As a broadcaster, he was known for a wry sense of humor, pithy observations and a low-key, matter-of-fact style of newscasting and commentary that lacked pretense and pomposity. He was supremely self-confident, not easily impressed, and he came across as less enamored of himself than many of his colleagues.

“I don’t try to put a show on the air, be bright and vivacious, because it’s just not my nature,” he said.

His delivery was clipped, his sentences short, and he had a healthy candor and irreverence about his own profession. “The one function that TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were,” he observed.