Goodbye, Tom Snyder

As another reminder of our mortality, former TV anchorman and talk show host/interviewer Tom Snyder has died from leukemia (AP story via AOL).

I "grew up" in this business watching Snyder and admiring his sometimes controversial but always effective interview style. It's tempting to talk about the good old days of TV -- oh crap, those were the good old days, at least in that genre, compared to a lot of what we see today.

Snyder's star had faded, yet he still will be missed.

While many of the job ads for journalists these days say need a bachelor's degree, a prospective journalist could in many ways get a lot better education, I think, by watching old tapes of Snyder and of Lloyd Dobbins and Linda Ellerbee on "NBC News Weekend." (Unfortunately, there is little out there about that short-lived effort -- and even less on Dobbins -- but this post by one blogger will give you a sense of what was happening.) Ellerbee and Dobbins also introduced "NBC News Overnight." Again, very little out there, but there is one You Tube post of the intro once Bill Schechner had taken over Dobbins' chair and with someone else in, I think, for Ellerbee. Just listen to how there is "attitude" yet clarity in that writing. We should all do so well today.

The AOL article has several pointers to You Tube clips of Snyder. Here's a "greatest hits" reel.