CBS reporter Ed Bradley is dead

I’m sure regular readers of this weblog will understand my suspending the “Good (news) Friday” feature, which – following my niece’s request – would have been subtitled “Britney comes to her senses”, to comment on the historically-significant bad news of Ed Bradley’s death.

Truth be told, when I saw Bradley on 60 Minutes a few weeks ago, I remarked aloud that he did not look well. Therefore, when I heard that he died of complications from chronic lymphocytic leukemia yesterday, I was not terribly surprised.

Bradley was cool. And his race, left earring and love of jazz were only incidental to this fact. Because Bradley exuded that rare appeal of being intelligent without being condescending, confident without being arrogant, affable without being ingratiating, elegant without being pretentious…you get the idea.

But since I find it unseemly when people prattle on about dead celebrities they knew nothing about, I shall suffice to recommend Bradley’s official CBS obituary, here, for readers who are genuinely interested in knowing more about him…

Nonetheless, I shall pay my respects by linking, here, to a recent commentary I wrote on what turned out to be Bradley’s final report. Because it’s a tribute to his journalistic relevance and integrity that, in this report, Bradley exposed the lies and inconsistencies that misled a district attorney to charge three white students of gang-raping a black stripper in the sensational Duke University rape case.