The end of CBS News Radio breaks my heart.

CBS News Radio was my first source of electronic news and my ear on a rapidly changing world, far from my boyhood bedroom in Texas. With no visuals, it was up to the early CBS correspondents to take you there, and oh, did they, with such vivid descriptions it made you feel as though you were walking through the rubble in London during the Blitz.

Those early correspondents were magnificent writers. Their words written in the heat of battle, literally, had me transfixed, and convinced me at a young age to be a reporter.

Ed Murrow, Charles Collingwood, Eric Sevareid, Walter Cronkite, Richard Hottelet, and many others pioneered electronic journalism on CBS Radio during World War II. Murrow’s accounts of German bombs falling on London became the gold standard of news broadcasting. His famous opening words of “This is London” and his sign off “Good night and good luck” still give me chills.

These correspondents were my heroes, my reason for a life-long love of reporting, and later, my mentors. I had the good fortune to join CBS News and for a time, work with these great men. Together we formed what I hope will be remembered as a great radio and television news organization that was proud to do tough reporting, speak truth to power, and deliver the news as best we could to the American people. It all began with radio. CBS News radio. To all my friends who have worked and still work there, thank you, your efforts will be sorely missed.

Some of the original radio broadcasts have thankfully been preserved. They are available on YouTube.