Emerson Stone, CBS News VP produced first live call-in show with sitting President, dies at 86
Emerson Stone, the CBS News executive who produced the first and only live call-in show with a sitting U.S. president, has died. Stone, 86, died in Greenwich Hospital on Monday of complications from a fall he took at home Sunday. He lived in Greenwich for 57 years.
Stone worked for CBS News for nearly 35 years and made a name for himself as a an innovative radio executive who brought Charles Osgood to the Network, instituted ground-breaking radio programming and extended CBS Radio's hourly newscasts to 24 hours, the first network to do so.
On March 5, 1977, CBS Radio broadcast its historic "Ask President Carter," a live two-hour program hosted by the CBS News Anchor Walter Cronkite, during which callers could ask President Jimmy Carter questions on the air. Stone was the vice president of CBS Radio at the time and produced it from the control room, personally manning the "kill switch" in the control room to use in case a caller said anything inappropriate to the president.
The subject matter ranged from Ugandan Dictator Idi Amin, to a controversial 25-cent gas tax to Mr. Carter's choice to send his daughter Amy to public rather than private school. The event came off well to the relief of CBS News staff, who were quite nervous over what was supposed to be a live test that would determine whether more such broadcasts would be done.
It was one and out for "Ask President Carter," but the program, broadcast from 2:00 p.m. to 4 p.m. on a Saturday, became part of the cultural conversation. The popular television comedy show "Saturday Night Live" parodied the program a week later, with Dan Akroyd playing President Carter and Bill Murray as Walter Cronkite. The video of the skit can still be seen on the Internet.
Stone was also the first executive to be put in charge of News Practices at CBS News, an important position to this day at the organization. He was named vice president, News Practices, CBS News, in September 1982. Earlier that year, CBS News broadcast the controversial "The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception," which came under criticism and was the subject of a lawsuit in 1984.
In a memo to CBS News, Van Gordon Sauter, then president, wrote: "[Stone] will examine and respond to significant criticism of the entire range of CBS News broadcasts as well as examine and review matters involving editorial standards and practices."
Stone's CBS career began in the mailroom in 1952; when he retired in 1986, he was the longest serving executive at CBS News. He won two Peabody Awards and worked for legendary CBS News personalities including Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow, as a writer, editor and producer for television and radio. He was named director of the Radio Department in 1967 and vice president, CBS News, Radio in 1971.
Supervising the entire schedule of CBS News network radio broadcasts, he was responsible for numerous innovations in news broadcasting, especially "Newsfeed," which he began in 1968 to furnish news material for affiliated stations.
In 1967, Stone instituted radio's analytical "First Line Report, and in 1972, he brought Osgood to CBS News from local radio to create the daily series "Newsbreak" and, later, THE OSGOOD FILE - a staple of CBS Radio, still heard several times a day on hundreds of stations across the U.S. "Emerson Stone was one of the best bosses I ever had," said Osgood. "Always thoughtful and friendly, but uncompromising when it came to keeping standards high. Much of what I know about broadcast news I learned from him."
In 1981, Stone developed a second complete and separate news service for the new CBS youth-oriented network, RadioRadio, the first new CBS radio network service since the company's founding. The network still exists today as the Spectrum Radio Network.
Stone had overall responsibility for CBS News radio coverage of such events as the Vietnam War; the assassinations of Senator Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.; all of the Apollo moon landing flights, including an historic 28-hour-10-minute CBS News broadcast of the lunar landing mission in June 1969; Watergate, and the political campaigns. In 1968, he pioneered a concept of selective coverage of Election Night adopted at most other networks.
Emerson Law Stone was born February 15, 1928 in New Haven, where he grew up attending local public and private schools. He graduated from Yale with a B.A. in English in1948.
He was pre-deceased by a brother, Jon, in 1997, who was the head writer and director of "Sesame Street" for nearly three decades.
Stone is survived by his wife of 59 years, Louisa, and a sister, Diana Stone and three daughters, Mary Louisa, Melisande Grace , and Kristin Alexandra, all surnamed Stone; a son-in-law Stephen B. Heintz and six grandchildren.
The family plans a celebration of Stone's life on January 17, 2015, 2 p.m., at the Round Hill Community Church in Greenwich. Those wanting to contribute in his memory may wish to donate to Doctors Without Borders or Yale University.