MICKELSONSIG

Interview with Sig Mickelson, 1979

 

1979-03-13

 

Interviewer: Heighton, Elizabeth

Sig Mickelson, a broadcasting pioneer often referred to as "the man who invented TV news," was born on May 24, 1913. In 1943, he landed a job at CBS News and quickly rose through the ranks. He became the first director of CBS television news and was credited for hiring such journalists as Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, and Charles Kuralt. Mickelson also coined the term "anchorman" during the watershed 1952 summer political conventions, the first time a TV news station ever provided "gavel to gavel" coverage of such an event. Over the next two decades, Mickelson would add many industry firsts to his list of accomplishments, and continued to serve in high-profile positions including VP of Time-Life Broadcast Inc., and President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Mickelson came to the SDSU campus for three years (1979-1981). He served in two capacities: as the Executive Director for SDSU's Center for Communications, and as a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Journalism in the Department of Telecommunications and Film. Mickelson died on March 24, 2000 at the age of 86.

Elizabeth Heighton; Sig Mickelson; Interviews; Oral histories; Visiting lecturers; WCCO; CBS; CBS News; Time, Incorporated; The Electric Mirror (book); Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation; Medill School of Journalism; Radio Free Europe/Radio Free Liberty; KSOO; Louisiana State University; University of Minnesota; Frank Stanton; Racism; Antisemitism; Segregation; Neither Free Nor Equal (documentary); Arrows in the Dust (documentary); Radio and Television News Directors Association; NARND; Dave Taylor; William S. Paley; Hubbell Robinson; Ed Chester; People's Platform (television program); Capitol Cloakroom (television program); Federal Communications Commission freeze; Douglas Edwards; Walter Cronkite; WTOP; Jack Van Volkenburg; Don Hewitt; Telenews; Liederkranz Hall; Telecine; Auricon cameras; Briefing Room (television program); John Foster Dulles; Tom Gallery; Dumont Television; KPIX; John Hayes; Guy Gabrielson; Bill Mylander; Jack McKibbin; Westinghouse Manufacturing

 

 

© San Diego State University. All rights reserved.

 

 

English

 

Audiotape

04:23:56

Yes

MICKELSONSIGTRANS1; MICKELSONSIGTRANS2; fs-me-my-024; LVD-053; fs-me-my-025

See MICKELSONSIGTRANS1 and MICKELSONSIGTRANS2; further keywords: Ketchum, Macleod, and Grove Advertising; Ed Parrack; Bill Hylan; Pittsburgher (train); Henry Cabot Lodge; Bob Mullen; Paul Hoffman; Dwight D. Eisenhower; Robert A. Taft; Paul Levitan; Orville Sather; Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty (1952); Robert Trout; Betty Furness; Paul Wittlig; Arthur Godfrey; Coronation of Queen Elizabeth (1953); Norman Collins; Kinescopes; Moviola editing machines; Bill Lodge; General Precision Laboratories; Willys-Overland Motors; Charles Curran; Royal Canadian Air Force; Paul Taft; James "Jimmy" Stewart; Joe Di Bono; Bill McClure; See It Now (television program); Grand Central Terminal; Don Hewitt; Acme News Pictures; Hear It Now (radio program); Edward R. Murrow; The Eagle's Brood (documentary); Fred Friendly; Columbia Records; Ritz Hotel (New York City); Annie Lee Moss; McCarthyism; Blacklisting; Red Channels; Bob Heller; Allan Sloane; Martin Luther (television program); Winston Burdette; Dan O'Shea; James Eastland; Internal Security Subcommittee; Howard Smith; Bill Downs; Dan Hollenbeck; New York Journal American; Joseph McCarthy; James Hagerty; Face the Nation (television program); Nikita Kruschev; Vyacheslav Molotov; Daniel Schorr; Ted Koop; Irv Gitlin; John Day (CBS); Earl Newsom & Company; Bill Lidgate; Chuck von Fremd; Scott Reston; Press conferences; Jim Aubrey; KNXT; Television ratings; Television news; 1952 Republican convention; 1956 Democratic convention; Paul Butler; John F. Kennedy; Television coverage; Re-creations; Little Rock Central High School (1957); Homer Bigart; Sit-ins (1960); Federal Communications Act of 1934; George Herman; Fairness Doctrine; Dave Wolper; John B. Medaris; Armstrong Circle Theatre (television program); Bob Foreman; BBD&O; BBDO; American Gas Association; Judgment at Nuremberg (television program); Deregulation; Richard Nixon; Lyndon B. Johnson; European Broadcasting Union; Eurovision; Videotape recorders; Douglas DC-4s (airplanes); Radio and television audiences; Editorials; Mayflower Decision; Kennedy-Nixon debates; Blair Moody; Section 315; Robert Sarnoff; Prohibition Party; Poor Man's Party; Vegetarian Party; Henry Krajewsky; Suez Crisis; Sinai War; Mayflower Hotel; Harry Truman; Robert Montgomery; You Are There (television program); Television sports; Texas E. "Tex" Schramm, Jr.; Elmer Lower; Bill Hyland; National Hockey League; 1960 Summer Olympics; Sports rights fees; Fumicino Airport (Rome); CBS Reports; Barry Ryan; Al Wasserman; Irv Gitlin; Out of Darkness (documentary); The Population Explosion (documentary); Theodore M. Hesburgh; Bell & Howell; Chuck Percy; Pete Peterson; Bob Lang; Ward Keener; Goodrich Corporation; McCann Erickson; Who Speaks for the South? (television program); Gulf Oil Company; Ketchum McLeod and Grove; Duquesne Club; Richard Hottelet; Prudential Life Insurance; Konrad Adenauer; The Twentieth Century (television program); Eyewitness to History (television program); Firestone Companies; Charles Kuralt; Les Midgley; Statehood for Alaska and Hawaii (television program); John R. Pillion; The Harvest of Shame (television program); Ezra Taft Benson; Harry Reasoner; WBT; Jack Knell; Gude and Stix; Bob Kintner; NBC; Chet Huntley; David Brinkley; Baxter Ward; Dick Salant; Radio Free Europe; Time, Inc.; CIA; Central Intelligence Agency; Allen Dulles; Alibi Club; Office of Naval Intelligence; ONI; Frank Kearns; Pieter de Braaw; Dutch communications law; Clayton Brace; KGTV; Philips (Sweden); The March of Time (film series); Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.; NET; National Educational Television; Commercial television; Rupert Murdoch; Prentice Hall; Eric Sevareid; Markle Foundation; Dodd, Mead and Company; Ford Foundation; International Broadcast Institute; International Institute for International communications; Benton Foundation; William Benton; Newton N. Minow; Bill Cole; Aspen Program of Communication and Society; Free Europe, Incorporated; Radio Liberty Committee, Incorporated; Fulbright Committee; Senate Foreign Relations Committee; George Ball; Abbott Washburn; Federal Communications Commission; Milton Eisenhower; Eisenhower Commission; Foy D. Kohler; Jamming (radio); KOL Israel; Radio Peking; Voice of America; BBC External Services; Deutsche Wells; Board for International Broadcasting; Sources (journalism); Phil Eisenberg; (Myron) Farber Case; Zurcher v. Stanford Daily; Mass broadcasting; Hubert Humphrey; Face the Nation (television program); Marshall McLuhan; Federal Election Campaign Act; Television and politics; Joe Ball; UNIVAC; Election predictions; Remington Rand; Adlai Stevenson

 

Audio

MP3

325.26 MB