Let’s discuss the network news feeds we saw in Spokane during our John R. Rogers High School years. Each 15-minute feed aired locally, after the local live 15-minute broadcast. In those days the program ratings stacked up in this order: NBC, CBS, ABC.
Spokane affiliate,
KHQ, Channel 6
Huntley-Brinkley
Report, featuring Chet Huntley and David Brinkley.
October 29, 1956 –
July 31, 1970
Huntley reported from New York City while Brinkley anchored from Washington D.C. This show was fast-paced with the focus cutting from Brinkley to Huntley and back. The pair came off as more than readers of news.
Detractors criticized Huntley for airing his personal opinions on the air. In one case an accuser claimed he editorialized with his eyebrows. He openly hit at Senator Joseph McCarthy's outrageous allegations of Communist sympathy among government officials and members of the Hollywood film industry.
Brinkley was born in Wilmington, NC, also the birthplace of Michael Jordan. Brinkley began in NBC radio in 1943. He moved to TV, doing reports for John Cameron Swayze's Camel News Caravan, NBC's fledgling TV news broadcast. His star rose during the 1956 political conventions. NBC teamed him with Huntley almost immediately.
Huntley and Brinkley’s familiar sign-off exchange became a buzz-phrase: “Good night, David … Good night Chet.”
Spokane affiliate,
KXLY, Channel 4
Douglas Edwards
August 15, 1948 –
April 1962
Douglas Edwards had a long run as CBS new anchor. He was long-established by the time of our freshman year, 1956. Prior to that fall, in July, he covered the sinking of the ocean liner Andrea Doria off the coast of Nantucket. That same year, he received an Emmy Award nomination for “Best News Reporter or News Commentator for the Year 1955.”
He had to compete with the Huntley-Brinkley juggernaut launched in that Fall of 1956. He held up rather well. A year later, his show had the largest audience of any single news medium. By the year of our graduation, the show received an Emmy nomination for “Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of News” for the year 1959 - 1960.
Daly was succeeded by Walter Cronkite in 1962, but continued to be a television personality for a number of years.
Spokane affiliate,
KREM, Channel 2
John Charles Daly
October 12, 1953 –
December 1960
Before he came to television, John Daly had a notable radio news career. He was a White House correspondent during FDR’s administration in the late ‘30s. He was chief correspondent in Italy during World War II.
In 1950, Daly became the moderator of the game show, What's My Line? He kept that position as the host while becomming the ABC news anchor. Daly also was a network vice president for news. He ended each game show and each news show with the line, "Good night, and a good tomorrow."
Tiny DuMont was a fourth major TV network until a week or two before our 1956 freshman year at John R. Rogers. Spokane never had a local affiliate station – not even close. Washington D.C., New York City, and Pittsburgh had the only affiliates. At the end DuMont mostly broadcast sporting events. The August, 1956 final broadcast was a boxing match.
-- Ed Mauget