Early years
The son of a policeman, Harvey made radio receivers as a young boy. He attended Tulsa Central High School where a teacher, Isabelle Ronan, was "impressed by his voice." On her recommendation, he started working at KVOO in Tulsa in 1933, when he was 14. His first job was helping clean up. Eventually he was allowed to fill in on the air, reading commercials and the news.
While attending the University of Tulsa, he continued working at KVOO, first as an announcer, and later as a program director. Harvey spent three years as a station manager for KSAL, a local station in Salina, Kansas. From there, he moved to a newscasting job at KOMA in Oklahoma City, and then to KXOK, in St. Louis, where he was Director of Special Events and a roving reporter.
Harvey then moved to Hawaii to cover the United States Navy as it concentrated its fleet in the Pacific. He was returning to the mainland from assignment when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He eventually enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces but served only from December 1943 to March 1944. His critics claimed he was given a psychiatric discharge for deliberately injuring himself in the heel. Harvey angrily denied the accusation, but was vague about details: "There was a little training accident...a minor cut on the obstacle course...I don't recall seeing anyone I knew who was a psychiatrist...I cannot tell you the exact wording on my discharge."
Move to Chicago
Harvey then moved to Chicago, where in June 1944, he began broadcasting from the ABC affiliate WENR. He quickly became the most popular newscaster in Chicago. In 1945, he began hosting the postwar employment program
Jobs for G.I. Joe on WENR. Harvey added
The Rest of the Story as a tagline to in-depth feature stories in 1946.
One of Harvey's regular topics was lax security, in particular at Argonne National Laboratory, a nuclear test site located west of Chicago. To demonstrate his concern, just after midnight on February 6, 1951, Harvey engaged in an "act of participatory journalism"; as
The Washington Post described it in 2010, after obtaining 1400 pages of the FBI file on Harvey:
Harvey guided his black Cadillac Fleetwood toward Argonne, arriving sometime past midnight. He parked in a secluded spot, tossed his overcoat onto the barbed wire topping a fence, then scampered over....Harvey['s plan was] to scratch his signature on 'objects that could not possibly have been brought to the site by someone else,' according to a statement later given by an off-duty guard who accompanied him....But seconds after Harvey hit the ground, security officers spotted him....Harvey ran until, caught in a Jeep's headlights, he tripped and fell. As guards approached, Harvey sprang to his feet and waved. Guards asked whether Harvey realized he was in a restricted area. Harvey replied no, that he thought he might be at the airport because of the red lights.....Harvey told the authorities he had been headed to a neighboring town to give a speech when his car died....Under questioning, Harvey eventually dropped his cover story but refused to elaborate, saying he wanted to tell his tale before a congressional committee. Guards searched his Cadillac and found ... a four-page, typewritten script for an upcoming broadcast. Harvey, it turned out, had planned from the outset to feed the nation a bogus account of his escapade: "I hereby affirm the following is a true and accurate account," the script began. "My friend and I were driving a once-familiar road, when the car stalled....We started to walk....We made no effort to conceal our presence....Suddenly I realized where I was. That I had entered, unchallenged, one of the United States' vital atomic research installations....Quite by accident, understand, I had found myself inside the 'hot' area....We could have carried a bomb in, or classified documents out.
Harvey's "escapade" prompted the U.S. attorney for Illinois to empanel a grand jury to consider an espionage indictment; Harvey "went on the air to suggest he was being set up"; the grand jury subsequently declined to indict Harvey.
On April 1, 1951, before the grand jury's decision, the ABC Radio Network debuted
Paul Harvey News and Comment "Commentary and analysis of Paul Harvey each weekday at 12 Noon". Paul Harvey was also heard originally on Sundays; the first Sunday program was Harvey's introduction. Later, the Sunday program would move to Saturdays. The program continued until his death.
From the late 1960s through the early 1980s, there was a televised, five-minute editorial by Paul Harvey that local stations could insert into their local news programs or show separately.
In the latter half of his career, Paul Harvey was also known for the radio series
The Rest of the Story, described as a blend of mystery and history, which premiered on May 10, 1976. The series quickly grew to six broadcasts a week, and continued until Harvey's death in 2009.
The Rest of the Story series was written and produced by the broadcaster's son, Paul Harvey, Jr., from its outset and for its thirty-three year duration. Harvey and his radio network stated that the stories in that series, although entertaining, were completely true. This was contested by some critics, including urban legend expert Jan Harold Brunvand.
In 2000, Harvey signed a 10-year, $100M contract with ABC Radio Networks. A few months later, after damaging his vocal cords, he went off the air, but returned in August 2001.
Fill-in hosts
Former Senator Fred Thompson, known for his work on NBC's
Law and Order, substituted for Harvey regularly from 2006 to 2007, prior to his unsuccessful run for President. Thompson left the network to run and did not return, instead joining Westwood One in January 2009. Other substitutes for Harvey have included his son, Paul Harvey, Jr., Doug Limerick, Paul W. Smith, Gil Gross, Ron Chapman, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Mort Crim, Scott Shannon, and Tony Snow. After Huckabee's sub-hosting, ABC offered him a spin-off program,
The Huckabee Report, which launched early in 2009. Gross (morning) and Limerick (afternoons) were named Harvey's eventual successors, but three weeks after Harvey's death, the entire
News and Comment franchise was canceled.
Harvey did not host the show full-time after April 2008, when he came down with pneumonia. Shortly after his recovery, his wife died on May 3, causing him to prolong his time away from broadcasting. He voiced commercials, new episodes of
The Rest of the Story and
News & Comment during middays a few times a week, with his son handling mornings.
On-air persona, catch phrases, trademarks, and off-air interest
Harvey's on-air persona was influenced by that of sportscaster Bill Stern. During the 1940s, Stern's
The Colgate Sports Reel and newsreel programs used many of the techniques later used by Harvey, including his emphatic style of delivery, and the use of phrases such as
Reel Two and
Reel Three to denote segments of the broadcast...much like Harvey's
Page Two and
Page Three.
Harvey was also known for catch phrases he used at the beginning of his programs, such as "Hello Americans, I'm Paul Harvey. You know what the news is, in a minute, you're going to hear ... the
rest of the story." He always ended, "Paul Harvey ... Good
day." A story might be "This day's news of most lasting significance." At the end of a report about someone who had done something ridiculous or offensive, Harvey would say, "He would want us to mention his name," followed by silence, then would start the next item. The last item of a broadcast, which was often a funny story, would usually be preceded by "For what it's worth."
In addition to the inquiry into whether Harvey's
Rest of the Story tales are true, Harvey's trademark ability to seamlessly migrate from content to commercial brought scrutiny. In that context,
Salon magazine called him the "finest huckster ever to roam the airwaves." Some have argued that Harvey's fawning and lavish product endorsements may be misleading or confusing to his audience. Harvey's endorsed products included EdenPure heaters, Bose radios, Select Comfort mattresses, and Hi-Health dietary supplements, including a supplement that was claimed to improve vision but was later the subject of a Federal Trade Commission enforcement action against the manufacturer (but not Harvey himself) for misleading claims made on Harvey's show. In one of the tribute broadcasts, Gil Gross said Harvey considered advertising just another type of news, and he only endorsed products he believed in, often interviewing someone from the company.
Harvey was also an avid pilot. He had been an Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association member for more than 50 years, and would occasionally talk about flying to his radio audience. He also was a member of the Experimental Aircraft Association, and was frequently seen at EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wis. He was responsible for funding the Paul Harvey Audio-Video Center at EAA headquarters in Oshkosh. According to AOPA Pilot contributing editor Barry Schiff, Harvey coined the term “skyjack.” He is also credited with coining "Reaganomics" and "guesstimate."
His car of choice was the Cadillac. His Illinois license plates read PH. Chicago officially recognized his accomplishments by naming one of the streets near the Loop, "Paul Harvey Drive".
Beginning in 1952, Harvey was a friend of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover; the men were introduced to each other by Rep. Fred Busbey (R-Illinois); Harvey would often submit "advance copies of his radio script for comment and approval." It is believed that Harvey's friendship with Hoover helped Harvey escape criminal charges relating to his trespassing at Argonne National Laboratory. Harvey was also a close friend of Senator Joe McCarthy and supporter of his search for Communists.
Harvey was also a close friend of Reverend Billy Graham. From the mid 1970s until the mid 1980s, Harvey attended Calvary Memorial Church, in Oak Park. When the church moved from its original location on Madison Street to the former Presbyterian Church on Lake Street, Harvey asked his friend Graham to preach at the dedication service. Although he never formally became an Adventist, he and his wife regularly attended the Camelback Adventist Church in Scottsdale, Arizona during his winters there. He often quoted Adventist pioneer Ellen G. White in his broadcasts and received the "Golden Microphone" Award for his professionalism and graciousness in dealing with the church.
