June 13: Happy Birthday Elmer Davis

Newspaper reporter, radio announcer and reporter, War Department Information head were all signature components of Elmer Davis. Davis was born in 1890 in Indiana and was quick as a young man to find his way into the world of news and reporting. He spent time as a reporter and editorial writer for the New York Times.

By 1939 Davis moved onto radio when asked to fill in for a regular announcer that had gone to Europe covering events. The radio audience instantly was captivated by his easy going voice and was soon reporting nightly. Edward R Murrow once stated that the reason Elmer Davis was so successful so quick was due to his Indiana voice.. The irony here is that Davis would receive a couple of Peabody awards during the course of his career placing him as a peer to Murrow. In 1941, the government asked Davis to become head of the War Departments Information Division.

Davis left a high paying radio position to handle this government position thus displaying his patriotic stand. After the war, Elmer Davis returned to radio and stayed involved in commenting on politics. One of his points of contention were the McCarthy Communist witch hunts. Davis never failed at expressing himself when the need arose. He passed away in the spring of 1958. The news world lost an informed and intelligent voice of reporting the facts.

October 2: Happy Birthday, Mary Breckinridge

One of the several radio personages born on this day is Mary Marvin Breckinridge Patterson, one of Edward R. Murrow's "boys."  A female to be sure, Mary often worked under the name Marvin.  Whatever gender issues may have been in play, this strategy also kept her distinct from her cousin, Mary Breckinridge, noted for starting the Frontier Nursing Service.

Breckinridge filed some fifty reports for Murrow's team on CBS.  Many of her reports were from Germany. In 1940, this assignment abruptly came to an end and Mary went back to photojournalism, also becoming a philanthropist.

April 25: Happy Birthday, Edward R. Murrow

The Michael Jordan of broadcast journalism. The Beethoven. The Ben and Jerry's. The google. Yet Edward Murrow has one up on all of them by having a high school named after him.

Edward Murrow was a man of principle, toiling feverishly to uphold journalistic integrity and high standards and to use reporting as a tool for supporting and enhancing democracy.

Bringing the horrors of World War II and the tyrannies of Hitler and Stalin into American living rooms, Murrow adopted a very descriptive style filled with visual imagery.

Upon returning from his daring European coverage of WWII, Murrow recorded an album called I Can Hear It Now, an account of his wartime experiences. His life was cut short in 1965, but he lives on as a pioneer and standard-setter for broadcast journalism.