Conversation with Bob Edwards, XM Satellite Radio host, Washington

Even as a toddler, I loved radio. It was my buddy. I listened to all the soaps with my grandmother -- "Our Gal Sunday" and "[The Romance] of Helen Trent" -- leaving you with a cliffhanger of the dastardly fellow new to town who might capture Helen's heart. And the Lone Ranger and Ozzie and Harriet before they were on TV. I knew every format, every deejay in town. I'm from Kentucky, a neglected part of the country. Their whole cultural tradition is based on storytelling. There was never any idea of going anywhere -- we were working-class people -- but through radio, you could hear New York and New Orleans and Chicago and even Cincinnati! It sounded exotic. We were a Catholic family and heard the rosary on the radio. Radio brought the whole world.

I went to AU because of Ed Bliss. He wrote for [Edward R.] Murrow and was an editor for [Walter] Cronkite; he had started [AU's broadcast journalism] program. I thought, "Ah, this guy can teach me something." Unbeknownst to me, no one on the admission committee wanted to take me but Ed. He saw that I'd worked my way through college and gone to the Army. When you work your way through and work full time, you don't have great grades. Ed looked deeper and saw the character of a person. I owe everything to him.

In those days, students produced two newscasts a day, five minutes on WAMU. I was Ed's graduate assistant; I assigned other students to cover press conferences, the Hill, whatever. He was the kindest man you'd ever meet until you submitted your copy. Then he was ruthless. He edited it to bits. You learn a lot that way.

I do think of Ed listening, even now that he's gone. I write with the notion that he'll hear something [that] I should have written better.

-- Interview by Ellen Ryan