick study, Brinkley was soon given the White House beat, and after World War II became one of the few radio reporters to move successfully into the new medium of television.
The cameras, lights, and teleprompters confounded some of his former colleagues, but Brinkley confessed later that he made his first mistakes on shows like America United in the late s, which was broadcast locally in the District of Columbia area when, he claimed, there were but a few hundred households with television sets. Brinkley was anchoring NBC's 15—minute nightly news broadcast by the early s, and covering major news stories on assignment. Their on—air repartee struck a chord with viewers, and the network received an unprecedented amount of mail commending their coverage; even the New York Times pegged Brinkley as a rising star.
Thus in October of that year, Brinkley and Huntley debuted on The Huntley—Brinkley Report, which would become the leading news program in American living rooms nightly for more than a decade. Brinkley and Huntley's half—hour broadcast of the day's news—twice as long as most at the time—featured Brinkley's liberal, often irreverent commentary that served to take television journalism out of the era of news "readers" who simply recited copy and into the modern era of intelligent, measured critical analysis.
Brinkley wrote all of his own copy, often underlining certain words for emphasis, which gave him a distinctive style. Cooper in the Los Angeles Times. His delivery was even mimicked by comedians, and both he and Huntley enjoyed immense celebrity during the s. Brinkley reported from Washington, and Huntley from New York, and their trademark sign—off—"Good night, Chet," followed by "Good night, David"—became a national catchphrase.
Brinkley later admitted both he and Huntley loathed it as a bit of forced froth. The Huntley—Brinkley Report ended when Huntley retired in Despite their mutual disdain for it, their "Huntley-Brinkley Report" signoff — "Goodnight, Chet"; "Goodnight, David" — became part of pop culture. But the spell was broken. Entering his 60s, Brinkley in began the second act of his career by exiting the organization he had joined 38 years earlier. He lent his heavyweight status to ABC News, a late bloomer then on the way up.
There he flourished, particularly on "This Week with David Brinkley," a Sunday morning interview and discussion program. You wanted to watch him. You liked him and when you did watch him you got a lot of substance from a story. Despite having been present for the creation of TV news, Brinkley insisted "I didn't create anything.
I just got here early. Born in Wilmington, N. He moved to Washington, D. Instead, he had landed a job four blocks away at NBC News.
As the nation buckled in for the presidential election, Brinkley was paired with Chet Huntley to cover the Democratic and Republican conventions. The initial broadcast was a short-and-sweet 15 minutes, but it would soon be expanded as America began tuning into the pair for all their major news.
From that desk, he would cover the Kennedy Assassination, the moon landing and countless other landmark stories. Their nightly signoff — "Good night, Chet," "Good night, David," — would even enter the popular culture lexicon the same way social media grabs hold of a meme today. Throughout it all, Brinkley was known as a great writer, bringing tough issues to the public with wisdom and easily digestible reporting. But it was never the ratings juggernaut it was at its start, so Brinkley sought a change.
With a new structure to play around with and free of the restrictions of the nightly news anchor desk, Brinkley would come to pioneer the weekend political commentary show, primarily with the introduction of the roundtable discussion at the tail end of each episode.
Offering more voices to the hottest topics in the capitol and employing the wry wit that had initially won America over sent Brinkley back up the ratings.
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