Paul Harvey: Final Speech to His Fellow Broadcasters

good afternoon Americans Al the highest compliment of all is to be well the highest compliment is when the girl of your life says I do but second it's when you are salute by your peers Walter the [Music] uh the pauses are sometimes just because I'm overwhelmed in a search for Words my ABC colleagues have often threatened to save up all the pauses in the Paul Harvey news broadcast sells more spot announcements in there and on that subject I'm proud that some of you sponsors willing to put your money where my mouth is have made this

pilgrimage today thank you for your presence be still in my heart I have ever to remember what Walter Litman once said that self-importance has ruined more good journalists than bad liquor [Laughter] on kbo in Tulsa Oklahoma at the age of 14 I was encouraged once in a while to overhear somebody say hey that Paul Harvey sounds pretty good for his age recently I've had mixed feelings when I when I over here the same thing there were a lot of w krps between Tulsa and today between then and and this award but then one day it

was no longer just radio and me we were three and the adventure took on a whole new dimension and Angel would you please [Applause] stand and so with an angel on my shoulder and a gifted Son by my side I can take only a fraction of the credit for this accad those of us who flit about the fickle flirtatious flame of Fame pretend to many motives but make no mistake we do enjoy the dance the trick of course is to be warmed by those Flames without being consumed by them in my experience that objective has

been aided by having a wife who is wiser and a son who is smarter my wonderfilled adventure in journalism began figuratively sitting at the feet of an Emporia Kansas editor I never met William Allen White of the Emporia Gazette it was he almost alone who brought Middle America to the attention of the world nobody better than Mr White Ever reduced the world's complexities to shirt sleeve English that anybody could comprehend my professional ambition was and still is to serve his constituency and should you visit my skyscraper offices in Chicago and you're always welcome your attention

will focus first on a large portrait in the reception room wall it's a portrait of a young boy his clothing dates itself to a generation past the plus fours are wretchedly wrinkled the misshapen shoes are worn out one of them is worn through but the boy leaning forward on one elbow is listening and wrapped to a 1930s vintage Cathedral shaped mul dial radio the boy does not resemble any person in particular except to me the artist is in Oklahoma named Jim Daly whom I have never met but with his painting he included this note he

said there is no way for me to express the pleasure I received from listening to the old radio programs in my mind those wonderful Heroes were magnificent no movie no television program not even real life could have equated what my imagination could conjure up amazingly all of those Heroes he says looked a bit like me and all of those Heroes he described looked a bit like me radio people in their preoccupied haste have been letting go sometimes of the might and Majesty of the well-spoken word Van Go is pleasing to the eye but Shakespeare is

fathomless special effects for all of their sophistication are still not as effective as human imagination fourth and fifth graders surveyed say that after seeing a Harry Potter movie when they try to reread a Harry Potter book their imagination is constricted limited by what they have seen quiditch was much more fun in Our Minds Eye so distinct is the disparity that the publisher of the books will use no scenes from the movies on the covers of those books you trust me to paint you trust me to paint pictures on the mirror of your mind and I

will let you feel such Agony and ecstasy such misery and such magnificence as you would never be able to feel by looking at it let me paintt you a picture of unrequited love in 17 words when the fire in me meets with the ice in you what could remain but damp ashes now you tell me what picture in all of film could you duplicate that pregnancy that poignancy we court with the light turned down that's to remain undistracted we Sav a fragrance or a kiss or a foot massage with our eyes closed or comedy in

a book which Paul junr and I put together for what it's worth I was able to match cartoon sketches with some of the stories not this particular one on page 135 you will meet Martha and Chris Geron of Garing Nebraska every weekday afternoon at to Martha lowers the window shades disconnects the telephone turns on the TV to watch the wrestling matches Martha admits that she loves to watch those big bruisers headbutt one another and body slam one another and then when she gets sufficiently worked up she throws a step over Toe Hold on her husband

Chris and there on the floor in front of the TV set they wrestle until one is able to pin the other don't you tell Martha Geron that wrestling matches on TV are staged she says if there's anything on TV that's staged it's the soap operas she says the wrestling matches those are for real including hers with Chris which by the way she usually wins Martha gson is 76 her husband Chris is 83 now that picture which you have been imagining is infinitely more entertaining than any cartoon of the same thing ladies and gentlemen you all

can't comfortably say this but I can your roots are deep and strong or you would not have weathered the evolution of your industry with such consumate Grace and dignity and responsibility news related radio programming is evolving as you know at a frenetic Pace in the beginning of my career when ABC was still part of NBC there were three clearly defined categories of news people first one became a ribbon Reed reporter if itemized by LEL Thomas after an appropriate apprenticeship the reporter might qualify himself to be a news analyst and then he was able to explain

the news HV calborn was a very good explainer eventually a venerated analyst competent to comment was designated a commentator and Elmer Davis epitomized that category in today's Scramble for audience hip shooting phone callers from anywhere can comment on anything news has become reactive and the re actor is encouraged to react to everything it can be argued that news people have always been covert commentators shaping their broadcasts if only by their choice of what goes on the air and what goes in the waist basket but but never overtly today's television allows a nameless faceless proactive commentator

behind the scenery to put words in the teleprompter and thus into the mouths of the talking faces and the most surprising Innovation to a pragmatist accustomed to swimming Upstream the most surprising contemporary transition is the willingness of the foxy Fox network to achieve a conservative balance in news handling instead of trying to influence the audience Fox is deliberately shifting its Center of balance by enough to the right where the numbers are so what do you know what's old is New Again including including the technology of the 30s tube amplifiers ribbon microphones and networks relearning what

individual station operators never forgot the so-called star system and if you listen closely these days you will hear advertisers rediscovering how to move merchandise with logic some of us have never done it any other way you Americans were born into a nest of eagles you have survived the mocking birds and the parrots and the cuckoo birds and the rising decline of TV until again this past year in our ABC Network and the H that lays a good EG has a perfect right to cackle in our ABC Network the one profitable member of the Disney family

was radio confucious is said to have said one picture is worth a thousand words haa anybody remember about confucious not what he looked like but what he said as a boy I fell in love with words and ran away from home and joined the radio and it really was something close your eyes and see it still is advertis ERS in the United States this year will spend $49.5 billion and by the way that's 5% more than last year telling us all of the good things real and imagined about their respective products isn't it a shame

that with noisy distressing depressing news hour after hour day in and day out by our emphasis on all of the bad things crime and inflation and pollution and floods and fires and Discord and discontent by our persistent preoccupation with negatives we tend to unsell ourselves and our children on a way of life which in fact is the Envy of the rest of the world and that repetition is effective I tell you repetition is effective repetition is effective Bob Barker asked a game show contestant for $500 named two famous brothers who made it possible for men

to fly without a moment's hesitation the contestant replied Ernest and Julio Jennifer take care of that treasure but don't get accustomed to having it with you in my Chicago home I'm going to place that where I can see it every day at 3:30 that is the other [Laughter] 3:30 that's when I arise to wash and drink rest and eat and drink and look at things and talk and think and only God knows why but I'm going to look at this and I'm going to ReDiscover whatever resolve it takes to keep on keeping on still still

just doesn't seem logical to me that a fellow can be honored for doing every day what he most wants to be doing every day it does not seem logical but then as Cowboy perk Carlson always used to say if life were logical it's men who would ride Sid sadle the first time in a long professional lifetime the first time that I ever missed even one broadcast for health reasons was 2 years ago and sentenced to silence I had to confront the possibility that I would not be back maybe not be back on the air ever

I was not ready for that there were a few more Footprints I had hoped to leave behind for my colleagues especially for the very young ones I guess I imagined that the journalists in the bullpen were not quite warmed up yet and somebody had to be around to keep re- reminding them that tomorrow always has been better than today and it still will be but they have plenty of time to mature now with the rusty pipes renewed and a reminder like this to I just might repeat something that I told Al Peterson three years ago

I have made up my mind to go on forever good day