CBS newsman Charles Osgood (1933-2024)

Veteran CBS newsman Charles Osgood died on Tuesday, January 23, 2024. He was 91.

Osgood joined CBS News in 1971, and was an anchor and reporter for every broadcast on the network, including the “CBS Morning News,” “CBS Evening News with Dan Rather” and “CBS Sunday Night News.” For 22 years he hosted the award-winning “Sunday Morning.”

Columnist James Brady once called Osgood “one of the most enduring – and most endearing – people in broadcasting,”

Charles Osgood

Born in New York, Charles Osgood was graduated from Fordham University in 1954 with a B.S. degree in economics.

Before joining CBS News, he worked for ABC News, was the general manager of WHCT-TV in Hartford, Conn., and was the program director and classical music announcer at WGMS Radio in Washington, D.C.

Charles Osgood

Osgood was an anchor and reporter for WCBS News Radio 880 in New York, before joining CBS News in 1971.

Charles Osgood

Charles Osgood in 1972. An experienced journalist known as a gifted writer, Osgood has earned many top broadcasting awards, including the Walter Cronkite Excellence in Journalism Award from Arizona State University, the George Foster Peabody Award, and the National Association of Broadcasters Distinguished Service Award.

His predecessor at “Sunday Morning,” Charles Kuralt, called Osgood “one of the last great broadcast writers.”

Charles Osgood

Osgood joined CBS News in 1971 and has been an anchor and reporter for every broadcast on the network, including the “CBS Morning News,” “CBS Evening News with Dan Rather” and “CBS Sunday Night News.” As host of “Sunday Morning” he has earned three Daytime Emmys for Outstanding Morning Program. He also earned three additional Emmy Awards for his reporting. He has also hosted the long-running radio program, “The Osgood File.”

Charles Osgood

He is author/editor of several books, including “Nothing Could Be Finer Than a Crisis That Is Minor in the Morning” (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1979); “There’s Nothing I Wouldn’t Do if You Would Be My POSSLQ” (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1981); “Osgood on Speaking: How to Think on Your Feet without Falling on Your Face” (William Morrow and Company, 1988); “The Osgood Files” (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1991); “Kilroy Was Here” (Hyperion, 2001); “Funny Letters From Famous People” (Broadway Books, 2003); “See You on the Radio” (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1999); and “Defending Baltimore Against Enemy Attack” (Hyperion, 2004); and “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the White House” (Hyperion, 2008).

Charles Osgood

In 1994 Osgood took over from Charles Kuralt as host of “Sunday Morning.”

Charles Osgood

Osgood has performed with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and played the piano and banjo with the New York Pops and Boston Pops Orchestras, and at the White House. In 1998 he joined a Japanese family bluegrass band, in the city of Fukuoka, to play “A Banjo on Their Knee.”

Charles Osgood

Charles Osgood in 1995, with banjo artist Béla Fleck (left) and their teacher, the master Tony Trischka.

Charles Osgood

Tickling the ivories on the set of “Sunday Morning.”

Charles Osgood

Charles Osgood on the set of “Sunday Morning.” He hosted the weekly series for 22 years.

Emmy Awards

“Sunday Morning” host Charles Osgood, with executive producer Rand Morrison, accepts the Emmy Award for Outstanding Morning Program for “Sunday Morning,” during the 40th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on June 16, 2013 in Beverly Hills, California.

Charles Osgood

In addition to three Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Morning Program, Osgood received a 1997 George Foster Peabody Award for “Sunday Morning” and two additional Peabody Awards in 1985 and 1986 for “Newsmark,” a weekly CBS Radio public affairs broadcast. He also earned an Emmy Award in 2004 for his story “Net Gain,” about a basketball group created by Americans to bring strife-torn children of different religions and races together. He also received two News Emmy Awards in 1997 for “Wyeth at 80” and “Princess Diana.”