NBC Nightly News

We are creatures of habit.  You can't teach an old dog new tricks.  You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.  Any of this sound familiar?

A lot of the things we do, the cars we drive, the places we like to go on vacation, the television networks we would watch, the type of gasoline we bought, are all the result of what our parents did.  As kids, we watched, learned, and followed their actions.  Certainly, that is not true for all of us, for many it is.

In case you're wondering, the answers to the statements in the previous paragraph are, Chevrolet, historical places, NBC, and Shell.  At least that is what I remember.

It is one of those, NBC, that I am going to talk about today, because I read earlier this morning that tomorrow, Friday, May 30th, will be Lester Holt's last day as anchor of the NBC Nightly News.

I have always been a news junkie.  I mean as long as I can remember.   As a three-year-old in April 1961, I remember watching every minute of the broadcast of Alan Shepherd, the first American in space.  Two and-a-half years later, in November 1963, I can recall being glued to the television when President Kennedy was killed.  I liked knowing what was going on in the world.  That habit of watching the news came from my folks.  Living in the central time zone, we would watch the network news when it came on at 5.30, between the local five and six o'clock news.

In my younger years, and even now, we watched, and I continue to tune to the NBC Nightly News.  Back then it was the Huntley-Brinkley Report.  Chet Huntley was in New York and David Brinkley was in Washington, giving viewers, a generation before cable and the internet, the national and world news of the day.  They ended every broadcast saying good night to each other.  I remember it as if it were last week.  "Good night, David," quickly followed by "Good night, Chet," and then one would say, "and good night from NBC News."

It was in the summer of 1970 when Huntley retired.  It took two men, John Chancellor and Frank McGee to replace him.  Those two joined Brinkley, and the three rotated as a duo for about a year, and then Chancellor flew solo for five years before Brinkley rejoined and the two of them worked together for the next three years, until the fall of 1979.

After Brinkley left for ABC, Chancellor was once again the lone anchor until the spring of 1982, when NBC switched again to two anchors, promoting Tom Brokaw and adding Roger Mudd who came over from CBS.  The pair worked together for about 18 months before Mudd was reassigned.  Brokaw then was the sole anchor for the next 21 years.  It is probably safe to say that when anyone under 50 thinks of NBC News anchors, they think of Tom Brokaw, who manned the anchor desk continually from April 1982 through December 2004, at which point he was replaced by Brian Williams, who held the spot for just over ten years, before being replaced by Holt in June 2015.

I'll be 68 next week, so since my debut in June 1957, only eight men have been the primary anchor for the Nightly News at NBC, and two of them, McGee and Mudd, had very short tenures in the most visible seat NBC had.  

Holt announced back in February he was stepping aside as anchor, to spend more time on NBC Dateline, an hour-long weekly show.  I knew his last day was coming, but until I was reminded this morning, his last day was tomorrow, well I didn't realize it was so soon.

When I reflect back, I know watching Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, John Chancellor, Tom Brokaw, Brian Williams and Lester Holt to deliver my nightly news every weeknight, that played a part in my decision to write for "Pepper Box" my high school newspaper at Ritenour High School in suburban St. Louis.  Thanks to Martha Ackmann, my high school journalism teacher, it also piqued my interest in radio.

In my adult life, I have worked in both newspaper and radio, and for a stretch of 14 years, I did both at the same time, writing, reporting news, sports, or whatever was deemed newsworthy.  I loved doing it and even today I miss it greatly.  To be honest, that is why I started this blog, because I still love to write.  It all started because of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley and a little kid's fascination with the news.

I never worked in television, but for a moment, I'll pretend I did.  This is Dalton Sullivan reporting from Tuscumbia, Alabama.  Good night for Baseball, God and Tacos.

Thanks for stopping by.  Be kind to each other.