“Abraham Lincoln was on the side of the social
scientists when he said, ‘God must have loved the people of lower and middle
socioeconomic status, because he made such a multiplicity of them.’”—NBC
newscaster and language maven Edwin Newman (1919-2010), Strictly Speaking: Will America be the Death of English? (1974).
The fame of TV newscasters tends to be fleeting. I
mean, does anyone under the age of 60 know anything about Chet Huntley, let
alone remember him? Unless you become known for something else besides intoning
the nightly news, you can forget about people recalling you 20 years after you
go off the air. Unless, that is, you stake a claim for something outside the
broadcast booth.
Edwin Newman—born 100 years ago today in New York City—may have
spent more than 30 years with NBC News, and he may have had as high a profile
there as you could want: covering the JFK assassination, interviewing the likes
of Ingmar Bergman, Muhammad Ali and David Ben-Gurion on Speaking Freely, and moderating the first televised debate between
Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in 1976, and the second debate between Walter
Mondale and Ronald Reagan eighty years later.
But the obituaries following his death eight years
ago gave equal attention to another aspect of his career: two best-selling
books from the mid-1970s that described, in teeth-grinding but hilarious
detail, how the English language was being roundly abused by politicians,
athletes and other celebrities. Strictly Speaking and A
Civil Tongue enjoyed well-deserved long runs on the bestseller lists
for their delightful skewering of the pompous and pretentious.
Photos like the one accompanying this post may
surprise today’s younger viewers: Newman was nothing like a newsman out of
central casting. But he spoke and wrote the news with admirable economy. "He was a consummate professional, a brilliant guy, a brilliant mind, and a joy to work with," remembered Lucy Jarvis, producer of the show The Nation's Future, in an interview for the Television Academy Foundation.
That
proved to be an advantage as he sought to demonstrate the need for news to a
citizenry requiring information. He was able, for instance, to convince NBC
brass that he baseball fans wouldn’t miss a pitch in a playoff game if he would
only be permitted to break in to announce the resignation of Vice President
Spiro T. Agnew on air, recalled David Hinckley of the New York Daily News in an obit for the newscaster.
The machinations of politicians also motivated his
campaign to keep language pure through his books, he told Terry Gross in a 1988 interview for her NPR show “Fresh Air”:
"I thought that it was the business of anybody
in the news business to examine what he or she was told," he said.
"And you cannot do that -- you cannot examine what is being told and judge
its veracity -- unless you understand language, particularly unless you
understand when language is being used in an attempt to mislead you. I took
that very seriously."
I guffawed as the camera panned to Newman, clad in a blue vest and bandana, intoned to his host about excitable “Little Rat” (Brad Hall), “We’re willing to engage this adversary group in a variety of contests of strength, will and fortitude to underscore our claim.” Then, poker-face, pulling out a switchblade, to Little Rat: “I am prepared to fillet you, if necessary.”
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