Remembering a True Journalist: Charles Kuralt

We recommend travel writer Ralph Grizzle’s book, published in 2000, that reminds us of the folksy journalist who endeared himself to countless Americans.
Remembering a True Journalist: Charles Kuralt
Ralph Grizzle's 'Remembering Charles Kuralt' reminds us that if you look for the good in people, you will find it.
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It’s more than alphabetic order that places Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language definition of “journal”—“an account of daily transactions and events”—first before defining “journalist.” It’s the fact that the news is more important than the person who observes those daily transactions and events and writes them down. Arguably, 21st-century journalists often write less about what they witness and more about what they think or want others to think.

Not so with Charles Kuralt (1934–97). He began his career writing true, authentic news stories about people and places for a newspaper, and he ended his career telling and showing true, authentic news stories about people and places for CBS’s television series “On the Road.”

Deena Bouknight
Deena Bouknight
Author
A 30-plus-year writer-journalist, Deena C. Bouknight works from her Western North Carolina mountain cottage and has contributed articles on food culture, travel, people, and more to local, regional, national, and international publications. She has written three novels, including the only historical fiction about the East Coast’s worst earthquake. Her website is DeenaBouknightWriting.com