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JOHN S. YOUNG — NBC Announcer
T'O John S. Young, staff announcer for the National Broadcasting Company, radio announcing is more than a career. To him, it is a -*• very good solution of the “American Tragedy” — the difficult task of combining livelihood with a pleasant job. In his early days at Yale University, where he was a classmate of Rudy Vallee, he couldn’t decide whether he should be a lawyer, playwright or actor. By the flip of a coin and the process of elimination, he studied playwrighting under George Pierce Baker at Yale. At the start it loomed as a wonderful profession. But near his graduating days, he learned that it was more of an ordeal than anything else. For unless the playwright could produce another “Abie’s Irish Rose” or something like it, he was quite out of the picture. After being graduated from Yale, Young tried acting, but he just didn’t get the breaks. He appeared before the microphones of WBZ-WBZA frequently as an actor, and announcing caught his eye as something of a novelty. A few months later, he could be found on the fifty-yard line of the Yale Bowl with a microphone in one hand, and the line-up in the other. At last he had found a profession in which excitement and profit reigned ! A year or so with the two famous New England radio stations and he came to New York as staff announcer for the National Broadcast¬ ing Company. His rise with that organization didn’t take very long. The reason, probably, was that he took his job seriously. He is now announcing several major NBC programs. His biggest thrill came when he received a personal radiogram from Commander Richard E. Byrd, a few minutes after he had finished announcing a special short wave program broadcast to Byrd at the South Pole from the Capitol Theater. Caught in one of his serious moments, he said: “The trust, confidence or good will of the radio listener must never be violated. The announcer’s vision of the homes his voice is entering must contain an element of sanctity. Therefore nothing ‘tainted’ must be presented.” To John S. Young, the microphone is the mouthpiece of the world — if not today, then surely tomorrow.
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