Newsman Edwin Newman has died -- and in Oxford, interestingly. He had moved there in 2007 to be near his daughter. The NYTimes obit describes him nicely as the "genteelly rumpled, genially grumpy" NBC newsman. I was always a fan, and regret that there seem to be few of his kind in the offing, at least in TV.A taste:

Mr. Newman, recognizable for his balding head and fierce dark eyebrows, was known to three decades of postwar television viewers for his erudition, droll wit and seemingly limitless penchant for puns. (There was, for example, the one about the man who blotted his wet shoes with newspapers, explaining, These are The Times that dry mens soles.) He began his association with NBC in the early 1950s and was variously a correspondent, anchor and critic there before retiring in 1984.

David Gibson is the director of Fordham’s Center on Religion & Culture.

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