moriarty@fluke.UUCP (Jeff Meyer) (01/07/86)
With the advent of "Good News Journalism" these days, it seems
every local news station has some smiling joker running around
the local area, taking a look at the countryside and its inhabitants
with a whistful smile and an ironic tone, and with widely varying
degrees of success and sincerity. Every one of these reporters,
however, are imitators of a style established some twenty years
ago by another reporter named Charles Kuralt, and for a CBS series
called On The Road. A book currently out (and apparently on the
best seller list -- maybe I've been selling the American public's
tastes short) called ON THE ROAD WITH CHARLES KURALT is the
second collection of stories from his twenty year travels (the
first, DATELINE: AMERICA, is out of print, but well worth the $11
investment from used bookstores -- trust me). Kuralt never, ever
trudges into the false sentiment that seems to be the cloth of so
many local pundits; his stories always seem to find the real
individual on the back roads, not some quaint substitute looking
for a little P.R. to play up his activites. He seems to have an
amazing knack for finding the real prizes of American citizenry
today; the true kind souls, the real individualists, the people who
wouldn't think of looking for attention for what they're doing --
being good neighbors, or good friends, or good people. Especially
the latter. But Kuralt finds them; he listens to them, shows them
not as saints, but as people, flawed and blessed with
personalities, and being all the more special for the fact that they
do have the rough spots between the facets of gold. ON THE ROAD
is a collection of transcripts from the series; while I prefer the
actual episodes, I don't have the room for a video library, and
while I miss the faces and the accents (West Virginia, Oklahoma,
Louisiana) which Kuralt records on tape (not the least his own), we
have the next best thing -- his words, and his satisfaction in
knowing these people and being able to present them to us.
The satisfaction is mutual, Charles.
"Today, my jurisdiction ends here."
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
ARPA: fluke!moriarty@uw-beaver.ARPA
UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, allegra, sb6, lbl-csam}!fluke!moriarty
<*> DISCLAIMER: Do what you want with me, but leave my employers alone! <*>ebm@ingres.ARPA (Eli Messinger) (01/08/86)
As an addendum: Walter Cronkite was featured on CBS News Nightwatch a few weeks ago, and he said that the "On the Road" segments originated in the mid- to-late 60's, during the Viet Nam war. He (Cronkite) and the producers felt that something light was needed a few times a week to balance out the daily death grind. Anyone else miss Kuralt's daily morning news show? It was like Sunday every day. ... gt
moriarty@fluke.UUCP (Jeff Meyer) (01/10/86)
In article <174@ingres.ARPA> ebm@ingres.UUCP (Eli Messinger) writes: >Anyone else miss Kuralt's daily morning news show? It was like Sunday every >day. An extremely intelligent show, though not up to the standards of the Sunday show. Kuralt says in the intro to _ON_THE_ROAD_ (The Book) that he really hasn't enjoyed any of the anchoring projects he's done *except* Sunday Morning, that jewel of news programming. Next to any of the Bill Moyers specials or articles, I watch Sunday Morning for the most intelligent and interesting TV news program (though it has declined in recent years). Don't know where I'd be without the review of the week's news... "History is made at night. Character is what you are in the dark." Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer ARPA: fluke!moriarty@uw-beaver.ARPA UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, allegra, sb6, lbl-csam}!fluke!moriarty <*> DISCLAIMER: Do what you want with me, but leave my employers alone! <*>