Ed Bradley, a 25-year veteran of the CBS news magazine “60 Minutes,” has died. In an on-air announcement, “CBS Evening News” anchor Katie Couric said Bradley died yesterday from complications of leukemia. He was 65.
It didn’t take long for many of Bradley’s co-workers to publicly speak out about the legendary journalist. His “60 Minutes” colleague, Mike Wallace, said on CBS News Radio that Bradley was “a reporter’s reporter.” While, the creator and former producer of “60 Minutes,” Don Hewitt, said Bradley was a reporter who got along with “people of every stripe.”
According to his CBS biography, Bradley was born June 22, 1941, in Philadelphia. He grew up in a tough section of the city, where he once recalled that his parents worked 20-hour days at two jobs apiece.
“I was told, ‘You can be anything you want, kid,”‘ Bradley once told an interviewer. “When you hear that often enough, you believe it.”
Bradley began his career at CBS in 1971 as a stringer in its Paris bureau. He transferred a year later to the Saigon bureau during the Vietnam War. He was famously wounded while on assignment in Cambodia, and moved to the Washington bureau in June 1974 — 14 months later he was named a CBS News correspondent. Bradley joined “60 Minutes” in 1981 when Dan Rather left to replace Walter Cronkite as anchor of “The CBS Evening News.”
During his tenure at CBS, Bradley won a mountain of awards including 19 Emmys, a Peabody award for a June 2000 report on Africans dying of AIDS, the Paul White Award the same year for his contribution to electronic journalism and a Damon Runyon Award in 2003 for career journalistic excellence. He also won a lifetime achievement award from the National Association of Black Journalists.
Bradley’s career was also the topic of many of my college journalism classes. I’ll never forget my professor commenting about Bradley’s contributions to television news… and the diamond-stud earring he wore. I’ll also never forget a comment made about Bradley by one of my college journalism classmates. After watching a story Bradley had done about Vietnamese boat people, which included footage of him carrying exhausted boat people to shore, and taking their letters to relatives in the United States, my professor remarked that Bradley’s efforts in Vietnam were among those honored by the National Association of Black Journalists. To which my classmate responded: “It didn’t occur to me that Bradley was black.” Bradley’s reporting was so riveting; you almost forgot he was the one telling the story and not actually part of it himself.
Long after I graduated from college, Bradley famously interviewed condemned Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh –it was the only television interview ever given by McVeigh. It won Bradley another Emmy.
In addition to his life in front of the camera, Bradley retained a lifelong interest in jazz and art, and recently served as a radio host for “Jazz at Lincoln Center.”
Bradley is survived by his wife, Patricia Blanchet.