Thursday, February 01, 2007

Replacing Ed Bradley May Be Easier Than CBS Thinks


Of course, there's full agreement that Ed Bradley was a TV icon, and that he will not be so much replaced on "60 Minutes" as much as there will be somebody merely occupying the chair he formerly sat in.
CBS News Correspondent Byron Pitts, above, was asked the replacement question on the CBS Public Eye blog and offered this response:

I hope the decision will be made to hire someone who can follow in his footsteps. Someone who is a journalist who has shown range, who has shown compassion, and someone who's real. One of the things that I think that people loved about Ed Bradley – as they do about all the people at "60 Minutes" – is you get a sense that they are real people, they are not people who just showed up on the scene, but they are people who have a body of work, and when they tell you something, because they have covered all the major stories in the course of their careers, that you can believe it.

Pitts is too humble to nominate himself, but CBS could do a lot worse than to hire on this everyman workhorse of a reporter who has quietly distinguished himself be it in Iraq, amid Katrina and a hundred other points in between.
There have been complaints that the CBS News bench is not very deep, and the network would have to look beyond West 57th to fill the ranks at "60 Minutes."
To be sure, CBS may not have as many stars in waiting as the other nets, but they have solid journalists who don't make a spectacle of themselves but can effortlessly pull off a compelling dispatch no matter where they're sent. Pitts falls into that category.
He deserves a shot on Sunday nights.

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