How We Got Our News
Since I never quite know where my writings will lead, I'll just say that this is the first of two or more articles about Americans and news. I actually started out thinking I could write one simple column about the subject, but as I went along....
Until the early 1980s, I’d guess that most Americans got their information about world and national events from television and newspapers. By “television,” I mean one of the three television networks: ABC, CBS, or NBC. For quite some time from the 1950s until about the early 1970s, NBC was often number one in the evening news ratings with “The Huntley/Brinkley Report,” which featured Chet Huntley and David Brinkley Monday through Friday evenings, initially from 6:15 until 6:30,* and a few years later from 6:30 until 7:00. To my recollection, Huntley was usually stationed in New York City and Brinkley was in Washington, D.C. Their show frequently ended with a humorous story, which then shifted to a smiling Huntley who would say “Good night, David,” and then go to a chuckling Brinkley who would say, “Good night, Chet, and good night for NBC News.” This ending became famous around the country. I grew up with these two, as our local station was then an NBC affiliate,** and I was really saddened when Chet Huntley finally retired, leaving just David Brinkley, who, a number of years later, jumped over to ABC and hosted “This Week With David Brinkley,” a Sunday morning info program that featured interviews with various political leaders and usually a lively discussion of the week’s events by the assembled news people, which often included George Will, the conservative newspaper columnist. CBS frequently challenged, and at times overtook, NBC in the evening news ratings with Walter Cronkite, who just recently passed away at age 92.
Then there was “Meet The Press,” a show that is even older than me…ah…I mean than other such programs, with its first broadcast dating back to 1947!!! It is something of a mini news conference, with members of “the press” (including television reporters) asking questions of a high profile political figure, or at times, figures.
Then we had “the Press;” that is, newspapers and magazines. They filled in gaps in the information television either ran by us too quickly, or chose to leave out, as newspapers gave a far wider view of the news. And to be quite honest, and if you’re a younger person, don’t be stunned by what I’m about to write here, but some folks did NOT have television back in the 1950s, so they relied upon newspapers. Even for stories we had already heard about from television, we could sit down and go at our own pace in checking out the information in the newspaper. Magazines often provided detailed stories to compliment the news, and while important, many were only available on a monthly basis, although the number of weekly publications grew as time passed (“Time,” “Newsweek,” “U.S. News & World Report” all come to mind.). The “New York Times” and the Washington papers were the big players in the national news business, and other newspapers all over the country were great sources of news on the local level, including covering things like city halls and county government. All newspapers offered their opinions (and still do) in the form of editorials. Further, local columnists contributed their viewpoints on a wide variety of issues: like explaining confusing ballot issues, or letting us know how a new zoning ordnance would affect our neighborhoods, or even sorting out the multitude of candidates for judicial offices. Many, if not most, newspapers picked up columns from the nationally known writers (“syndicated columnists”) on political matters, something that continues to this day. Not only this, but you could find out the visiting hours for your recently deceased neighbor, work the daily crossword puzzle, get a few chuckles from the comics, and even learn to play bridge, if you were so inclined (is anybody?). I shudder when I think about the demise of so many newspapers, large and small, today. (A word history is below the notes)
* How did we survive on less than 15 minutes of news (when time for commercials is deducted), or even later, less than 30 minutes of national and international news? Further, it should be noted that NBC and CBS were the two competitors, as ABC didn’t have an evening news program until some time in the 1960s.
** Initially this was before cable, and though we had another local station just 20 miles away (a CBS affiliate), reception was not always as clear as the NBC station, and you needed the good old “rabbit ears,” and preferably, a good antenna on the roof to try to get a clearer picture (You still needed the rabbit ears to even get the local station). If indeed you had an antenna, on clear evenings (seldom in the daytime, as there was too much interference) you might then even get a station from 50 to 75 miles away! With all of the technological changes that have come about over the decades, this stuff seems laughable today, but we struggled through, I guess because we didn’t know what we were missing.
WORD HISTORY:
Shrill-I've not been able to trace this word back to any Indo European root, and some linguists seem to believe it started as an "imitative" word; that is, our ancestors created a word that imitated the "high piercing sound" they heard. Since I can't find any other Indo European languages with a related word, they may well be correct. (See further below) Old English had "scralletan," a verb form which meant "to give off a loud sound, to sound loudly." It "seems" that this word "may" have given off "schrylle," by the 1300s, as the meaning was so similar, "piercing sound or high pitched voice." Very close English relatives, Low German and standard German, have "schrell" and "schrill," respectively, both with the same basic meaning as our word. This "may" indicate that the word arose in the West Germanic dialects of what is now northern Germany before some of those dialects left that area for Britain, as English and the German dialects are all West Germanic. Now, just to throw cold water on that theory, there is what certainly seems to be a related word, "skirl," which meant "to make piercing, loud sound(s). It is not commonly used, even in Britain, but it seems to have come into somewhat more common usage during the 1400s (that doesn't mean it wasn't around before then), and just from the context of what I've read, I take it that it was used more so in northern England and Scotland, where the Danes (North Germanic speakers) had an influence on English (I read that while archaic, it is still used in reference to bagpipes. Talk about "shrill!") The "sk" versus Old English "sc" (modern "sh") and the German dialects "sch," is one of the differences between North Germanic and West Germanic. Of course, too, the "r" sound is after the vowel in the North Germanic word. So now, what does this all mean? Well, "maybe" after the old Germanic dialects began to disperse, that this word developed in either the North dialects, or the West dialects, and that the other borrowed the word, as these groups weren't all that far apart in distance; northern Germany, Denmark, and Norway are all close. This may explain the apparent absence of the word from other Germanic languages.
Until the early 1980s, I’d guess that most Americans got their information about world and national events from television and newspapers. By “television,” I mean one of the three television networks: ABC, CBS, or NBC. For quite some time from the 1950s until about the early 1970s, NBC was often number one in the evening news ratings with “The Huntley/Brinkley Report,” which featured Chet Huntley and David Brinkley Monday through Friday evenings, initially from 6:15 until 6:30,* and a few years later from 6:30 until 7:00. To my recollection, Huntley was usually stationed in New York City and Brinkley was in Washington, D.C. Their show frequently ended with a humorous story, which then shifted to a smiling Huntley who would say “Good night, David,” and then go to a chuckling Brinkley who would say, “Good night, Chet, and good night for NBC News.” This ending became famous around the country. I grew up with these two, as our local station was then an NBC affiliate,** and I was really saddened when Chet Huntley finally retired, leaving just David Brinkley, who, a number of years later, jumped over to ABC and hosted “This Week With David Brinkley,” a Sunday morning info program that featured interviews with various political leaders and usually a lively discussion of the week’s events by the assembled news people, which often included George Will, the conservative newspaper columnist. CBS frequently challenged, and at times overtook, NBC in the evening news ratings with Walter Cronkite, who just recently passed away at age 92.
Then there was “Meet The Press,” a show that is even older than me…ah…I mean than other such programs, with its first broadcast dating back to 1947!!! It is something of a mini news conference, with members of “the press” (including television reporters) asking questions of a high profile political figure, or at times, figures.
Then we had “the Press;” that is, newspapers and magazines. They filled in gaps in the information television either ran by us too quickly, or chose to leave out, as newspapers gave a far wider view of the news. And to be quite honest, and if you’re a younger person, don’t be stunned by what I’m about to write here, but some folks did NOT have television back in the 1950s, so they relied upon newspapers. Even for stories we had already heard about from television, we could sit down and go at our own pace in checking out the information in the newspaper. Magazines often provided detailed stories to compliment the news, and while important, many were only available on a monthly basis, although the number of weekly publications grew as time passed (“Time,” “Newsweek,” “U.S. News & World Report” all come to mind.). The “New York Times” and the Washington papers were the big players in the national news business, and other newspapers all over the country were great sources of news on the local level, including covering things like city halls and county government. All newspapers offered their opinions (and still do) in the form of editorials. Further, local columnists contributed their viewpoints on a wide variety of issues: like explaining confusing ballot issues, or letting us know how a new zoning ordnance would affect our neighborhoods, or even sorting out the multitude of candidates for judicial offices. Many, if not most, newspapers picked up columns from the nationally known writers (“syndicated columnists”) on political matters, something that continues to this day. Not only this, but you could find out the visiting hours for your recently deceased neighbor, work the daily crossword puzzle, get a few chuckles from the comics, and even learn to play bridge, if you were so inclined (is anybody?). I shudder when I think about the demise of so many newspapers, large and small, today. (A word history is below the notes)
* How did we survive on less than 15 minutes of news (when time for commercials is deducted), or even later, less than 30 minutes of national and international news? Further, it should be noted that NBC and CBS were the two competitors, as ABC didn’t have an evening news program until some time in the 1960s.
** Initially this was before cable, and though we had another local station just 20 miles away (a CBS affiliate), reception was not always as clear as the NBC station, and you needed the good old “rabbit ears,” and preferably, a good antenna on the roof to try to get a clearer picture (You still needed the rabbit ears to even get the local station). If indeed you had an antenna, on clear evenings (seldom in the daytime, as there was too much interference) you might then even get a station from 50 to 75 miles away! With all of the technological changes that have come about over the decades, this stuff seems laughable today, but we struggled through, I guess because we didn’t know what we were missing.
WORD HISTORY:
Shrill-I've not been able to trace this word back to any Indo European root, and some linguists seem to believe it started as an "imitative" word; that is, our ancestors created a word that imitated the "high piercing sound" they heard. Since I can't find any other Indo European languages with a related word, they may well be correct. (See further below) Old English had "scralletan," a verb form which meant "to give off a loud sound, to sound loudly." It "seems" that this word "may" have given off "schrylle," by the 1300s, as the meaning was so similar, "piercing sound or high pitched voice." Very close English relatives, Low German and standard German, have "schrell" and "schrill," respectively, both with the same basic meaning as our word. This "may" indicate that the word arose in the West Germanic dialects of what is now northern Germany before some of those dialects left that area for Britain, as English and the German dialects are all West Germanic. Now, just to throw cold water on that theory, there is what certainly seems to be a related word, "skirl," which meant "to make piercing, loud sound(s). It is not commonly used, even in Britain, but it seems to have come into somewhat more common usage during the 1400s (that doesn't mean it wasn't around before then), and just from the context of what I've read, I take it that it was used more so in northern England and Scotland, where the Danes (North Germanic speakers) had an influence on English (I read that while archaic, it is still used in reference to bagpipes. Talk about "shrill!") The "sk" versus Old English "sc" (modern "sh") and the German dialects "sch," is one of the differences between North Germanic and West Germanic. Of course, too, the "r" sound is after the vowel in the North Germanic word. So now, what does this all mean? Well, "maybe" after the old Germanic dialects began to disperse, that this word developed in either the North dialects, or the West dialects, and that the other borrowed the word, as these groups weren't all that far apart in distance; northern Germany, Denmark, and Norway are all close. This may explain the apparent absence of the word from other Germanic languages.
Labels: ABC, CBS, Chet Huntley, CNN, David Brinkley, English, etymology, Germanic languages, magazines, Meet The Press, NBC, news, newspapers, television networks, Walter Cronkite
posted by Randy at 1:57 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home