March 13: Happy Birthday World News Roundup!

Happy 77th Birthday, CBS World News Roundup!

CBS World News Roundup, an iconic CBS News Radio program, is the nation's longest-running news broadcast, first airing 77 years ago tonight.

March 13, 1938 - just another slow news day? Not quite! As legendary CBS radio newsman Robert Trout reported that night, Hitler's forces were "driving with all their might to bring Austria under complete Nazi domination."

Based in New York, Trout quickly switched over to live reports from correspondents throughout Europe, including a stirring account of Austria's plight from 29 -year old Edward R. Murrow, making his debut as a broadcast journalist.

"Everything is quiet in Vienna tonight," Edward Murrow reported. "There is a certain air of expectancy about the city, everyone waiting and wondering where and at what time Herr Hitler will arrive."

The impact and status of both WORLD NEWS ROUNDUP and Murrow would certainly blossom in the coming months & years ahead. Indeed with the growing intensity of World War II, Trout, Murrow and their fabled cohorts artfully & heroically utilized the ROUNDUP platform to inform their listeners of the World's hotspots, and ultimately invented electronic journalism along the way.

During both the Korean and Vietnam wars when tv crews still had to fly their film back to civilization, ROUNDUP was able to air live dispatches from the various combat zones.

One regular listener during the early days of the Cold War was John Foster Dulles, secretary of state during the Eisenhower Administration. Dulles was a particularly faithful follower of the program when he vacationed at his summer retreat with no phone service on Duck Island in Lake Ontario. If the State Department needed to reach him, they'd contact ROUNDUP anchor Dallas Townsend , who would then announce during the broadcast: "This news would be of particular interest to Secretary of State Dulles." That was was the Secretary's signal to take a boat to the mainland and call DC. talk about clout!

Broadcast twice daily, 5 days a week, on over 500 stations, WORLD NEWS ROUNDUP remains a vibrant showcase of the CBS Radio Network lineup,and thrives online as well. It's continual presence, along with the GRAND OLE OPRY, the METROPOLITAN OPERA and just a few other programs, link us to Radio's magical past and reminds us that old time radio still matters too!

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