Fond memories of NBC News

When and where I grew up, the only TV station on a VHF channel was an affiliate of NBC. The other stations, all on UHF, had weaker signals. Consequently the NBC affiliate was dominant, so I grew up watching NBC News led by Chet Huntley and David Brinkley.

Here's a list of other NBC anchors, commentators, and reporters in my youth. How many do you remember?

Elie Abel
Bob Abernethy
Jim Bittermann
Frank Blair
Frank Bourgholtzer
John Chancellor
John Cochran (my late mom was his baby-sitter!)
John Dancy
Nancy Dickerson
Lloyd Dobyns
Paul Duke
Linda Ellerbee
Pauline Frederick
Peter Hackes
Robert Hager
Jim Hartz
Bob Jamieson
Kenley Jones
Bernard Kalb
Marvin Kalb
Floyd Kalber
Herbert Kaplow
Douglas Kiker
Irving R. Levine
Frank McGee, whose Wikipedia article I created
Bill Monroe
Roy Neal
Ron Nessen
Edwin Newman, author of Strictly Speaking: Will America Be the Death of English? and A Civil Tongue
Don Oliver
John Palmer
Jack Perkins, forerunner of Jeanne Moos
Tom Pettit
Betty Rollin
Brian Ross
Ford Rowan
Jessica Savitch
Chuck Scarborough
Ray Scherer
Lawrence E. Spivak
Carl Stern
Liz Trotter
Garrick Utley, my favorite
Richard Valeriani
Sander Vanocur.

That's a long list of excellent journalists -- including quite a few women, although almost no minorities -- from a time when news divisions of networks could spend freely, substance was far more important than style, and the mission was to report the facts accurately and objectively to the broadest of audiences. We will not see those days again.