ED BRADLEY: THE ANCHOR MAN WITH THE EARRING

1941- 2006

NYTimes Slideshow

Another shockingly huge loss for the TV news profession, all Americans but Black-America especially. Veteran broadcaster and icon Ed Bradley died today at the age of 65. He had leukemia. Ed Bradley was a pioneer reporter, one of the first black male journalists to be on a major network (and stay). He earned his stripes,took risks (went off to be a freelancer for CBS in Paris on his own savings) and opened many doors for minority journalists. Even though I'm a PJ girl, I watched 60 minutes because of Ed Bradley and Andy Rooney (please God give Andy more years abeg). They can write like mad. Anyways, there are many veterans in the industry clocking old age and discovering ailments, I am afraid of the talent the industry will lose when the creator calls. We owe these guys immeasurable gratitude for their contributions. I know they may never get to read Adaure's silly blog but I just want to say a big thank you and give a cyber-hug to all the 'old-heads' of Television news; Barbara Walters, Andy Rooney, Lesley Stahl, Larry King (I sat in his chair the other day...i'll explain later), Walter Cronkite, Mike Wallace, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Charlie Gibson, Charlyne Hunter-Gault and anyone else I may have unintentionally left off the list. Oh yes and before there was cable to bring CNN, and moving o yankee to get CBS and ABC there was our good old NTA Network News. Therefore, I mustn't forget Nigeria's Yinka Craig, Patrick Oke, Siene Razak Lawal, Ruth Benemisia-Opia and ofcourse the ever talkative Frank Olize, because before I started really watching American news, I was tuning into Newsline on NTA just to catch Frank and his 'don't say I told you' stories. Thanks folks!!!