Monday, March 02, 2009

Paul Harvey and "the rest of the story."

Obituaries for Paul Harvey, the legendary seemingly immortal radio reporter/commentator who died Feb. 28, 2009, at age 90, were published and broadcast across the United States and likely around the world.

Radio and television obits featured audio of Harvey's distinctive and familiar voice giving his signature sign on - "Good morning, America. This is Paul Harvey. Stand by for news."

They also offered Harvey's "jump" to Page 2 of his stories - "And now the rest of the story" - and his sign off - "This is Paul Harvey. Good day."

But countless newspapers with Internet presences missed the opportunity to make their online versions of Harvey's obituary more meaningful to the public.

Because of the marvelous means of multimedia available to them, they can no longer forgive themselves for not providing online readers with samples of audio and/or video of people like Harvey.

Kudos to the New York Times for posting links to easily accessible audio (WGN Radio) and video (YouTube) of Harvey delivering news stories his way with facts followed by his point of view.

And kudos to WGN for a Web page full of some of Harvey's most poignant reports and familiar phrases, as well as excellent radio obituaries by Doug Limerick and Gil Gross, comments from colleagues and listeners and much more.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The work ethic of Paul Harvey and his integrity as a person was way above the norm. Paul Harvey was one of my favorites when I was growing up. Paul Harvey was a one of a kind and he will be missed.