Paul Harvey Aurandt (September 4, 1918 – February 28, 2009) was an American radio broadcaster for ABC News Radio. He broadcast News and Comment on mornings and mid-days on weekdays and at noon on Saturdays and also his famous The Rest of the Story segments. From 1951 to 2008, his programs reached as many as 24 million people per week. Paul Harvey News was carried on 1,350 commercial radio stations, on 400 American Forces Network stations, and in 300 newspapers.
Early life Harvey was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on September 4, 1918, and was the son of a policeman who was killed by robbers in 1921. He made radio receivers as a young boy, and attended Tulsa Central High School, where he was two years ahead of future actor Tony Randall. Teacher Isabelle Ronan was "impressed by his voice". On her recommendation, he started working at KVOO in Tulsa in 1933 helping to clean up when he was 14. He eventually was allowed to fill in on the air by reading commercials and the news.
He continued working at KVOO while he attended the University of Tulsa, first as an announcer and later as a program director. He spent three years as a station manager for KFBI AM (later KFDI), a Wichita, KS radio station that once had studios in Salina, Kansas. From there, he moved to a newscasting job at KOMA in Oklahoma City, and then to KXOK in St. Louis in 1938"KXOK in St. Louis to Debut September 19," Broadcasting, September 15, 1938, p. 26. where he was Director of Special Events and a roving reporter.
Career World War II Harvey then moved to Hawaii to cover the U.S. Navy as it concentrated its fleet in the Pacific after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He eventually enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces but only served from December 1943 to March 1944 resulting from a medical discharge. He then moved to Chicago, where in June 1944, he began broadcasting from the ABC affiliate WENR.
Career in Chicago In 1945, he began hosting the postwar employment program Jobs for G.I. Joe on WENR. Harvey added The Rest of the Story as a tagline to in-depth feature stories in 1946. One of Harvey's regular topics was lax security, particularly at Argonne National Laboratory, a nuclear research facility southwest of Chicago. To demonstrate his concern, just after midnight on February 6, 1951, he entered the grounds by scaling a fence and was quickly apprehended by security guards. In 2010, The Washington Post, having obtained 1400 pages of the FBI file on Harvey, described it as an "act of participatory journalism."Argonne passes a reporter's security test Harvey's 1951 attempt to test security at Argonne National Laboratory Harvey's "escapade" prompted the U.S. attorney for Illinois to empanel a grand jury to consider an espionage indictment. Harvey "went on the air to suggest he was being set up," and the grand jury subsequently declined to indict Harvey.
Going national Harvey had done sporadic work from Chicago for ABC Radio in the late 1940s and early 1950s and had just completed two weeks as the guest host for veteran commentator H. R. Baukhage on his daily 11 AM news round-up. When Baukhage returned from his early spring vacation, ABC dismissed him, and put Harvey on in his place. A good friend of Harvey's, Frank M Baker, was a key figure in helping negotiate a contract with ABC. Baker was no stranger to Chicago's radio scene as an announcer at the Edgewater Beach Hotel. Frank and Paul were close friends for the rest of their lives. April 1, 1951, the ABC Radio Network debuted Paul Harvey News and Comment, with a noon time slot on weekdays. His network television debut came on November 16, 1952, when he began a 15-minute newscast on ABC. The program originated at WENR-TV in Chicago.
Later Harvey began to host a separate program, The Rest of the Story, in which he provided backstories behind famous people and events. The Rest of the Story premiered on May 10, 1976, on ABC Radio. The series quickly grew to six broadcasts a week and continued until his death in 2009. It was written and produced by his son, Paul Harvey Jr., from its outset and for its 33-year duration. Harvey and his radio network stated that the stories in that series, although entertaining, were completely true. That was contested by some critics, including urban legend expert Jan Harold Brunvand.
In November 2000, Harvey signed a 10-year $100 million contract with ABC Radio Networks. A few months later, after damaging his vocal cords, he went off the air, but returned in August 2001.
His success with sponsors stemmed from the seamlessness with which he segued from his monologue into reading commercial messages. He explained his relationship with them: "I am fiercely loyal to those willing to put their money where my mouth is."
Fill-in hosts Former US Senator Fred Thompson substituted for Harvey regularly from 2006 to 2007. Other substitutes for Harvey included his son, Paul Harvey Jr.,Paul Harvey Jr. Fills In For Harvey In Mornings , April 30, 2008, at Radio Ink. Accessed May 4, 2008 Paul W. Smith,WJR.net, Retrieved on April 9, 2008. Gil Gross,Kgoam810.com , Retrieved on April 9, 2008. Ron Chapman,Businessweek.com, Retrieved on April 2, 2008. Mitt Romney,Romney To Fill In For Paul Harvey . Radio Ink. April 9, 2008. Mike Huckabee,Vogel, Kenneth. Huckabee in talks for own Fox show. Politico. July 14, 2008. Mort Crim, Scott Shannon, Joe Holstead, and Tony Snow. Three weeks after Harvey's death, the News and Comment franchise was canceled.
Harvey did not host the show full-time after April 2008, when he came down with pneumonia. Shortly after his recovery, his wife died on May 3, which caused him to prolong his time away from broadcasting. He voiced commercials and new episodes of The Rest of the Story and News & Comment during middays a few times a week, with his son handling mornings.
Aviation Harvey was an avid pilot who served in the U.S. Army Air Corps from December 1943 to March 1944. He was an Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) member for more than 50 years and would occasionally talk about flying to his radio audience. He was also a member of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) and was frequently seen at EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He was responsible for funding the Paul Harvey Audio-Video Center at EAA's headquarters in Oshkosh. Harvey was also an early investor in aircraft manufacturing company Cirrus Aircraft, based in Duluth, Minnesota. According to the AOPA Pilot contributing editor Barry Schiff, Harvey coined the term skyjack.
On-air persona Harvey's on-air persona was influenced by sportscaster Bill Stern and columnist Walter Winchell. In the 1940s, Stern's The Colgate Sports Reel and newsreel programs used many of the techniques later used by Harvey, including his emphatic style of delivery and the use of phrases such as Reel Two and Reel Three to denote segments of the broadcast, much like Harvey's Page Two and Page Three.Michael Carlson, "Paul Harvey: Influential right-wing American radio host", The Guardian, March 3, 2009.
Harvey was also known for the catchphrases that he used at the beginning of his programs, such as "Hello Americans, this is Paul Harvey. Stand by for NEWS!" He always ended, "Paul Harvey... Good day." or "Paul Harvey... Good night." A story might be "This day's news of most lasting significance." At the end of a report about someone who had done something ridiculous or offensive, Harvey would say, "He would want us to mention his name," followed by silence, and he would then start the next item. The last item of a broadcast, which was often a funny story, would usually be preceded by "And now from the 'For-what-it's-worth' department...."
Other phrases made famous by Harvey included "Here's a strange..." (a story with an unusual twist) and "Self-government won't work without self-discipline." He also is credited with popularizing the terms Reaganomics and guesstimate.
In addition to the inquiry into whether Harvey's Rest of the Story tales are true, Harvey's trademark ability of seamlessly migrating from content to commercial brought scrutiny. In that context, Salon magazine called him the "finest huckster ever to roam the airwaves."Salon.com Some have argued that Harvey's fawning and lavish product endorsements may have been misleading or confusing to his audience. Harvey's endorsed products included EdenPure heaters, Bose radios, Select Comfort mattresses, and Hi-Health dietary supplements, including a supplement that was claimed to improve vision but was later the subject of a Federal Trade Commission enforcement action against the manufacturer (but not Harvey himself) for misleading claims made on his show.Craig Harris, "FTC fines Hi-Health $450,000 over Paul Harvey ads", Arizona Republic, August 24, 2005. In one of the tribute broadcasts, Gil Gross said that Harvey considered advertising just another type of news and that he endorsed only products that he believed in, often by interviewing someone from the company.
Personal views Beginning in 1952, Harvey was a friend of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Harvey would often submit "advance copies of his radio script for comment and approval." Harvey's friendship with Hoover may have helped him escape criminal charges relating to his trespassing at Argonne National Laboratory. Harvey was happy to defend Hoover and spoke of him on his show of April 25, 1963: "God help the United States without John Edgar Hoover.... (FBI) Director Hoover is not retiring. If you have heard otherwise, somebody's sinister wish was the father of that thought. It is not so."
Harvey was also a close friend of US Senator Joseph McCarthy and supported his campaign to expose and expel communists from American society and government.
Harvey was also a close friend of George Vandeman and the Reverend Billy Graham. From the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, Harvey attended Calvary Memorial Church in Oak Park, Illinois. When the church moved from its original location on Madison Street to the former Presbyterian Church on Lake Street, Harvey asked Graham to preach at the dedication service. Harvey associated with various congregations of different denominations. He and his wife regularly attended the Camelback Adventist Church in Scottsdale, Arizona, during his winters there. He often quoted the Adventist pioneer Ellen G. White in his broadcasts and received the "Golden Microphone" Award for his professionalism and graciousness in dealing with the church. at Adherents.com.SDALink Paul Harvey Tribute . He was also active with a small Plymouth Brethren meeting in Maywood, Illinois, called Woodside Bible Chapel.
Rhetorical style Robert D. McFadden, writing Harvey's obituary for The New York Times, examined his unique radio style and how it interacted with his political views:
[He] personalized the radio news with his right wing opinions, but laced them with his own trademarks: a hypnotic timbre, extended pauses for effect, heart-warming tales of average Americans and folksy observations that evoked the heartland, family values and the old-fashioned plain talk one heard around the dinner table on Sunday.
"Hello, Americans," he barked. "This is Paul Harvey! Stand byyy for newwws!"
He railed against welfare cheats and defended the death penalty. He worried about the national debt, big government, bureaucrats who lacked common sense, permissive parents, leftist radicals and America succumbing to moral decay. He championed rugged individualism, love of God and country, and the fundamental decency of ordinary people.Also cited in Garance Franke-Ruta, "Paul Harvey's 1978 'So God Made a Farmer' Speech", The Atlantic, February 3, 2013.
Awards