Daniel Schorr: An Appreciation

Another of the great ones is gone.

Daniel Schorr, whose calm, careful, deliberate, unhurried delivery of the news gave a "listen, this is worth hearing" quality to whatever he was reporting on, passed away today at 93.

Like Walter Cronkite, Daniel Schorr offered journalism you could rely on; you could take what Daniel Schorr said to the bank.

Like Walter Cronkite, you could trust him.

From the early 1970s, seeing him on the CBS news, right up to this month, when I heard his carefully modulated delivery on NPR, I remember with pleasure watching and hearing his carefully crafted stories, how every word was chosen with such considerate deliberation and attention to detail.

His was craftsmanship that conferred gravitas on the art of broadcast journalism. It was no surprise that Ted Turner recruited him to help bring throw weight to a spunky little startup called CNN.

Daniel Schorr was old school in the way he pursued his craft, and he was old school in never descending to the lowest common denominator. While Daniel Schorr, like all of us, had his own opinions and views, he never let those views get in the way of the facts.

Too often, in an echo-chamber culture in which confirmation bias has led to a tendency to hear only those voices that reaffirm our own beliefs and opinions, we forget how important facts, those stubborn things, can be.

Daniel Schorr never forget how important facts are. We could do him no greater honor than to come out of the echo chamber and once again remember for ourselves that facts matter, no matter how stubborn they may be.