February 3, 1995
The retirement of Pittsburgh broadcasting’s patriarch, Paul Long, prompts several observations about this man’s remarkable achievements over a long — and I DO mean Long — and productive career.
I first met Paul at KDKA Radio, then in the Grant Building, several years after his historic headline utterance when word came over the wireless that John L. Lewis had called a strike of the nation’s coal miners just a few weeks before Christmas. “John L. Lewis just shot Santa Claus!” eulogized Mr. Long somberly that cold winter’s day, traumatizing thousands of the area’s children. Unintentionally, of course.
In 1960, I was proud to be personally involved with Paul when I was TV writer-producer for the ad agency which handled Pittsburgh Brewing Co., then celebrating the 100th anniversary of Iron City Beer.
We engaged Mr. Long as program narrator and commercial announcer for a TV series we had acquired called “The American Civil War.” It was a documentary which utilized the battlefield photos of historian-photographer Mathew B. Brady.
Using existing 1960s camera techniques of close-ups, zooms, sound effects, etc. the series was the first TV presentation of the Civil War using these photos and techniques. Observe that this series aired on KDKA-TV a full 30 years before Ken Burns’ highly touted “invention” of the same technique.
It was generally agreed then that Paul Long added an almost “eyewitness” account to the narrative as it was widely rumored that not only was Paul a former Air Corps veteran of World War II, but that he had actually been a balloon pilot and artillery observer for the Union Army at Chancellorsville and the First Battle of Bull Run.
We will miss this old codger, but not for long, as many of us are sure that following our demise, the first voice we will hear most likely will be that of Almighty God, which will sound almost exactly like the sonorous omnipotence of Paul Long.
JACK O’NEIL
Sewickley