On the Road with Charles Kuralt [antikvár]

FOREWORDI was a real reporter once, but I was not suited for it by physique or temperament. Real reporters have to stick their noses in where they're not wanted, ask embarrassing questions, dodge bullets, contend with deadlines, and worry about the competition. In my youth, I did all these things, while trying to figure out an easier line of work.In 1966, I dropped by the office of the President of CBS News, Fred Friendly. "Why don't you let me wander around the country and do some feature stories?" I asked.Fred Friendly was a hard-news man. He hated feature stories. "If you want to do feature stories," he said, "go do them in Vietnam." I had just returned from Vietnam and knew I didn't want to do that. "No thanks," I said. He sent me off to cover an expedition to the North Pole.When I got back, I found that Fred Friendly had quit his job in a dispute over hard-news coverage. He had been replaced by Richard S. Salant. I went to see Salant. I asked, "Why don't you let me wander around the country and do some feature stories?" He was distracted by the work piled up on his desk. "All right," he said without looking up. "Keep the budget low." I got out of town before he could change his mind.I haven't had an assignment from that day to this. For story ideas I rely on dumb luck and letters from viewers. I have moseyed back and forth across the country, pausing in every part of every state, with CBS paying all the bills. My bosses, preoccupied with coverage of politics, wars, and calamities, don't even know where I am. They don't care where I am.13