Newscaster Charles Osgood, Receiving Temple U. Award, Decries Washington Gridlock
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - CBS "Sunday Morning" anchor Charles Osgood received the "Lew Klein Excellence in Communications" award today from Temple University.
Osgood, who has been the face of the CBS-TV Sunday morning program since 1994, was honored during a reception and luncheon on the North Philadelphia campus.
His broadcasting career with the CBS network spans much more than "Sunday Morning," with regular appearances on CBS News programs over 23 years prior to inheriting the Sunday morning post from another famous CBS reporter and anchor, Charles Kurault.
"I was on the broadcast from time to time as a reporter back with Charles Kurault, during the first 15 years or so when the broadcast was on the air," Osgood recalls. "I've now been doing it for 17 years, and the one important thing if you want to be the anchor of the Sunday morning (show) on CBS, you have to be named Charles -- it's the only way you can get that job," he added with characteristic low-key humor.
Osgood, a reporter and observer of the political scene in Washington for many years, says he's dismayed by the politics of the day.
He recalled that even the late senators Everett Dirksen and Lyndon Johnson (who later became president) argued vociferously over legislative issues but at the end of the day always made it a point to sit down together, have a drink, and search for common ground.
Osgood says that in today's climate he doesn't see such cooperation being possible. He blames political consultants on both sides for poisoning the well and says it can't go on.
Watch CBS3's Chris May introduce Charles Osgood, who received the Lew Klein Excellence in Communications award from Temple...
Visit Temple's website here: www.temple.edu
Reported by Mark Abrams, KYW Newsradio 1060
