MICKELSONSIGTRANS2

Interview with Sig Mickelson, transcript part 2, 1979

 

1979-03-13

 

Interviewer: Heighton, Elizabeth; Transcriptionist: Heinz, Catharine

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.

Frank Stanton; Elizabeth Heighton; Sig Mickelson; Interviews; Oral histories; Visiting lecturers; CBS; 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; John F. Kennedy; Harry Truman; James Hagerty; Robert Montgomery; Press conferences; Dwight D. Eisenhower; Richard Nixon; Lyndon B. Johnson; European Broadcasting Union; Eurovision; Videotape recorders; Douglas DC-4s (airplanes); Walter Cronkite; You Are There (television program); William S. Paley; 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); John Day; The Population Explosion (documentary); Theodore M. Hesburgh; Bell & Howell; Chuck Percy

 

 

© San Diego State University. All rights reserved.

 

 

English

 

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85 pages

No

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

further keywords: Pete Peterson; Bob Lang; Radio Free Europe; Ward Keener; Goodrich Corporation; BBD&O; McCann Erickson; Fred Friendly; Edward R. Murrow; Jack Van Volkenburg; 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; Jim Aubrey; Les Midgley; Statehood for Alaska and Hawaii (television program); John R. Pillion; The Harvest of Shame (television program); Ezra Taft Benson; Harry Reasoner; University of Minnesota; WBT; Jack Knell; Gude and Stix; Bob Kintner; NBC; Douglas Edwards; 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; The Electric Mirror (book); Encyclopaedia Britannica; Ford Foundation; International Broadcast Institute; International Institute for International communications; Benton Foundation; William Benton; Newton N. Minow; Bill Cole; Medill School of Journalism; 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; Radio Free Europe; Radio Liberty; Jamming (radio); KOL Israel; Radio Peking; Voice of America; BBC External Services; Deutsche Wells;

 

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