Best broadcasts of 1938-39 (1939)

BEST BROADCASTS OF 1938-39 veterans but to a young man who had had practically no network experience at all. He had worked for four years at Boston’s independent outlet, WHDH, and for two more at WEEI, Columbia’s most powerfiil New England transmitter. He was essentially a local station man. At the moment when the diving bell was being reeled to the surface, Jack Knell was bobbing about in a thirtyfoot cruiser as close to the Falcon as the Coast Guard would allow. He had had no sleep for sixty hours, but at the instant the “air” was thrown in his lap he accepted the assignment with the immediate response to the job that is the basic equipment of all ad lib reporters. What he said is not exciting in cold type. I find this unhappily true of many of the pieces in this book. It cannot be otherwise, for much of radio depends upon the moment or upon inflection or upon some other intangible that cannot be recorded on a page of print. The virtue of Mr. Knell’s report is, primarily, its clarity. It told the audience where he was, what was about to happen, and graphically and simply described the procedure as it did happen. In his stark recital of the facts there is an almost photographic sharpness of truth. The episode was sufficiently colorful in itself, and Knell, realizing this, made no effort to make it more so. He told radio listeners that the first survivors had been rescued, and this was what they wanted to hear. And he described the process vividly and quickly as the United States Navy executed it before him. His presence of mind, his control, and his accuracy in this spectacular emergency won for him the National Headliner’s Club Award for the best radio reporting of a news event during 1938-39. As an editor and as one of the radio listeners lucky enough to catch the spot when it was on the air, I am happy to concur in the unanimous opinion of the journalists that it was the best thing of its sort during the past year. Here is what he said. 426