Bob Considine Biography Quotes 2 Report mistakes
| 2 Quotes | |
| Occup. | Journalist |
| From | USA |
| Born | November 4, 1906 Washington, D.C., United States |
| Died | September 25, 1975 |
| Aged | 68 years |
Bob Considine was an American journalist and author born in 1906 in Washington, D.C. He came of age in a period when newspapers were the dominant medium, and he gravitated toward the bustling newsrooms of the capital. Early work in reporting and desk jobs introduced him to the pace and precision that would define his career. He learned quickly that clarity, speed, and an ear for the public mood could carry a story much farther than ornament, and he built his craft accordingly.
Breaking In with a National Wire Service
Considine's name became widely known through the Hearst organization, particularly the International News Service (INS), where he moved from reporting into column writing and special assignments. The INS network, built by William Randolph Hearst, prized lively copy and fast turnaround, values Considine readily embraced. Washington, New York, and other major news centers became his professional home, as he honed a voice that blended straight reporting with plainspoken commentary. His byline traveled widely; editors valued his reliability under deadline and his knack for translating complicated events into crisp narratives.
World War II Correspondence
World War II brought out the best of Considine's deadline instincts. He covered the war from multiple angles, including the home front and the front lines, making sense of a vast conflict for readers who were hungry for both facts and human stories. His dispatches favored momentum and morale, capturing scenes and personalities in a style that was patriotic without losing sight of the stakes and costs. He became a recognizable figure to newspaper readers and radio audiences, one of the journalists who helped knit together a common understanding of the war as it unfolded.
Author and Collaborator
Considine extended his reach by collaborating on best-selling nonfiction books that drew on his skill as an interviewer and storyteller. He worked with Captain Ted W. Lawson on Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, turning Lawson's account of the Doolittle Raid into an immediate wartime classic. He partnered with General Jonathan M. Wainwright on General Wainwright's Story, bringing to the page the ordeal and resilience of a prominent prisoner of war. In sports, he teamed with Babe Ruth for The Babe Ruth Story, giving voice to one of America's most beloved athletes near the end of the Yankee slugger's life. He also collaborated with jockey Eddie Arcaro on Riding for My Life. Across these projects, Considine's role was to shape, pace, and polish, allowing the central figures to speak while guiding readers through the arc of their experiences.
Voice, Reach, and Syndication
The breadth of Considine's work owed much to syndication. Columns and features he wrote for the INS and, through the Hearst syndicates, for papers across the country appeared alongside his war reporting and book collaborations. His columns often stitched together politics, sports, and popular culture, reflecting a journalist who moved easily among newsmakers, athletes, and military figures. By the late 1940s his name had become a familiar fixture to readers from big-city broadsheets to small-town dailies.
Notable Relationships and Influences
Considine's career placed him among consequential figures in journalism, sports, and public life. He navigated the ambitious world built by William Randolph Hearst while maintaining collegial ties with fellow reporters and editors who prized brisk, readable news. The intimacy of his collaborations gave him an unusual vantage point on people like Ted W. Lawson, General Jonathan M. Wainwright, Babe Ruth, and Eddie Arcaro. He also wrote extensively about legendary boxer Joe Louis and other sporting icons, using them to explore broader American themes of perseverance and fame. These relationships shaped his reporting and his books, and in return his writing helped fix the public memory of those figures.
Later Career and the UPI Era
In 1958 the International News Service merged with United Press to form United Press International, and Considine continued on amid one of the century's major reorganizations in American news. He adapted to changing formats and deadlines, maintaining a steady output of columns and features as television reshaped the media landscape. His long experience and dependable style made him a go-to writer for fast-turn stories and commentary pieces that needed a strong point of view without sacrificing clarity. Even as the pace of news accelerated, his copy remained lean, emphatic, and tightly argued.
Working Method and Style
Considine was renowned for speed and stamina. Colleagues described a writer who could dictate clean copy on command, compressing interviews and notes into a coherent story under extreme time pressure. The trademark was rhythm and structure: short, propulsive paragraphs; vivid but economical description; and transitions that carried readers along. He made a virtue of accessibility, favoring the telling detail and the strong verb over literary flourish. That approach worked equally well in daily journalism and in book-length collaborations, where he balanced narrative drive with fidelity to the subject's voice.
Impact on Readers and Popular Culture
The reach of Considine's collaborations extended beyond the printed page. Several of the books he helped shape became part of popular culture, adapted or referenced in other media and taught as touchstones of wartime and sports storytelling. Readers who followed his columns for current events encountered the same writerly traits they found in his books: a focus on character, an instinct for pace, and a belief that stories succeed when they speak plainly to common experience. He was part of a cohort of mid-century journalists who bridged hard news and mass-market narrative without blurring the obligations of each.
Final Years and Legacy
Bob Considine died in 1975 after a career that stretched from the heyday of big-city newspapers to the age of television news. By that time, his output had touched millions, and his collaborators had become fixtures in American memory in part because of how he captured them. Editors remembered his professionalism and composure; readers remembered the feeling of being briefed, at speed, by someone who respected their attention. His legacy is that of a craftsman of the deadline: a journalist who mastered the wire-service cadence and then leveraged it to tell enduring stories about soldiers, champions, and public figures. For many, his byline remains a shorthand for mid-century American journalism at its most efficient and engaging.
Our collection contains 2 quotes who is written by Bob, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Work.