Sunday mourning
-- Broadcasting & Cable, 8/28/2000
Horowitz in Moscow, reducing an audience to tears with his encore of Schumann's Traumerei; the rustling of a sea of marsh grass, a heron skimming the water. That is reality TV as CBS Sunday Morning has practiced it for the past two decades. Shad Northshield, who died last week, created the show in 1979. He had a long and distinguished career as a journalist, first print, then broadcast. He was executive producer of NBC's Huntley-Brinkley Report, which created the mold for network newscasts. His shows won all the big-name awards. But marrying the Sunday Morning format with Charles Kurault would have been a sufficient credit by itself.
We end this editorial on an image, without narration, of thousands of viewers, some in pajamas, some dressed for church or for a date with the lawnmower, some with a cup of coffee and the paper spread before them. All a little better off because of Shad Northshield.
