Media Beginnings
Cooke saw a newspaper headline that Oliver Baldwin, the Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin's son, had been sacked by the BBC as film critic. Cooke sent a telegram to the Director of Talks, asking if he would be considered for the post. He was invited for interview and took a Cunard liner back to Britain, arriving twenty four hours late for his interview. He suggested typing out a film review on the spot, and a few minutes later, he was offered the job. He also sat on a BBC committee headed by George Bernard Shaw for correct pronunciation.
Cooke was also London correspondent for NBC. Each week, he recorded a 15-minute talk for American listeners on life in Britain, under the series title of London Letter. In 1936, he intensively reported on the Edward VIII abdication crisis for NBC. He made several talks on the topic each day to listeners in many parts of the United States. He calculated that in ten days he spoke 400,000 words on the subject.
Read more about this topic: Alistair Cooke
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