The end of CBS Radio News

It is a singularly unfortunate and sorrowful development--the death of CBS Radio News, which will take place today.  

At its height, CBS Radio newscasts were carried by more than 1000 stations; its newscasts, most recently, have been heard on some 700 stations.

I've spent much of my life as a CBS News watcher (via The CBS Evening News, on television), and a CBS Radio News listener (on various stations in cities where I've lived).  The newscasts on CBS Radio--sturdy, dependable, and appealing--were conveyed in the routinely straightforward, unadorned vocal styles of its anchors and reporters.  

CBS's journalists, during the radio network's history, included, of course, the brilliant and seminal correspondent and commentator Edward R. Murrow.

Mr. Murrow reported from Europe during the period leading up to World War Two, and was based in London during the war. CBS did not at the time have its own dedicated London facility; Murrow broadcast from a sub-basement studio within the BBC Broadcasting House. 

In addition to reporting from the studio, Mr. Murrow also reported from London's streets, and from bomb shelters and rooftops, during the aerial Blitz carried out by Germany.

He also reported, notably--and deeply movingly--from Buchenwald, when the German concentration camp was liberated in 1945.

His broadcasts, which I have listened to on record albums, on tapes, and online, were compelling, eloquent, stirring.

Here is one one of his rooftop London reports--probably from the roof of the BBC building--from September of 1940:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za2Lus0CkRc

Here, too, is Mr. Murrow, on his television program See it Now, in 1954 (produced with Fred Friendly), discussing Senator Joseph McCarthy: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwGQGM9X69o

There were a great many other notable radio voices on CBS, through the years--including the eminent broadcaster Robert Trout.  He was CBS's news anchor prior to Murrow's ascendance, and remained a prominent voice on the network for decades.  He assisted Murrow, it has been written, regarding Murrow's understanding of, and use of, radio. In the book Prime Time: The Life of Edward R. Murrow (Little, Brown, 1969) author Alexander Kendrick (who worked for Murrow as a reporter during World War Two) wrote that Trout "persuaded [Murrow] that the microphone...should not be declaimed to...but used casually as an instrument of communication, like a telephone."

Murrow did not, I would suggest (listening to him today), sound particularly casual, though perhaps his style was regarded as casual during its time. Nonetheless, as reported by Alexander Kendrick, Trout's advice to Murrow--invoking the intimacy of a telephone--evidently had its intended effect.  One makes note of Murrow's typically low-key, low-register, restrained--yet distinctly authoritative--vocal manner.  His voice had a gravitational quality to it; its force pulled one in, in a striking and, yes, intimate way.

There were many others, who reported for CBS Radio, working for Murrow--such as William L. Shirer, Eric Sevareid, Larry LeSueur, Charles Collingwood, Howard K. Smith, Richard C. Hottelet, Mary Marvin Breckinridge, and Winston Burdett.

The network featured other anchors and correspondents, through the decades--including Douglas Edwards, Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, and Christopher Glenn.

More recently, the network's correspondents or anchors included Peter King, Dan Raviv, Tom Foty, Peter Maer, Cami McCormick, Sam Litzinger, Mark Knoller, Bill Whitney, Allison Keyes, and Jim Chenevey.

When the closing of the radio news division was announced, in March, a New York Times story noted that CBS Radio News "had been whittled down to a handful of correspondents in recent years and is unprofitable, a person familiar with the company said."  The story also said this:

In a staff memo on Friday, Bari Weiss, the editor in chief of CBS News, and Tom Cibrowski, the president, observed that the radio network had “served as the foundation for everything we have built since 1927.” But because of “a shift in radio station programming strategies” and “challenging economic realities,” the company concluded that it was “impossible to continue the service.”

The same story quoted Dan Rather, the former anchor of television's CBS Evening News, who during his career was also, as referred to above, heard on CBS Radio. The story noted that after the announcement of the radio network's closure, Mr. Rather had written on Facebook that

“the end of CBS News Radio breaks my heart.” He recalled listening to its broadcasts from his childhood home in Texas and feeling inspired to pursue a career in journalism.

Concluding his elegy, Mr. Rather noted his gratitude that many of the original CBS radio broadcasts, the ones that had mesmerized him as a child, were preserved for future generations to hear.

“They are available on YouTube,” he wrote.

Here is a video, from Facebook, of a CBS Radio newscast from 2016, with anchor Jim Chenevey, whose broadcasts I enjoyed. He left the network in 2020.  FYI:  when the video appears, it will likely need to be unmuted.  You may, therefore, miss the distinctive CBS Radio News musical "sounder," at the start of the newscast--and therefore may wish to re-start the video, to be able to hear it.  The notes of the sounder remained the same for decades, but there were different musical arrangements of it, over time.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10153902659215885

Lastly, while CBS Radio News may have become unprofitable, the shutting of the network was, I think, a misguided and regrettable decision. While I am guessing it is unlikely, perhaps CBS's new management might soon reverse course--and recognize that it has lost more than it has gained, by abandoning such a distinguished and reliable source of news.

Truth, and the newly-announced deal

Two days ago, on May 17th, President Trump posted the following image on his social media platform, Truth Social.  The image showed the length of wars through American history--including, as indicated, the "Iran Excursion," one of Trump's preferred phrases for the current war. 

Two days ago marked the 79th day of the war with Iran--which is roughly eleven weeks.  The May 17th image indicated that the war has been in process for six weeks.

Was this a sleight-of-hand effort to misstate the war's length?  Did the president think nobody would notice the discrepancy? 

Or was Trump not even aware of the discrepancy? 

Perhaps he was too busy thinking about the construction of his ballroom--which he discusses incessantly--or the changes at the Reflecting Pool, or the new Washington, DC passports bearing his image, or the currency which will soon bear his signature. Or maybe he was, at the time of the post, wrapped up in his belief, despite all evidence, that he actually won the 2020 election--which he talks about all the time. Or maybe he was busy thinking about the $1.776 billion fund--announced the day after the above post appeared--created for Trump supporters, who will be able to file claims asserting they were wronged by the Department of Justice during previous administrations--which would include the rioters at the Capitol on January 6th.

Trump says this, of the nearly two billion dollar fund: "I know very little about it...I wasn’t involved in the whole creation of it and the negotiation, but this is reimbursing people that were horribly treated." 

The idea of the fund is just sickening.

We also learned today that the plan includes the following addendum, providing potential enormous benefits to Trump, as described in this New York Times report: 

The Justice Department has granted President Trump, his family and businesses immunity from ongoing inquiries into their taxes, a potentially lucrative arrangement that could shield the president from significant financial liability.

The provision, quietly inserted on Tuesday as a supplement to a remarkable deal that also created a $1.8 billion compensation fund aimed at benefiting Mr. Trump’s allies, protects the president, his relatives and his businesses from pending audits and tax prosecutions.

The one-page document, signed by the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, said that the government would be “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED from prosecuting or pursuing” pending tax claims against Mr. Trump, his family members and businesses.

Evidently, the prohibitions outlined in the addendum do not include potential investigations of Trump, his family and businesses that might concern future tax returns, but that is small comfort. The deal given to Trump, et al., as part of the $1.776 billion plan (like so much of what Trump says, does, or signs off on), is jarring, and alarming.

Editorial cartoonist and illustrator Barry Blitt

Barry Blitt is known for his routinely superb editorial cartoons and illustrations, and for his great wit.  His work (for which he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2020) appears regularly in The New Yorker, and, not infrequently, on the magazine's cover. 

Here is a new drawing by him, from the cover of The New Yorker's May 11th & May 18th double issue, which focuses upon America's upcoming 250th anniversary. The drawing is titled "Red, White, and Kinda Blue."

(Image © Barry Blitt, and The New Yorker)

An op-ed essay by New York Times columnist David French

The opinion piece, which appeared in the online edition of the Times on April 26th, is titled "Meet the New Leader of the Free World."  

The leader Mr. French is referring to is Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Mr. French writes, at the end of his essay, that "you cannot threaten the free world and lead it at the same time. No nation can match American might, but for the first time in my adult life, the moral and strategic heart of the defense of liberal democracy doesn’t beat in Washington. It doesn’t beat in London or Paris or Berlin or Ottawa, either. It’s in Kyiv, where a courageous leader and a courageous people have picked up the torch America has dropped."

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/26/opinion/zelensky-ukraine-trump-nato-leader.html?unlocked_article_code=1.fFA.OhFv.8OW__UMG9Z8J&smid=url-share

April 18, 1966, and Philip Benjamin

I think, not infrequently, about the subject of rooms--the effect certain rooms can have on one's life. (I have thought in particular about rooms from childhood.)

In my book about early television, for example, I wrote about our family's den, in suburban Boston. It was a fairly small room, and I spent a lot of time there, while growing up. 

As I noted in the book, there were a number of family photographs on one of the room's walls--which included photos of my mother, from her years in early TV. There were pictures of her with bandleader Kay Kyser, and other performers from his TV show; photos of her and her fellow singers on Your Hit Parade; and pictures from other shows on which she sang during the era. 

My mother had a desk, in the room, and at some point in childhood I discovered, in one of the desk's drawers, more memorabilia from her years in early TV--newspaper and magazine articles, scripts, additional photographs, and the like.  There were further items--such as magazines, and records (78s that she recorded with Kay Kyser's orchestra), stored in the room's closet. 

Looking at the photos on the wall, and then finding the many other out-of-view artifacts, during childhood, set off something in my young and evidently susceptible mind, that stayed with me from then on. 

Another photograph on the wall drew my attention. It was a picture of my uncle, Philip Benjamin.  He was my mother's older brother, her only sibling (and my sole Uncle; my father was an only child). 

In the 1950s and 1960s, Philip was a reporter for The New York Times, and the photograph on the wall of the den showed him interviewing Fidel Castro in April of 1959, during a visit Castro made to New York City. 

In January of 1959, Castro's revolution in Cuba had overthrown the rule of the dictator Fulgencio Batista. Batista had seized power, via a military coup, in 1952.

On April 15th of that year, Castro began an eleven-day trip to America.  The trip started in Washington DC, during which Castro visited The Lincoln Memorial, and George Washington's Mount Vernon home, in nearby Virginia.  

He also met with Vice President Nixon, and appeared on Meet the Press. He spoke English, during the television appearance.  His English, at the time, was reasonably good, yet watching the video of his appearance, today, one at times strains to understand some of his words. He was accompanied, on-camera, by an interpreter, to whom he turned periodically.

From April 20 to April 25, Castro visited New York City. While there he went to Yankee Stadium and the Bronx Zoo, and spoke before the Council on Foreign Relations. He also gave a speech to some 16,000 people in Central Park.

During his American visit, he also traveled to Boston, Houston, and Princeton, New Jersey (where he spoke at Princeton University).

Philip interviewed Castro, at the hotel where he and his entourage stayed, during the New York visit.

Here is the image I saw, growing up:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was, as a child, very much taken by the photograph, looked at it often. There is, I think, a sense of drama to the picture. Looking at it today, I am interested in the construction of the photo, the different elements contained within.  There is a crowded, bustling feeling to it--a sense of motion (yet at the same time the absence of motion).  Castro is facing my Uncle, looking somewhat impassive; my Uncle, leaning slightly forward--his hand on Castro's arm.  The two men behind my Uncle--also leaning forward, almost as though joining a huddle (perhaps the man at the far left is a translator).  There is also a man behind and to the right of Castro, who, I only noticed recently, looks to be holding a cigar. There is also the woman seated behind Castro, looking to her right, and one notes, too, the backdrop of the painting on the wall of the room.

I have seen other, similar images of the interview. One of them, below, appeared in an April of 2019 Times story, shortly before the fiftieth anniversary of the start of Castro's New York visit. In the picture below--my Uncle and the photographer, I will note, were not identified, in the 2019 caption--the man who is (presumably) holding the cigar, in the above picture, is now standing near the center of the photo, to the side of my Uncle. Perhaps he, too, was a translator. 

In early January of 1959, shortly after Castro took power, Ed Sullivan went to Cuba to film an interview with him; the interview aired on Sullivan's Sunday night program a few days later.  During the interview, Castro denied that he and his revolution had any connections to Communism.  He repeated this during his April, 1959 appearance on Meet the Press.  In an April 26, 1959 Times story about his departure from New York, my Uncle wrote that Castro again denied, to assembled reporters, any linkage between his revolution, and Communism.

Castro said, in the article: "Why are you worried about Communists?  There are no Communists in my Government.  You should worry about our success as a nation.  We are a democracy."  It wasn't until  December of 1961, in a Havana television and radio speech--several months after the Bay of Pigs invasion--that Castro spoke, publicly, of his alliance with Marxism-Leninism.

                                    -----------------------------

Though my Uncle Philip died when I was ten years old, I remember looking up to him, as a child, and remember how warm and quietly funny he was.

In 1956, the year I was born, he wrote a piece for the Times Sunday magazine, about New York City's mounted police.  The accompanying biographical note (which I am sure Phil wrote) said this:

Philip Benjamin, of The Times staff, interviewed a number of New York mounted police and their horses for this article.

In 1964, while working for the Times, a comic novel he wrote, Quick, Before it Melts, inspired by  reporting trips he had made to the Antarctic for the paper, was published by Random House, and became a best seller. 

(The novel was later made into a film, starring Robert Morse and George Maharis.  The film was not a success--despite being directed by the very talented Delbert Mann, who had been well-known as a director in early television; Mann was also one of the film's producers.  In the 1950s he had, notably, directed both the live television version and the subsequent film version of Marty.)

Philip's atypical biography, on the back flap of the novel's dust jacket, began this way: "Philip Benjamin was born in Stamford, Conn., but spent the next ten bleak years of his life in Indianapolis..."

The biography also noted that as a reporter for the Times "he has made two trips to the Antarctic, covered school integration in Little Rock, interviewed Fidel Castro, and taken innumerable walks with former President Truman.  On a trip to Hong Kong he once was fitted for and received nine suits in seventy-two hours, but subsequently the threads came out."

In Philip's obituary, written by a friend at the Times, the beginning of one of his news stories was cited. The story was from 1955, and concerned a flood in Danbury, CT.

In normal times in Danbury, they say you can toss a match into the little Still River in the morning and find it floating in the same place in the evening.

But over the weekend the river for the second time in two months washed out this maxim, along with the industrial and business center of the town.

In 1996, Richard F. Shepard, a longtime Times reporter, wrote a book about the newspaper's private archives, The Paper's Papers (Times Books),  In the book, Mr. Shepard wrote that Phil "was counted among the best writers on staff."

In City Room, a memoir about his many years at the Times (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2003), Arthur Gelb, a prominent editor at the paper--who in the 1980s became its Managing Editor--wrote this: "Phil Benjamin was a mild-mannered man with a humorous outlook and had the potential for a literary career that was tragically cut short."

Philip left the Times in 1965, after the success of Quick, Before it Melts, and was at work on a second novel. 

In 1966, he was diagnosed with melanoma, and underwent surgery for it.  A few weeks later, he went for additional surgery, to determine if the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes. (The cancer, it would turn out, was not found in the lymph nodes.)

At the start of the second surgery, however, there was a rare and catastrophic complication.  He went into a coma on the operating table, after the anesthesia was administered.  He never emerged from the coma, and died two weeks later.  He was 43.

This past Saturday was the sixtieth anniversary of his April 18, 1966 death. He left behind his wife, my Aunt Lois, who at the time was a senior editor and columnist at The Ladies Home Journal, and their two young sons, my cousins.  The entire family, it will not be a surprise, was heartbroken, shattered.  My mother was thirty-eight years old at the time. She adored her brother; I think it is fair to say that she carried the loss with her, for the rest of her life.

Let me mention, briefly, something that occurred years after Philip's death.  In 1999, when she was 70, my mother was diagnosed with cancer, which had already, at the time of the diagnosis, metastasized. She would die in May of 2001, twenty-five years ago next month. I was living in Virginia at the time of her diagnosis, and my brother, Chicago-based, and I both began making regular trips to Boston.

After she became ill, my mother and I spoke often on the phone. We talked, on a number of occasions, about Phil, who had died more than thirty years before, and about her parents, my grandparents (Victor, who died in 1970, and Dorothy, in 1983).  We reminisced about them, told stories about them, spoke about how much we each loved them. She told me at one point that the conversations about her parents, and her brother, meant a great deal to her. Hearing this meant a great deal to me, in a way that I cannot adequately describe.

(Above photographs, 1959, © The New York Times)

Two sentences

The sentences are from a short story, titled "Light Secrets," by the writer Joseph O'Neill. "Light Secrets" appeared in the January 26, 2026 issue of The New Yorker.

From the narrator of Mr. O'Neill's story:

"Despite my failing memory, I suffer more and more often from excruciating flashbacks in which I relive moments when I said or did something foolish.  The worst, most haunting kind of foolishness is unkindness."

I'm mainly focused, as I type Mr. O'Neill's words, on the latter sentence, concerning the realm of unkindness.

It is a subject I have thought about, off and on, through the years. 

A quotation

A quotation from Elie Wiesel (1928-2016), which is included in the book Two Jews, Three Opinions:  A Collection of Twentieth-Century American Jewish Quotations, edited by Sandee Brawarsky and Deborah Mark (New York: Perigee Books, 2000 edition):

"Literature and prayer have much in common.  Both take everyday words and give them meaning."