David Brinkley

It's Walter Cronkite.

News with Jeff Huntley and David Brinkley is on NBC at 7.30. On CBS is To Tell the Truth.

On NBC, Hullabaloo.

And on NBC, 12 o'clock high.

And today, back then I was inspired by those news, great John Chancellor, Walter Cronkite, that gave us the news that I could trust.

David Brinkley, all of those people.

And we don't have it.

I mean, I love the talking heads, but, But please give me an hour of real news in prime time.

There were some...

David Brinkley and some of these other newsmen like Meet the Press and some of these other shows that were on.

But in terms of, yeah.

Dick Cavett.

There were many, many problems.

But one benefit was that there was some kind of gatekeeping going on about who is it that gets to have a column at the New York Times? How does one end up with— being David Brinkley or how does one end up with a position like this, which is you've had to have spent time, you've had to have accomplishment and achievement and been vetted over a period of time.

Once you get to people who are trying to monetize clicks for attention, the divergence of interest between the party and the content producer become overwhelming.

And if what I want you to do is constantly feed into the ravening maw more content, more controversy, more anxiety, that's good for my bottom line, but it's bad for you as a candidate because, in fact, what the majority or at least the plurality of the electorate wants is normalcy, is competency, is boringness.

You know, there's such a rapid state of change in the media that... everything gets kind of confusing.

Back when I worked for NBC magazine with David Brinkley, there were three networks.

Yes.

And now there are a million networks.

On this week.

This week needs David Brinkley.

Isn't that what Limbaugh always said? This week needs David Brinkley.

I don't know.

Here's Donald Trump outside the White House talking about Zelensky with two eyes.

The university is closed and all faculty and students have been sent home.

That's David Brinkley on the famous Huntley Brinkley report that was NBC News.

That was their primetime news program, which is very, very popular.

Of course, Walter Cronkite was, of course, the dominant number one broadcast news program at the time for a long time.

But when I say dominant, it was consistent.

The NBC nightly news was pretty popular, too.

And that was David Brinkley reporting on the Kent State shootings on May 4th, 1970.

Four students killed.

... was such a, uh, Medal of Freedom winner that he went to war.

Maggie Thatcher, Ted Williams, David Brinkley, Johnny Carson.

Wow.

Okay.

Soon he would become teamed with...

David Brinkley.

David Brinkley.

Good night, Chet.

Good night, David.