This is the wordless opening for the Channel 5 nightly news, circa 1979. It’s pre-Fox and a little before my time, but if I’m not mistaken, they used that fantastic score for a few years after this clip. What really makes it great is that it highlights the real star of the local news: everyday people on the move, not the cast of characters who deliver it. This gets me a whole lot more excited about what comes next than the smiling visage of the weatherman.
However, ours was a Channel 4 family, which has meant for three decades that we get our daily dose of tri-state area mayhem from the same two people: Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons. How long have they been at it? Between the original air date of the clip below and today, I got born, graduated from high school and college, worked for a few years, graduated law school and passed the bar. In that period, the Yankees, Mets, Giants, Rangers, Islanders, Devils and the freakin’ Cosmos have won championships. White people live in Harlem.
Thirty years hence, I fully expect those two to be telling me about the latest initiative from Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
