Flash: Paul Harvey, RIP

No links yet, but we’re hearing that Radio News Legend Paul Harvey has died.

Addendum: I’m now getting confirmation from ABC

Photo Courtesy of Scot Fybush and Northeast Radio Watch.

With Mr Harvey gone, one wonders what will become of this studio.
I think perhaps the best comment I can make is to relate what Scott said a few years ago:

But when Mr. Harvey sits down and, on the cue from his engineer (out of frame through a window to the left of the clock), launches into “Hello, Americans…”, there are few experiences that can compare to being in the studio when the master is practicing his art. I think I may have breathed once or twice during the 15-minute midday newscast (fed from here at 10:35 AM CT), but it’s hard to remember in all the excitement.

After the newscast is over (and with it, Mr. Harvey’s day – he comes in at 4 AM, writes both his daily broadcasts himself, and is on his way home after a few quick retakes of several words in the midday newscast), we’re treated to a brief tour of the comfortable office suite in which the Paul Harvey News staff works. While the control room still houses four big Otari reel-to-reel machines, the broadcasts are now edited digitally to be refed to ABC in New York and then to the hundreds of affiliates around the country.

A conference room looks into the studio; it’s used for greeting visitors (including my companion for this tour, Blaine Thompson of Indiana Radio Watch fame, for whom Mr. Harvey has several questions about Fort Wayne and about his affiliate there, WOWO.)

Down the hall are offices for the staff, for Mr. Harvey himself and for his wife, Angel, who still comes to the office from time to time. (We can attest, having seen it personally, that the Paul Harvey newscasts are still typed on an IBM Selectric typewriter by the man himself.)

It’s a pleasure to report that Paul Harvey himself is every bit as gracious and accommodating in his studio as he sounds on the air – and that, at 85, he’s still the picture of good health.

Alas, Time marches on. Scott wrote that five years gone now, and a couple months.

See Dubya just now chimed in on Twtter, saying Harvey was everything Cronkite was supposed to be.  And so he was.

Mr. Harvey… and frankly, this is the only time in my life I’ve ever referred to a newsman I wasn’t annoyed with as ‘Mister’… you will be missed.