Reporters, Television

Christopher H. Sterling

In the 60 years since regular television news programs began, the broadcasting—and more recently cable news—networks and local stations have utilized the services of hundreds of reporters. At first, virtually all of them were white men. This entry describes American station- and network-level reporting, especially the latter. Just as radio journalism was slow off the mark, television news was also slow to develop, though for different reasons. Based on radio's experience leading up to and during World War II, broadcasting had a clear and important news role to perform. But television was infinitely more complex—and costly—and the initial focus on developing the visual medium focused on entertainment to build audience and advertiser support. News was present at the beginning on the network level, but played only a minor role in overall time on the air. Television's initial reporters were most often those who had worked in radio and thus were ...

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