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Brooks Peterson
Brooks Peterson's column is published Mondays. Brooks also sits on the Caller-Times editorial board and can be contacted at petersonb@caller.com
Monday, July 19, 1999
The ubiquitous Mr. Kurtis puts us all to shame
We don't duck the tough issues in this space, nossir. Thus, today we take on the question that is on every lip: Who is the greatest journalist of the second half of the 20th century?
All right, all right; it may not be on every lip, but come on: I've got a column to write here, OK?
Now, since I'm a print journalist, I'll just bet you're expecting me to nominate another print journalist. Somebody like Woodward or Bernstein or one of those guys.
Going into this exercise, that was my first impulse, out of sheer parochialism if nothing else.
But no: It's time to cast all that stuff aside. It's time to be a stand-up guy. It's time to be a grown-up. Much as it may grate (and it does), intellectual honesty and a spirit of fair play compel me to nominate a luminary from the hip, happening world of TV news.
No, not Edward R. Murrow. Not Walter Cronkite either, nor Douglas Edwards, nor Howard K. Smith. Giants all, but in their day the medium had yet to attain its full potential. And not Rather, Brokaw or Jennings, talented though they undeniably are.
My candidate, I submit, has powers that go beyond mere journalistic competence; indeed, beyond brilliance. My guy possesses the gift of being everywhere, of reporting everything, of lending his piercing intellect and sonorous tones not just to any story, but to every story.
I mean, it's spooky. It's as if he had somehow come into superhuman powers - like he was, you know, bitten by a radioactive spider, or abducted by aliens who taught him the techniques of teleportation, know what I mean?
Of course you don't. But don't worry. I've thought this thing through for you. Trust me.
I am speaking, of course, of A&E's Bill Kurtis, the man who is the very walking, talking definition of the descriptor "ubiquitous.''
He's everywhere! He's everywhere!
Who could have known? After graduating from the University of Kansas, he went after, and got, a law degree. Fortunately, he overcame this youthful indiscretion, and he went through high-visibility jobs first in Chicago, then with CBS, and now with A&E, where he has almost terrifyingly come into his own.
I suppose I'd been vaguely aware of this for quite some time, but it only struck home in the past few weeks. Every blinkin' time I dialed up A&E, there was Bill Kurtis, with his piercing gaze, and, above all, his air of gravitas, telling me - me - that this was Serious Stuff, and if I knew what was good for me, I'd treat it with the respect it deserved.
The last week to 10 days have seen a veritable Kurtis-o-Rama on A&E: an "Investigative Reports" blitz in which, one after another, he has given us the straight poop on Guns in America; on the teacher who seduced her 13-year-old student; on anti-gay hate crimes; on the big shot in Delaware accused of murdering his significant other and making her remains disappear; on IRS Horror Stories; on the Date Rape Drug . . . the list is endless.
Thursday evening, even as this is being written, he is blowing the lid right off of Chappaquiddick.
And that's just "Investigative Reports." In "American Justice," he has given us the low-down on Charles Manson, O.J. Simpson, Amy Fisher, the Menendez brothers . . . you've got to be a very slippery fish indeed to slip through the Kurtis net, my friend.
Did I mention that in his abundant spare time he's been working as executive producer of "The New Explorers," a series chronicling the derring-do of brilliant scientists pushing ever further into the great unknown?
The one great unknown that worries me here is: How can he keep on at this frenetic pace? I mean, sure, it's great to have your groupies running a Web site that celebrates you as "god of television and journalism,'' but, radioactive spiders or no, there are limits.
Maybe if we can all get together on this Journalist of the Century (OK: Half Century) thing, A&E can ease of the screws a bit and let the guy catch a nap every now and again.
(Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com)
Brooks Peterson
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