Ed Bradley
(CBS News) Ed Bradley's death at the age of 65 on Nov. 9, 2006 during his 26th season on "60 Minutes" shortened a career full of achievements few other journalists will ever match.
His consummate skills as a broadcast journalist and his distinctive work were recognized over and over by the industry's most demanding award committees, including Columbia University's Alfred I. du Pont awards, the University of Georgia's George Foster Peabody awards and the Emmys. His work won 21 Emmys, the last awarded posthumously for his coverage of the Duke University rape case, in which lacrosse players were falsely accused. He was honored with the Lifetime Achievement award from the National Association of Black Journalists. Three of his Emmys came at the 2003 awards: a Lifetime Achievement Emmy; one for a "60 Minutes" report on brain cancer patients, "A New Lease on Life" (April 2002); and another for his hour on "60 Minutes II" about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, "The Catholic Church on Trial" (June 2002).
Bradley's "60 Minutes" interview with condemned Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (March 2000) was the only television interview ever given by the man guilty of one of the worst terrorist acts on American soil; it also earned Bradley an Emmy. His reporting on the worst school shooting in American history, "Columbine" (April 2001), revealed on "60 Minutes II" that authorities ignored telling evidence with which they might have prevented the massacre. Other hour-long reports by Bradley have prompted praise and action: "Death by Denial" (June 2000) won a Peabody Award for focusing on the plight of Africans dying of AIDS and helped convince drug companies to donate and discount AIDS drugs; "Unsafe Haven" (April 1999) spurred federal investigations into the nation's largest chain of psychiatric hospitals; and "Town Under Siege" (December 1997), about a small town battling toxic waste, was named one of the 10 best television programs of 1997 by "Time" magazine.
Bradley's significant contribution to electronic journalism was also recognized with the Radio/Television News Directors Association's highest honor, the Paul White Award (2000). Bradley also won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards grand prize and television first prize for "CBS Reports: In the Killing Fields of America" (January 1995), a documentary about violence in America, for which he was co-anchor and reporter.
The following are all "60 Minutes" reports for which Bradley won awards. He earned the Peabody Award for "Big Man, Big Voice" (November 1997), the uplifting story of a German singer who became successful despite birth defects. In 1995, he won his 11th Emmy Award for a segment on the cruel effects of nuclear testing in the town of Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, a report that also won him a DuPont in 1994. Also in 1994, he was honored with an Overseas Press Club Award for two reports that took viewers inside sensitive military installations in Russia and the United States. In 1985, he received an Emmy Award for "Schizophrenia," a report on that misunderstood brain disorder. In 1983, two of Bradley's reports won Emmy Awards: "In the Belly of the Beast," an interview with Jack Henry Abbott, a convicted murderer and author, and "Lena," a profile of singer Lena Horne. He received a DuPont and a 1991 Emmy Award for "Made in China," a look at Chinese forced-labor camps, and another Emmy for "Caitlin's Story" (November 1992), an examination of the controversy between the parents of a deaf child and a deaf association.
His work for CBS Reports, in addition to "In the Killing Fields," won many other awards: "Enter the Jury Room" (April 1997), a DuPont Award winner revealed the jury deliberation process for the first time in front of network cameras; "The Boat People" (January 1979) took an Overseas Press Club Award and a DuPont for CBS Reports and "60 Minutes," where a portion of it was broadcast for Bradley's first appearance on the news magazine; "The Boston Goes to China" (April 1979), a report on the historic visit to China by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which won Emmy, Peabody and Ohio State Awards, and "Blacks in America: With All Deliberate Speed?" (July 1979), which won an Emmy and a 1981 DuPont Award.
Bradley's coverage of the plight of Cambodian refugees, broadcast on the "CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite" and "CBS News Sunday Morning," won a George Polk Award in journalism. He also received a DuPont for a segment on the Cambodian situation broadcast on CBS News' "Magazine" series. He covered the presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter during Campaign '76, served as a floor correspondent for CBS News' coverage of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions from 1976 through 1996, and participated in CBS News' election-night coverage through 2004.
Prior to joining "60 Minutes," Bradley was a principal correspondent for "CBS Reports" (1978-81), after serving as CBS News' White House correspondent (1976-78). He was also anchor of the "CBS Sunday Night News" (November 1976-May 1981) and of the CBS News magazine "Street Stories" (January 1992-August 1993).
Bradley joined CBS News as a stringer in the Paris bureau in September 1971. A year later, he was transferred to Saigon , where he remained until he was assigned to the CBS News Washington bureau in June 1974. He was named a CBS News correspondent in April 1973 and, shortly thereafter, was wounded by mortar fire while on assignment in Cambodia. In March 1975, he volunteered to return to Indochina and covered the fall of Cambodia and Vietnam.
Prior to joining CBS News, he was a reporter for WCBS Radio, the CBS owned station in New York (August 1967-July 1971). He had previously been a reporter for WDAS Radio Philadelphia (1963-67).
Bradley was born June 22, 1941, in Philadelphia and graduated from Cheyney University of Pennsylvania in 1964 with a B.S. in education.