“Good night, Chet.

“Good night, David.”

– Nightly signoff from the Huntley-Brinkley Report, 1956-1971

A generation of Americans heard that five nights a week in the days when NBC dominated broadcast news.

Before he died last week at age 82, David Brinkley had not only helped make television news important in his years at NBC but helped change the face of Sunday morning television with his “This Week” program on ABC.

Brinkley’s journalism career spanned five-and-a-half decades from his early days at NBC Radio in the 1940s to his retirement from ABC television in 1997.

His rise to fame started when he first teamed with Chet Huntley in the anchor booth for the network’s gavel-to-gavel coverage of the 1956 political conventions.

People liked the pairing so much that NBC turned its 15-minute nightly newscast into “The Huntley-Brinkley Report,” with Huntley giving world news from New York and Brinkley reporting from Washington.

The two so dominated TV news at the time that during the 1964 Democratic and Republican conventions that nominated Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater NBC, with Huntley and Brinkley in the booth and with John Chancellor, Frank McGee, Edwin Newman and Sandor Vanocker roving the floor, held 84 percent of the TV audience, a level unmatched anytime since.

Huntley and Brinkley were so important that when NBC expanded the newscast to 30 minutes, television passed newspapers in surveys about where people said they got most of their news and about what source of news they most trusted.

Huntley’s and Brinkley’s domination of TV news ended a few years later after a strike by AFTRA, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. Both were members even though they had individual contracts. The strike started when FM radio announcers in California wanted extra money for reading commercials.

Though this was far from the work of a network news announcer, Brinkley, acting on advice from his attorney, honored the strike. Huntley, who considered the union one of comedians and jugglers, crossed the picket line. The entertainment newspaper Variety ran a headline,”Chet talks while David walks.” Both got hate mail, Huntley from people who criticized his lack of compassion for lower paid workers and Brinkley from people who took him to task for striking when he was one of the highest paid people in the business.

From that point the “CBS News with Walter Cronkite” took a lead it would hold for years.

After Huntley retired in 1971, John Chancellor took over, sometimes paired with Brinkley, but could never keep up with Cronkite.

In 1981, Brinkley left NBC for ABC, to take over ABC’s Sunday-morning public-affairs program. ABC’s “Issues and Answers” and the CBS program, “Face the Nation.” had long trailed NBC’s “Meet the Press.” All three had featured a group of reporters interviewing a news maker. The new “This Week with David Brinkley” changed that format, with Brinkley, Sam Donaldson, George Will and Cokie Roberts not only interviewing a news maker, but following it with a discussion among themselves and a commentary by Brinkley where he displayed his wry sense of irony, commenting on such things as an Internal Revenue Service plan to continue to collect taxes after a nuclear attack.

At both NBC and ABC, Brinkley insisted on writing his own material. He never used a teleprompter because he could always read his neatly typed copy, even when he had to place it on the floor because he wasn’t at a desk.

He loved the quadrennial political conventions, where he liked to talk about the delegates who would “chew hot dogs, wear funny hats and choose a president.”

In 1968, when the Republicans picked Richard Nixon over Ronald Reagan and Nelson Rockefeller, the cameras followed nominating speeches for Nixon, Reagan, Rockefeller and seven minor candidates, including Harold Stassen, who was nominated by his nephew. At the end of the afternoon, Brinkley noted, “We’ve heard ten nominating speeches, for three serious candidates, six favorite sons and one favorite uncle.”

Why is Murray asking for my vote now?

The voice on the phone last week asked for my support for Sen. Patty Murray, Why is the Senator doing this 17 months before the election?

The caller said that Murray supported the kind of progressive issues I do. That’s true, but to be assured of my vote, the Senator will have to stop trying to get federal money for the wasteful light-rail project.

Bow Down, Rick Neuheisel

Heaven didn’t help the coach of Washington.

He’s trembling on his feet, the coach of Washington.

He’s always there with bells.

At lying he excels.

It’s harder for him to come out clean

than to cross the Dardanelles.

Rick Neuheisel will lose his job because he played in, and won, a friendly pool on the NCAA basketball tournament. Yes, his quarter of a $5,000 entry fee and $20,000 winnings is more than the $1 per player pool that most of us enter, but it violates the letter of college sports rules. Still, I would argue that it does not violate the spirit of those rules.

Neuheisel should have been fired in the past for recruiting violations and for lying about interviewing for a professional coaching job, but not for this.

The concern about gambling among the groups that govern college sports stems from the basketball point-shaving scandals of more than 50 years ago. Schools went on probation after gamblers bribed their players to miss a few shots to keep the point spread down.

I can empathize with Neuheisel because, when I was toiling at Kent State University more than 20 years ago, I put a dollar into a pot on an NCAA tournament and was lucky enough to draw the winning team. Did this compromise my after-hours activity as coach of the women’s cross country team? Did it influence our losses to Bowling Green and Slippery Rock or our victories over Ohio U. and Miami? No. A coach should get in trouble if he or she associates with professional gamblers.

Earlier, I ran in a race before a college meet. With a lap to go a young man yelled, “Coach, I have a quarter on you.” His bet was with the head coach. Did this compromise the coach? No. The rules in that thick NCAA rule book need to go easier on this kind of thing.

Still, Neuheisel knew the rules and deserves discipline. What I want is for him to take a cut in salary to that of the average University associate professor and to be limited to recruiting athletes whose grades and test scores would qualify them for ordinary admission.

Evan Smith is Enterprise Forum editor.

“Weapons of mass destruction”

With shock and awe, we did attack.

when we sent troops into Iraq.

We gave a reason to the world:

But credibility it did lack.

They told us over and over and over again

“Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.”

We ridded statues of old Saddam,

Shot our bullets, an occasional bomb.

And we gave ‘em everything

short of gas and napalm.

And though we looked all over again

We found no weapons of mass destruction.

Secretary of State Colin Powell went to the United Nations to convince Security Council members that Iraq had nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Although most countries disagreed, a “coalition” of the United States, Britain and Australia invaded and destroyed the Iraqi government but found none of the weapons of mass destruction,

Shame on you, non-voters

Both King and Snohomish counties had important tax measures on the May 20 ballot, but only about 26 percent of the registered voters in each county cast ballots.

King County voters passed a property tax levy for parks, trails and open spaces, but turnout at the election was 26 percent, down by about one-third from the 38 percent election officials had predicted. About half of those who received absentee ballots returned them — but just 6 percent of almost 600,000 remaining voters went to polling places. That was down from the 20 percent officials had predicted.

Snohomish County voters turned down a sales-tax increase that would have paid for operations at the new Snohomish County Jail.

There were 63,270 absentee ballots counted by the time polls closed in Snohomish County, and County Auditor Bob Terwilliger estimated that about 85,000 people voted in the election. There are 321,442 registered voters in Snohomish County.

Wrong teams in playoffs

New Jersey defeated Anaheim for ice hockey’s Stanley Cup.

Anaheim? New Jersey? Big-league hockey was traditionally played in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Montreal, New York and Toronto. Expansion to Calgary, Edmonton, Minneapolis, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Vancouver and Winnipeg made sense because people play ice hockey in those places.

Anaheim? What is the Disneyland city doing with an ice hockey team. I guess Disney started the Anaheim Mighty Ducks because the company had made a movie about a team called the Ducks.

The National Hockey League also has teams in Atlanta, Dallas, Miami, Raleigh and Tampa, Are these ice hockey towns? Are even Columbus, Los Angeles, New Jersey, San Jose and Washington places for ice hockey?

In the National Basketball Association finals, San Antonio beat New Jersey in a series between two teams that came to the NBA when the American Basketball Association went out of business. I want finals between the Lakers and Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago or Detroit.

Another delay for suburban monorail

Although Citizens for King County Monorail was prepared to begin gathering signatures last week for a citizens’ initiative to create a county monorail planning agency leading to a future vote on countywide monorail, the officials at King County are now considering additional changes to the measure. It is likely that because of these changes, CKCM will have to wait to start printing petitions and getting signatures until the end of this month. This will not shorten the 90-day time period CKCM has to get the signatures.

CKCM had originally filed the initiative on March 24, then filed a revised initiative at the request of the Clerk of the King County Council on May 9. The most recent changes are creating a delay, but the King County Monorail Initiative might still appear on the November 2003 ballot if the King County Council elects to put it on that ballot after supporters turn in roughly

45,000 valid signatures from county voters. The exact ballot date, however, will be determined by the County Council.

The group is ready with signboards to gather signatures and is lining up more volunteers. They ask for interested friends, associates, neighbors or relatives to sign up to help the cause. They can go to www.kingcountymonorail.org or call 206-860-4366.

Once the group gathers the signatures, the decision as to what ballot (within one year) the initiative appears on is up to the King County Council. Council willing, that could be as early as November, but the group doesn’t know exactly what the election date will be.

A CKCM spokesman says the requested changes can be made quickly. If the group gets 45,000 valid signatures from King County voters, the County would vote on starting an independent commission to create a plan for a monorail connecting the communities of King County. If the initiative is approved, the planning commission must then present a plan for a King County Monorail to the voters in not less than two years.

Developing countries not

At the recent “G-8” meeting of the world’s richest industrial nations, one of the main topics was aid to the poor nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America, euphemistically refered to as “developing” nations. A few really are developing because they have income from oil, but most remain undeveloped, or at least underdeveloped. Let’s call a spade a spade.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH “I” AND “ME”?

I keep hearing people say “My brother and myself did it.” or “It happened to my sister and myself.” Shouldn’t it be “My

brother and I did it.” or “It happened to my sister and me”? Why can’t we save the reflexive case for its proper use: “I did it myself.” I guess people think it’s immodest to use “I” and “me,” even when its grammatically correct

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ARE WE READY FOR DEFLATION?

For six decades Americans have grown accustomed to inflation, higher prices, accompanied by higher earnings, at rates as low as 1 percent and higher than 20 percent, but with inflation lower than usual, we’re hearing predictions of deflation, the reduction of both prices and earnings.

This will be hard on anyone with high debt, because they won’t be able to count on a continuing rise in income. It may also hurt homeowners, who keep figuring that the values of houses and condominiums will go up.

For a long time, social security and other pension benefits have risen with inflation, as has our state’s minimum wage. Will these go down with negative inflation, or deflation?

No one expects a return to nickel ice-cream cones, thousand-dollar new cars or $10,000 per year salaries, but no one expects a return to high inflation, either.

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We’d like to know what you think. If you have a comment send it to

The Enterprise

P.O. Box 977

Lynnwood, Wash. 98036

E-mail: entopinion@Heraldnet.com

Fax: 425-774-8622

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Evan Smith is the Enterprise forum editor.