Ed Bradley Biography Quotes 29 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
Edward Rudolph Bradley Jr., known professionally as Ed Bradley, was born on June 22, 1941, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He grew up in a working-class neighborhood and was raised primarily by his mother after his parents separated. The city and its public schools shaped his early sense of independence, curiosity, and resilience. He attended Cheyney State College (now Cheyney University of Pennsylvania), where he studied education. After graduating in 1964, he taught sixth grade in Philadelphia. Teaching gave him an ear for how people explain themselves and a feel for the stakes of public life, skills he would carry into journalism.

First Steps in Journalism
While still in Philadelphia, Bradley began working in radio, first as a part-time disc jockey and then as a newsman at WDAS. The station was a vital outlet for local news, community issues, and the civil rights movement. Reporting from the streets and neighborhoods, he developed the conversational cadence and calm presence that later became his signature. He discovered that the microphone could be a bridge, giving ordinary people the power to be heard and connecting local events to the wider national story.

Joining CBS News and Reporting Overseas
Bradley moved to New York and worked in radio news before joining CBS News in the early 1970s. He was posted abroad, including a stint in Paris, and soon after became a correspondent in Southeast Asia. His reporting from Vietnam and Cambodia placed him in the thick of war. In 1973, while covering combat in Cambodia, he was wounded by shrapnel; he recovered and returned to the field. Those years made him a reporter of unusual steadiness and empathy, able to witness violence without losing sight of the people inside the story.

Breaking Barriers in Washington
Upon returning to the United States, Bradley was assigned to Washington. In 1976 he became the first African American journalist to serve as the White House correspondent for CBS News. Covering the presidency during the transition from Gerald Ford to Jimmy Carter, and reporting amid the post-Watergate rethinking of American politics, he held one of the most visible posts in broadcast news. He also anchored programs for the network, demonstrating range that extended from politics to culture and international affairs. Colleagues such as Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather were fixtures of the era, and Bradley emerged among them as a distinctive on-air presence, understated and incisive.

60 Minutes and National Prominence
Bradley joined 60 Minutes in 1981. Under executive producer Don Hewitt, working alongside correspondents like Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, and later Lesley Stahl, Steve Kroft, and commentator Andy Rooney, he helped define the program's blend of investigative reporting, profiles, and storytelling. His pieces ranged widely. He examined public health crises, wrongful convictions, the business of sports and entertainment, and human rights abroad. He conducted memorable interviews with figures as varied as Michael Jackson, who sought to explain himself during a period of intense scrutiny, and Bob Dylan, whose rare sit-down reflected Bradley's credibility with artists. He spoke with political leaders and cultural icons, including conversations that drew out Muhammad Ali's reflections on fame and illness, and he brought clarity to complex stories without sacrificing nuance.

Reporting Style and Influence
Bradley became known for his cool, unflappable style and a probing but respectful demeanor. His on-air presence signaled both seriousness and approachability. He prepared meticulously, then listened with unusual patience. That combination often led subjects to reveal truths they might not have offered under more combative questioning. His trademark earring and easy laugh helped disarm preconceptions about what a network news star should look like, while his body of work affirmed the highest expectations for reporting. Producers and editors who worked with him described a colleague who valued collaboration and welcomed tough edits in service of a cleaner, fairer story.

Commitment to the Arts and Community
Away from the studio, Bradley was an ardent supporter of jazz. He maintained friendships with leading musicians, including Wynton Marsalis, and appeared at concerts and festivals, embracing the improvisational spirit that he also admired in good reporting. He lent his name and time to educational efforts that opened doors for young journalists, especially students of color pursuing careers in news. His connection to Philadelphia and to Cheyney remained strong, reflected in his encouragement of public service and disciplined craft.

Awards and Recognition
Over the decades, Bradley earned many of the profession's top honors, including numerous Emmy Awards and a Peabody. He was frequently recognized by journalism organizations for investigative work, international coverage, and profiles that revealed new dimensions of well-known figures. The National Association of Black Journalists counted him among the field's trailblazers, and colleagues at CBS News often cited him as a standard-bearer for fairness and rigor. His longevity at 60 Minutes, and the breadth of his reporting there, cemented his place in the first rank of American broadcast journalists.

Personal Life
Bradley guarded his privacy, preferring to let his work stand in public. Friends and coworkers have recalled a generous mentor who made time to read scripts, share contacts, and offer quiet advice about navigating the pressures of a high-profile newsroom. He was known for loyalty to his team, including producers, photographers, and editors who traveled with him, and for the care he took with the people whose lives he covered. Close relationships spanned the newsroom and the arts, a circle that included contemporaries such as Mike Wallace and Morley Safer, and extended to cultural figures like Wynton Marsalis who saw in Bradley a kindred spirit devoted to craft.

Illness, Death, and Legacy
Ed Bradley died on November 9, 2006, in New York City, from complications of leukemia. He was 65. Tributes poured in from across the news industry and beyond, with CBS colleagues, including Don Hewitt and correspondents of several generations, honoring the steadiness, curiosity, and elegance he brought to the work. Musicians he had championed joined in remembering a listener as attentive in a club as he was in a war zone. In the years since, scholarships and fellowships bearing his name have supported aspiring reporters, a practical reflection of his belief that journalism belongs to everyone with the discipline to pursue facts and the empathy to hear people out.

Enduring Significance
Bradley's career traced a path from a classroom in Philadelphia to the battlefields of Southeast Asia and the Sunday night living rooms of millions of Americans. He proved that a reporter could be both tough and humane, that difficult questions and genuine listening could coexist, and that a journalist of color could rise to the highest echelons of a national newsroom while opening doors for others. His colleagues at CBS News, from Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather to Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Lesley Stahl, Steve Kroft, and the producers behind the scenes, recognized in him a professional who enlarged the possibilities of their craft. The body of work he left at 60 Minutes continues to teach younger journalists how to be precise without being narrow, and compassionate without losing clarity, a legacy that endures in the stories they now tell.

Our collection contains 29 quotes who is written by Ed, under the main topics: Learning - Mother - Sports - Legacy & Remembrance - Work Ethic.

Other people realated to Ed: Jessica Savitch (Journalist)