Edwin Conger Hill

Edwin C. Hill ( – February 12, 1957) was an American newspaper reporter and radio news commentator. His obituary in The New York Times said that he "had interviewed about 1,000 newsworthy men and women" in addition to having "covered many of the major news stories of his day". His reporting, whether in print or on radio, went beyond the facts of an event to enable listeners and readers to feel the event's effects on people. He graduated from Indiana University in 1901 and did post-graduate work at Butler College.

Career

Newspapers After Hill's college graduation he wrote for the Indianapolis Journal, the Indianapolis Press, the Indianapolis Sentinel, and newspapers in Cincinnati and Fort Wayne. He began working for the New York Sun by 1904 as a "space writer", which meant that his pay was determined by the amount of his work that the newspaper published.

Radio Hill's transition to radio came after an unsuccessful audition. An employee on the publicity staff at CBS suggested to network officials that they audition Hill for an on-air position. The young man, who had worked with Hill and been mentored by him, pointed out Hill's journalistic experience and the quality of his voice. Someone else was selected for that job, but an advertising agency executive who attended the audition liked what he heard, and he soon hired Hill for another radio position.

Hill first broadcast on radio in 1931. He began making regular broadcasts in 1932 and continued for more than two decades, usually with 15-minute programs that often were titled The Human Side of the News. During various parts of that span he was heard on ABC, CBS, and NBC. In 1951 Hill had concurrent programs on ABC and NBC. He continued on ABC into 1955. His last work on radio occurred when he filled in for Walter Winchell while Winchell was on vacation in the summer of 1956. A 1938 newspaper article said, "But Edwin C. Hill had a voice — deep, rich, sonorous — that could express far better than printer's ink, the movement, the color and the emotion of his words." Newsreels had had narrators before Hill, but he was the first one to "attempt to give the complete background of events pictured", in contrast to those who had just described what was visible on the screen. Hill narrated the industrial film Steel: Man's Servant (1938), and he wrote the story for The Fighting President (1933), a six-reel film about Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Politics President Theodore Roosevelt considered Hill a member of his "unofficial cabinet", and The New York Times said that Hill's reporting about Franklin D. Roosevelt's initial campaign for governor of New York helped to boost Roosevelt's political career. The Human Side of the News (1934)