Remembering Ed Bradley
Bradley served as a model for Lincoln students
Stacia Weaver
Issue date: 11/5/07 Section: Opinion
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Bradley is recognized for his dedication for being the first African American correspondent to appear on a primetime television magazine. In 1981, Bradley was named as a regular on CBS news 60 minutes.
During the rise of Bradley's career in the mid-1960s, African American positions in the media were not acknowledged. When Bradley joined the staff of 60 Minutes in 1981, he was one of three African American employees. Excluding Bradley, one employee was a radio technician, and the other, a janitor.
Today, African Americans still face discrimination in the media. According to Lee Becker, a professor at the University of Georgia and a tracker for minority communication graduate employment, it is a "myth that there are not enough minority applicants to alter the face of America's newsrooms." The reality is that there are more minorities looking for positions than those who are actually hired.
A 1964 graduate of Cheyney State College, now Cheyney University, Bradley's initial plan was to become a grade school teacher. However, Bradley decided he wanted to be a disc jockey after popular disc jockey Georgie Woods spoke in one of his classes.
One visit to the radio station reaffirmed in Bradley's mind that radio was for him. "God put me on this earth to be on the radio," he would later say.
While working full time teaching sixth grade at a middle school, Bradley worked nights for free at WDAS, a Philadelphia-based radio station. He programmed music, read news, and covered basketball games. Despite his remedial experience in these areas, Bradley realized he needed hands on reporting experience.
"He clearly was a field reporter," said Howard Kurtz, media reporter for the Washington Post. "He did not want to be chained to a desk."
By the mid-1960s, Bradley reported on riots in Philadelphia that were a direct result of the the civil rights movement. Because of a lack of equipment at the radio station, Bradley would stay at the scene of the riots using a pay phone to file his story live on the air. As a result of his hard work, the radio station began to pay Bradley a total of $1.25 an hour.
It was soon thereafter that Bradley got his big break. In 1967, he began work as a full time employee at the CBS owned New York radio station, WCBS. Later in 1971, he became a freelance writer for CBS News. There he covered the Paris Peace Talks, a treaty which intended to end the Vietnam War, and he covered the Cambodian War where he was injured by a mortar. In 1976, he covered the Jimmy Carter campaign in Washington, D.C., and later becoming a CBS News White House correspondent.
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