Martin Agronsky

Martin Agronsky
Agronsky in 1962
Born	Martin Zama Agrons (1915-01-12)January 12, 1915 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	July 25, 1999(1999-07-25) (aged 84) Washington, D.C.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Journalist
Years active	1936–1988
Spouse(s)	Helen Smathers ​ ​ (m. 1943; died 1969)​ Sharon Hines ​ ​ (m. 1971; div. 1986)​
Children	5, including Jonathan Agronsky
Relatives	Gershon Agron (uncle)
Signature

Martin Zama Agronsky (/əˈɡrɒn.skɪ/ ə-GRON-skih;^[a] January 12, 1915 – July 25, 1999), also known as Martin Agronski,^[3] was an American journalist. He began his career in 1936 working under his uncle, Gershon Agron, at the Palestine Post in Jerusalem before deciding to work freelance in Europe a year later. At the outbreak of World War II he became a war correspondent for NBC, working across three continents before returning to the United States and covering the last few years of the war from Washington, D.C., with ABC.

After the war, Agronsky covered the McCarthy hearings for ABC; fearless against McCarthy, he won a Peabody Award in 1952. When broadcast journalism moved away from radio, Agronsky returned to NBC, covering the news as well as interviewing prominent figures, particularly Martin Luther King, Jr. as a young man. He returned to Jerusalem for a time and won the Alfred I. duPont Award in 1961 for his coverage of the Eichmann trial there. At the end of 1962 he recorded a documentary aboard the submarine USS George Washington, which received an award at the Venice Film Festival. A prominent news reporter, and associate of John F. Kennedy, he extensively covered the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy. The next year, he joined CBS, becoming reportedly the only journalist to work for all three commercial networks. With them, he moderated Face the Nation and won an Emmy for his interviews with Hugo Black, the first television interview with a sitting Supreme Court Justice.

He left major companies in 1968, joining a local network to helm his own show, Agronsky & Co.; a success, the show pioneered the "talking heads" news format. He added the Evening Edition, an interview format, to his show, which became prominent for its coverage of the Watergate scandal. Agronsky then joined PBS, swapping the Evening Edition for a longer interview show, Agronsky at Large. In his later career, he also acted as variations on himself in film and television. He continued hosting Agronsky & Co. until 1988, when he retired from his over 50-year journalism career.

Early years[]

Martin Zama Agronsky^[4] was born Martin Zama Agrons^[5] in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 12, 1915 to Isador and Marcia (née Dvorin), Russian Jewish immigrants from Minsk in present-day Belarus.^[6] Isador Agrons changed the family name from Agronsky to Agrons some time before Agronsky's birth, but he chose to use the original name when he began his journalism career.^[5] Members of the family variously used the names Agronsky, Agrons, and Agron. In his career, Agronsky had a friendship with Harry Golden, who befriended and became a confidant to Isador.^[7]

Agronsky's family moved to Atlantic City, New Jersey, when he was a young child, and he graduated from Atlantic City High School in 1932. He studied at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, graduating in 1936.^[8] At Rutgers, Agronsky (still Agrons) was a member of Jewish fraternity Sigma Alpha Mu and represented them on the Interfraternity Council.^[9][10][11]

Career[]

Early career and World War II[]

In 1936, upon his graduation, Agronsky was offered a job as a reporter for the English-language Palestine Post, precursor to today's Jerusalem Post, which was owned by his uncle, Gershon Agron, and moved to Jerusalem. He left the newspaper in 1937 to become a freelance journalist covering the Spanish Civil War.^[6] During his time in Europe, he also freelanced for various American, British, and other newspapers and various wire services around the world,^{[citation needed]} including a freelance piece he wrote for Foreign Affairs magazine on the rise of anti-Semitism in Mussolini's Italy that argued Benito Mussolini was hostile to the small Italian Jewish population because he believed they prevented other nations from giving him loans.^[12][13]

He was still in Europe at the outbreak of World War II, and despite having no broadcast journalism training, was hired by the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) as a radio war correspondent when the company expanded their coverage in 1940.^[6] Max Jordan, the NBC bureau chief for all of Europe, wanted to put together an NBC presence throughout Europe to cover the British conflict with Germany in the Balkans and tapped Agronsky to be the bureau chief there. Agronsky covered the war from all over the Balkans and much of Eastern Europe before opening a permanent NBC bureau in Ankara, the capital of neutral Turkey. Although based in Ankara, Agronsky spent most of his time in Istanbul. He then became a foreign correspondent in Europe and North Africa, transferring to Cairo and being accredited to cover the British Eighth Army in North Africa.^{[citation needed]} Though NBC's European war coverage was not particularly celebrated, Agronsky "was a bright spot [...] distinguishing himself under fire in the Balkans, North Africa, and the Middle East."^[6]

When Pearl Harbor was bombed by Japan on December 7, 1941, Agronsky, now considered a seasoned war correspondent, was drafted to cover the Pacific theater and sent to Australia.^[6] His journey to Australia to cover Douglas MacArthur's arrival in Melbourne from Corregidor took several months and took him through several countries;^{[citation needed]} Agronsky was in Singapore as the Japanese began attacking, managing to catch the last plane out before the city was captured. He was attached to MacArthur's troops and primarily covered the Allied retreat in Asia.^[6]

NBC was ordered to divest its radio network through the Red and Blue Networks in 1943, and Agronsky's contract was among those assigned to the "Blue" network, which NBC chose to divest. The associated assets became the American Broadcasting Company (ABC); smaller and less-renowned than the already-established networks, ABC did not have a television bureau. While other prominent war journalists found themselves able to take senior positions on television, Agronsky was instead assigned to Washington, D.C.,^[6] where he did The Daily War Journal until the end of World War II.^{[citation needed]} In 1948 he helped to pioneer television coverage of American political conventions.^{[citation needed]}

McCarthy hearings[]

Play media

Agronsky's 1952 Peabody Award acceptance speech

Agronsky maintained his prominence as a radio journalist; he won the Peabody Award for his coverage of the McCarthy hearings in 1952. While many reporters gave milquetoast coverage of McCarthyism, said in the American National Biography supplement to be out of fear, Agronsky, like CBS's Edward R. Murrow after him, was openly critical of McCarthy and of the senators who enabled him. This bold stance saw Agronsky targeted with anti-Semitic hate mail and his show lose sponsors; ABC, however, "congratulated him and took him to lunch".^[6]

He also did a one-on-one interview show at ABC, At Issue.^{[citation needed]}

Look Here and Eichmann trial[]

In 1957, with television now the leading broadcast medium, Agronsky left ABC (whose program was still weak) and returned to NBC, as a news correspondent. From 1957 through 1964, starting with the Dave Garroway-hosted Today show, he did all the interviews out of Washington. During this period his reputation grew.^[6] He also hosted the one-on-one interview show Look Here, where he interviewed, among others, John F. Kennedy as a senator, and a young Martin Luther King Jr.^[14]

He covered the Eichmann trial, of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, in Jerusalem in 1961 for nine months from start to finish, for which he won the Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award. Agronsky's reports were broadcast daily in a segment of the Huntley-Brinkley Report.^[6]

Assassination of John F. Kennedy[]

In the four-day aftermath of the assassination of president John F. Kennedy, Agronsky was one of the senior journalists to lead the large television news coverage.^[15][16] The coverage invented the breaking format of modern television news.^[17] Sociologists from Columbia University led by Herbert Gans interviewed a selection of the on-air journalists covering the assassination shortly afterwards to assess its affects; many were questioned about showing emotion. Agronsky's response, saying a journalist cannot show emotion as it would be imposing feelings on the viewer, was later said to typify the view of the issue at the time. When pressed further on the matter by Gans, Agronsky added: "I wanted to cry, but you don't".^[15] He was reported to be smoking as he delivered reports from Washington, D.C., during the coverage, while hiding his cigarettes from the camera.^[17]

Historian William Manchester wrote that shortly after the assassination, Agronsky telephoned Ted Kennedy to ask if he would be flying from D.C. to Dallas.^[18] On November 27, 1963, five days after the assassination, Agronsky conducted an interview with Texas governor John Connally from his bedside in Parkland Memorial Hospital. Connally, with whom Agronsky was friends, had been riding in the seat ahead of Kennedy and was wounded.^[19][20] Agronsky had interviewed John F. Kennedy in life, with segments re-run on the 20th anniversary of the assassination in television documentary Thank You, Mr. President,^[21] and co-authored the 1961 book Let Us Begin: The First 100 Days of the Kennedy Administration as Martin Ira Agronsky.^[22][23]

Success at CBS[]

Agronsky moved to CBS in 1964. While there he held positions as the CBS bureau chief in Paris and moderator of Face the Nation. In 1968 he won an Emmy Award for his television documentary Justice Black and the Bill of Rights, in which he interviewed Hugo Black about his views on incorporation of the Bill of Rights.^[6]

Agronsky & Company[]

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Agronsky became a news anchor for WTOP-TV in Washington, D.C., in 1969, but in the same year became host of the political discussion television program , produced by the same station. Agronsky introduced a short segment on the news with political reporters. Shortly afterward, Agronsky left the local evening news and Agronsky & Company became a stand-alone weekly show produced and syndicated by Post-Newsweek stations (WTOP's then-owner). The show was syndicated nationally by Post-Newsweek to local stations and the PBS nationally, including WETA in Washington. He hosted the show until he retired in January 1988, and it proved to be one of the biggest successes of his career.^[24]

The show generally is credited as having invented the now-common roundtable discussion format for public affairs and political television shows that feature prominent journalists discussing current events and offering their opinions about them. However, Agronsky & Company was low-key and did not have the spirited arguments and shouting that came to characterize many of its imitators. Its regular panelists included Hugh Sidey of Time magazine, Peter Lisagor of the Chicago Daily News, and columnists Carl Rowan, James J. Kilpatrick, Elizabeth Drew, and George Will. Although some of the liberal-versus-conservative argumentation now common on American public affairs shows began with pointed arguments between Agronsky & Company panelists, Agronsky himself always exerted a calming influence . The show was held in generally high regard; Senator Edward Kennedy once said, "Everybody who is in public life watches Agronsky."^[8]

After Agronsky's death, Agronsky & Co. commentator Hugh Sidey told the American Journalism Review of the show:^[25]

I think the first thing is, it was first of its particular nature... So it had its own flavor... And Martin was its patriarch... He was a true shoe-leather reporter... I can remember many a program when we came straight from reporting the story... We came right out of the trenches. I'm not saying that doesn't happen now... but not with the same frequency... I would often come from being with the president... Show business had really not invaded our world back then... The idea was not to shout down anybody... I think another reason for its success was the nature of the times... We had real, real problems, explosive problems, security problems--and the discussions, I think, reflected that gravity... Compared to today... the kind of melding here between entertainment and journalism... The nature of those times was quite different, and I think that helped out the program a great deal as well as the people on it.

Evening Edition and Watergate scandal[]

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In 1971, in addition to hosting Agronsky & Company once a week, Agronsky started a five-night-a-week half-hour interview show, Martin Agronsky's Evening Edition, which became a much-viewed program during the Watergate scandal. It was broadcast from WETA's studio in Shirlington, Virginia. Evening Edition had the good fortune of airing nightly before, during and after the Watergate break-in hearings broadcast on PBS that led, ultimately, to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon on August 9, 1974. Evening Edition went off the air in late 1975.

Agronsky At Large[]

Martin Agronsky with United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at Rumsfeld's office in The Pentagon, November 3, 1976

Agronsky then did a one-hour interview show weekly on PBS during 1976 titled Agronsky at Large, where he interviewed such guests as Alfred Hitchcock and Anwar Sadat shortly before the Egyptian leader's assassination.^[24]

Impact and legacy[]

During his 52-year journalism career (print from 1936 to 1940 and radio and television from 1940 to 1988) Agronsky worked for all three commercial networks in the United States.^[6] He is believed to be the only broadcast journalist/commentator to have worked for all three, and is the only person to work for all three and PBS. He was the first television reporter to interview a sitting Supreme Court Justice.^[26]

The moderator-led panel discussion format of news shows was, in 1984, described as "Martin Agronski style".^[3] Agronsky & Company pioneered the "talking heads" news format.^[26]

His papers, containing approximately 30,000 items, are held in a collection in the Library of Congress.^[27][28]

Personal life[]

Agronsky married Helen Smathers, a United States Army nurse whom he met while covering MacArthur in Melbourne, Australia, in 1942.^{[citation needed]} Agronsky returned to the U.S. in March 1943,^[6] whereupon he expedited Smathers's return. They were married in Baltimore, Maryland, at City Hall, grabbing a stranger off the street to be their witness.^{[citation needed]} They went on to have four children: Marcia, Jonathan, David, and Julie. After Helen's death in 1969, Agronsky then married Sharon Hines in 1971; the marriage produced one child, Rachel. Agronsky and Hines divorced after fifteen years.^[6]

Death[]

Martin Agronsky died at his Rock Creek Park home in Washington, D.C., on July 25, 1999, of congestive heart failure. He was 84.^[25]

Filmography[]

Awards and honors[]

Honorary degrees

Location	Date	School	Degree
New Hampshire	1977	Southern New Hampshire University	Doctor of Laws (LL.D)[31]

See also[]

• Inside Washington
• Washington Week
• Gordon Peterson

Notes[]

References[]

External links[]

• Martin Agronsky at IMDb