Edwards, born in Louisville, Ky., began his career with small-time radio station WHEL in New Albany, Ind. After working with Armed Forces Radio in Korea and WPOT in Washington D.C., he joined NPR in 1974 as a pioneer of public radio.
According to Assistant Professor of Communications Richard Landesberg, Edwards was the most influential voice in American journalism when he hosted “Morning Addition” from 1979 to 2004. He spoke to a listening audience of 13 million every morning, only second to “The Rush Limbaugh Show.”
“Edwards made public radio the agenda setter,” Landesberg said. “Every mover and shaker in the country woke up to ‘Morning Addition’ wanting to hear the important issues of the day.”
After leaving NPR in 2004, Edward began hosting “The Bob Edwards Show” on XM Radio. In his career, he has interviewed 2,000 news makers and authored “Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism,” a book describing the work of his mentor and friend.
“Edward Murrow is my hero, my patron of saints, my profession’s epitome, and I am sad that he is gone,” Edwards said. “You all would have loved him.”
Edwards loved the atmosphere of NPR because they could be bold and experimental, yet he inevitably found them too afraid to be labeled as liberal.
“If we’re doing our job we shouldn’t be popular. People should hate us because we are the ones like the little boy who acts out in class,” Edwards said.
To Edwards, the future of journalism looks bright as long as those who have the voice continue to identify the problems that need fixing and solve them.
“I’ve always thought journalists were great followers,” Edwards said. “It is our job to lead, but we end up following. We are the voter’s surrogates. We ask the questions they cannot.”