Fellow broadcast news legend Charles Kuralt called Charles Osgood “one of the last great broadcast writers” because of his lyrical, poetic writing style. Osgood was the host of “CBS Sunday Morning” until 2016, having taken over the position from Kuralt in 1994. From 1971 to 2017, he produced a daily commentary called “The Osgood File” on CBS Radio.
After a decades-long career in television and radio, Osgood died of dementia in his New Jersey home at age 91 on Jan. 23, 2024.
Osgood was born in New York City in 1933 and grew up in Baltimore during World War II, an experience he described in his 2004 memoir, “Defending Baltimore Against Enemy Attack.”
For much of his youth, however, reading the news wasn’t his plan for his future. He attended Fordham University to study economics, not journalism, and then joined the U.S. Army.
He graduated from the university in 1954. Although the Korean War had ended the year before, the U.S. military still drafted civilians at the time. With a draft classification of 1-A (fit for military service), Osgood decided to be proactive. He knew the announcer of the U.S. Army Band at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia. It was a unique position that Osgood was uniquely suited to fill. He had volunteered for the campus radio station while at Fordham; worked as an announcer at WGMS, a Washington, D.C., classical music station; and could play the piano, organ and banjo.
When he discovered the U.S. Army…