By: Andrew Glass

A 10-foot satellite dish points skyward in the front yard of Daniel Schorr’s home in Washington’s Cleveland Park neighborhood. In 1979, Ted Turner gave him the dish — the first residential one to be installed in Washington — after hiring Schorr, then 62, as the marquee correspondent for a fledgling CNN.

Nearly 30 years later, with satellites, cable systems and the Internet girding the globe, Schorr, who will turn 92 next month, still regularly covers the week’s news for National Public Radio. He’s on the air every Saturday morning, engaging in a five-minute dialogue with weekend anchor Scott Simon.

Among news veterans, Schorr remains an iconic figure, the last of Edward R. Murrow’s legendary CBS team still active in journalism.

And despite a sometimes stormy history that has given him the reputation of a journalistic rabble-rouser of the first order, Schorr also has become something of a national treasure.

First lady Laura Bush has invited him to a White House reception that will precede the annual National Book Festival sponsored by the Library of Congress and scheduled for Sept. 27 on the National Mall.

“They invited me a few years ago,” Schorr recalled over a recent lunch of lamb chops. “But the day I was supposed to go, I wound up in the hospital. I guess they wanted to make up for it.”

Schorr joked that a unique vantage point earned by 70 years in journalism often leaves him remembering the lessons of yesterday rather than focusing his still-razor-sharp skills on today’s headlines. As NPR’s senior news analyst, he alternates between offering historical parallels to the week’s events and analyzing the issues of the day.

But Schorr’s continuing appeal — his weekend gig has achieved a sort of cult status over the years — is partly born from his ability to offer context and personal experience that no other working journalist has.

One example: Schorr also comments on U.S. politics for the BBC, which asked him to compare last week’s speech by Barack Obama in Berlin with the one President John F. Kennedy gave there in 1963. Schorr covered Kennedy’s speech for CBS.

“I told them there was no comparison at all,” Schorr said. “Kennedy spoke at a time when the West Berliners nervously saw themselves as an isolated island in a Communist sea. The wall had gone up in 1961. [Nikita] Khrushchev was being belligerent. Kennedy was there to reassure them.”

Schorr mused: “The only advantage of old age is that you can remember things first-hand that many people who are around today never experienced. Most Americans living today weren’t born when the Cold War began with the Soviets.”

Despite his lighthearted jabs at his age, Schorr remains very present-tense in his interests, particularly the 2008 presidential race. He gave three reasons why he thinks Obama will win in November.

“First, the voters are tired of George Bush and the Republicans,” he said. “They are eager for the kind of deep changes that John McCain does not offer. Second, lots of energized young people have become steeped in politics. They heavily favor the Democrats. Finally, I sense the country is ready to move beyond race and elect an appealing politician who isn’t running as a ‘black candidate.’”

As a familiar voice to millions of radio listeners, Schorr shows little fervor for television news, where he built his career. He worked at CBS for 23 years, opening the network’s Moscow bureau in 1955 and covering Watergate. Soon after came five more years at CNN.

In “Staying Tuned,” his 2001 memoir, Schorr recalls asking a producer when he first arrived at CBS what it took to succeed in television. The reply: “Sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

Nowadays, Schorr gets about town with the aid of a cane. A few years ago, he and his wife, Lisbeth, gave up their summertime treks to an Aspen Institute conclave in Colorado for movers and shakers. But his mind is as sharp as it was when he wrote music reviews for The New York Times while in college, more than seven decades ago.

Before he left the network to pursue an academic career, Marvin Kalb followed in Schorr’s wake at CBS in both Moscow and Washington. Of his former colleague, Kalb said, “It is amazing, but he remains on top of his game. He sets an example of A-plus performance for all us reporters on Medicare: Stay curious, skeptical, active and helpful, and the world will, or should, be grateful. I am whenever I hear him.”

Over the years, the Schorrs, who married — the first marriage for each —when he was 50, have hosted parties at which A-list gossip would be savored around the dinner table. Besides Marvin and Madeline Kalb, their close friends include journalism-linked couples William and Helene Safire; Seymour and Elizabeth Hersh; Milton and Judy Viorst; and, until his recent death, Tim Russert and his wife, Maureen Orth, who once lived across the street.

Despite resulting in many awards, Schorr’s career path has not always been smooth. In 1976, he was forced to resign from CBS after leaking a classified House report on CIA misdeeds.

Schorr and CNN parted company in 1985 when Schorr, citing an “integrity” clause in his contract, declined to work beside former Texas Gov. John Connally as a co-commentator at the 1984 presidential conventions. (Turner was wooing Connally for help in raising funds for a soon-to-be aborted takeover of CBS.)

“Turner’s guy called me and said Ted wanted his dish back,” Schorr recalled. “I told them, since it was a personal gift from Ted, I wanted a letter from him requesting its return. I also told them they would have to pay for landscaping the yard after digging it up.

“A few days later, Turner’s guy called back. He says, ‘Keep the [expletive] dish.’ So, although it has long been useless, it stands there.”

Copyright © 2008 Capitol News Company, LLC | Distributed by Noofangle Media