Press Club veteran Irv Chapman discusses his 65 years in broadcasting

Irv Chapman asked if he could start his remarks a little early when he was honored as a Legend of Broadcasting at the National Press Club on March 26.  Not because the 68-year member of the Club wanted to get home to bed early, but because he had a 65 year-plus career's worth of stories to tell in an allotted 75 minutes.  

So, the usual remarks start time was advanced and even then, he went a little over.

From his usual broadcast 2024 Bloomberg Radio news format of telling a story in 35 seconds, Chapman easily filled the extra time.

Many broadcasters start their professional story with a recollection of their work in a small town. Chapman started in New York Cirty -- for Radio Press International, a network. 

He entered New York University as a broadcast journalism student, but when the next semester's curriculum presented "Writing for Soap Operas," Chapman switched his major to history.  That served him well as his career unfolded.

His thoughts on the people he covered: Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy was "a rock star shaking hands."  Emperor Hirohito had the "limpest handshake I'd ever had." President Dwight Eisenhower at news conferences: "spoke slowly, deliberately, inarticulately."

Chapman said his career evolved in part by happenstance. RPI, which was invented to provide non-network stations with news clips from stringers around the world, needed a full-time staffer in Washington, so he said he became bureau chief.  ABC needed a bureau chief in Moscow because the incumbent wanted to move on, so that man recruited him over a meal and then called New York ABC headquarters to announce, "I found someone, I found someone," Chapman recalled.

Chapman called the Moscow experience his "most impactful." But, he said, every time he and wife Arlene could get out of Moscow on vacation, they would "look for color in the other countries," because Russia was so "drab." While he was in Moscow and covering a visit by Vice President Hubert Humphrey, a man landed on the moon. Russian TV didn't carry the video, so he was invited to the Humphreys' hotel room to listen to the broadcast with him on shortwave radio.

Chapman's name was to a plaque outside the door to a small room on the 14th floor of the Club where a roundtable discussion was staged as part the first C-SPAN telecast of an Club luncheon.  The Broadcast/Podcast Team presents the small Legends gathering, open to all members, a few times each year.