Legendary journalist Marvin Kalb turns 90
Marvin Kalb was the last correspondent personally hired at CBS News by Edward R. Murrow in 1957. He served as chief diplomatic correspondent for the entire run of the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite and later moderated NBC’s Meet the Press. He was covering Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and stood just a few feet from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as the civil rights leader delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington in 1963.
That stunning resume is the stuff of legends. In the case of Marvin Kalb, it was Act One.
In 1987, he became the founding director of the Joan Shorenstein Center at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, as well as its first-ever Edward R. Murrow Professor. Over the next 20 years, he developed the model - and established the standard - for substantive leadership forums on issues at the intersection of press, politics and public policy, and he created a home for visiting scholars in journalism.
Then, at a time when many journalists and educators begin to sit back, Marvin Kalb was revving up for Act Three. In the fall of 1994, The Kalb Report public broadcasting series on journalism was launched as a partnership between The George Washington University and the National Press Club. Today, the multi-award-winning series is still going strong in its 26th season, with 100 programs having been produced in the Club Ballroom before a cumulative live audience in the tens of thousands, with many more having viewed the broadcasts nationwide.
The Kalb Report guest list is a who’s who of the past quarter century: Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (together), Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (together), Dean Baquet and Marty Baron (yes, together), Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer, Bob Costas, Ted Koppel, Gwen Ifill, Dan Rather, Rupert Murdoch, David McCullough, Cokie Roberts, Ken Burns, Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel, Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins, Lesley Stahl, Congressman John Lewis, Julian Bond and Andrew Young (together), and Walter Cronkite.
The Kalb Report series routinely draws the largest audiences of the year to the National Press Club, usually between 300 and 600 college students, working journalists, other members of the Club and FAOMK’s (friends and admirers of Marvin Kalb).
On June 9, Marvin Kalb celebrated his 90th birthday. The evening before, the Club honored him with a cake that included a photo from the 2006 Fourth Estate Awards dinner during which Kalb received the Club’s highest honor for lifetime achievement.
A corresponding Zoom video call included many long-time Kalb Report team members, as well as Marvin’s wife Madeleine, their children and grandchildren, Marvin’s brother, journalist Bernard Kalb (now a robust 98), and Casey Murrow, Edward R. Murrow’s son. Each shared a fond reflection of Marvin’s influence on them.
In one instance, Marvin was reminded of a college student who sought him out after a program and said, “I came in thinking I wanted to be a journalist. I came out knowing I must be a journalist.”
In his closing remarks to the assembled group, the last correspondent hired by Edward R. Murrow, spoke of the challenges now facing our country In these troubling times, he said, “We must rally around the journalist and even the concept of freedom and make sure it resonates with our children, with our grandchildren and with every student in the country.”
Happy Birthday and thank you, Professor Kalb, for your wisdom, your eloquence, your elegance, your ethics, your excellence and the impact you continue to have on all of us.