Fred W. Friendly (October 30, 1915 – March 3, 1998) was the former president of CBS News and the creator, with Edward R. Murrow, of the documentary television program See It Now.
Friendly was born Ferdinand Friendly Wachenheimer in New York City. A graduate of Nichols Business College, Friendly entered radio in the 1930s at a radio station in Providence, Rhode Island. By the 1940s he was an experienced radio producer. It was in this role that Fri...
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Fred W. Friendly (October 30, 1915 – March 3, 1998) was the former president of CBS News and the creator, with Edward R. Murrow, of the documentary television program See It Now.
Friendly was born Ferdinand Friendly Wachenheimer in New York City. A graduate of Nichols Business College, Friendly entered radio in the 1930s at a radio station in Providence, Rhode Island. By the 1940s he was an experienced radio producer. It was in this role that Friendly (who changed his name during his Providence days) first worked with Murrow on the Columbia Records historical albums, I Can Hear It Now.
The first entry in the series, released on Thanksgiving Day 1948, covered the crisis/war years 1933–1945. It was a groundbreaker in that it used actual clips of radio news coverage and speeches of the major events during that 12-year time span. Friendly came up with the idea after noticing the then-new use of audiotape in regular radio news coverage, as opposed to wire or disc recordings. Still Friendly...
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