Creating "America's Storyteller": The Early Radio Career of Charles Kuralt

Abstract

Charles Kuralt is remembered as one of television journalism's unique voices, but it was radio that launched his broadcasting career. This article examines Kuralt's early radio writing, including the commentaries he wrote from 1961 to 1968. Although Kuralt's television work is well-chronicled and documented, his radio scripts offer an important and largely unknown transitional step that took him from a career as a young newspaper columnist to one of the country's preeminent broadcast journalists. The scripts predate and foreshadow Kuralt's groundbreaking "On The Road" series show distress concerning his country's neglect of its citizens, his dedication to preserving the environment, and an often ironic view of how social institutions function.