Saying less is best – Edwin Newman

by YankeeJim | September 16, 2010 at 07:40 am

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When he left broadcasting for retirement, he was one of those people that you dearly missed. You might wonder how Edwin Newman would treat a story. His chemistry with Barbara Walters was fantastic, I thought.

While working for a client, Peat Marwick, now KPMG, on a communications assignment, they sent me to New York to meet with Edwin Newman who conducted a workshop for Senior Partners. I had lunch with him and he spoke about his new book at the time, Strictly Speaking, will America be the death of English.

That pretty much says it. I have an autographed copy and I abuse the English language.

He was a great one.

“Edwin Newman, 91, dies; NBC broadcaster, guardian of grammar

By Matt Schudel

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 16, 2010

Edwin Newman, whose understated delivery of the news was a mainstay of NBC broadcasts for more than 30 years, and who cultivated a second career as a caretaker of proper grammar and usage, died Aug. 13 of pneumonia in Oxford, England, where he had lived since 2007. He was 91.

The Associated Press said the announcement was delayed to give his family time to mourn.

With his balding, slightly rumpled appearance, Mr. Newman was hardly cast in the classic mold of the chirpy, bright-eyed broadcaster. Instead, he brought gravity, wit and a depth of understanding to television, whether as an interviewer, a substitute anchor, a host of the "Today" show or the narrator of documentaries.

Mr. Newman, who spent more than a decade as a foreign correspondent, became known for his unflappable manner on the air, embellishing broadcasts with knowledge from his well-furnished mind. He gained his quiet sense of authority from his command of the language and a sense of cultural history that reached back earlier than the advent of the color television camera.

"The key to Edwin Newman's success is the triumph of content over presentation," former "NBC Nightly News" anchor John Chancellor said when Mr. Newman retired in 1984. "What he says is more interesting to him than how he says it. If he has nothing to say, he doesn't say anything, which is rare in television . . . and in life."”