Funny as it might be, I have a graduate degree in journalism. Each night when Keith signs off his show with "good night and good luck" I always smile. It is kind of a long story why. But maybe a good story.
For two years I went to school each day at LSU. The Manship School. My major professor was the Sig Mickelson chair. That chair is still there. Endowed that it will always be there.
But I was blessed that I actually went to school and worked with Sig Mickelson. He wasn't just a man that had an endowment named after him. He was alive, sitting across the table from me. You might wonder how I connect him and Keith. Or who the heck is Sig Mickelson?
Well that is simple.
See Sig Mickelson is kind of famous for two things. He fired Edward R. Murrow and promoted Walter Cronkite from a backwater town to national attention.
He did something else. As the head of CBS Radio he moved the company to television. I mean there was actually a time in America folks thought TV was just a fad. Something that would pass. He beat down, forced CBS to move to TV. Since you are reading this here, I can only assume you know that many folks said the Internet wouldn't affect print news. Television. How did that work out for them?
He was kind of forward thinking. It pains me that only now can I connect these dots. Cause literally, I mean literally across from his office was the room where I and others were figuring out the Internet (in 1991) might matter.
I've never actually used that degree of mine. But I was taught how you report a story. Keith is spot on here. What is the phrase? Sometimes facts have a liberal basis.
I will just end with this. In his New York Times obit they find a quote of him from C-SPAN. What he hoped TV news would do, a more informed and educated public:
"It simply hasn't happened," he said. "We were hoping that we'd get more voters to the polls. We were hoping we'd have better candidates, better-informed candidates; that the charlatans were out of business completely; that the X-ray eye would expose all the charlatanism.
"Certainly, we haven't more people going to the polls," he added. "And surely there is no exposure of the charlatans anymore. The X-ray eye probably has astigmatism of some kind or other."
I never asked him his political leanings. For all I know a total Republican. But please read that above quote. Now read it again.