[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 34 (Thursday, March 16, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Page S2308]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               HONORING THE LIFE OF SAMUEL M. SHARKEY, JR

 Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to Sam 
Sharkey, who died on Tuesday at the age of 90. Mr. Sharkey, who joined 
the New York Times in 1945 as a copy editor on the foreign desk, was 
one of the founding executives of its International Air Edition, now 
the International Herald Tribune, in 1948, and in 1950 he became head 
of the national news desk. Five years later, he moved to the National 
Broadcasting Company as its first editor of NBC News, a position 
comparable to the editor of a newspaper, and was one of a triumvirate 
of executives who in 1956 put together the Huntley-Brinkley news 
program.
  While working at the Times, he had become frustrated with the 
slowness with which the two major wire services reported national 
election returns--one relayed all returns from west of Kansas City 
through that city and the other through Chicago, both producing delays. 
In 1956 at NBC, he invented a system based at the start on buying the 
fastest Associated Press State wires in every State and funneling their 
returns electronically through 10 centers around the United States, 
thence to computers in Studio 8-H in New York, where they were 
displayed immediately, beating all competition by substantial margins. 
His system for collecting votes in national elections is still used 
today by broadcasters, wire services, and newspapers.
  In 1958, Mr. Sharkey expanded the system and turned to volunteer 
teams of members of the League of Women Voters in every State who 
staffed every polling place and phoned in results to State 
headquarters, where the data were sent electronically directly to 
computers in the studio. In 1960, CBS News and the ABC News were added 
to form the Network Election Service, a cooperative. That was expanded 
with the addition of the A.P. and United Press International to form 
the News Election Service, which continues to this day. At NBC, Mr. 
Sharkey also headed an internal NBC News Service at national political 
conventions linking reporters at various locations with Chet Huntley 
and David Brinkley at the anchor desk.
  Born March 26, 1915, in Trenton, NJ, he began covering sports on a 
``stringer,'' free lance, basis for the Trenton State Gazette at the 
age of 13. He attended Rutgers University in the class of 1937 but was 
a Depression dropout. He then worked for the State Gazette as sports 
editor, columnist, reporter, music and theater critic, and acting city 
editor. Among the stories he covered were the kidnapping of the 
Lindbergh baby and the trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, the crash of 
the Hindenburg at Lakehurst, and the burning of the Bermuda cruise 
liner Morro Castle off Asbury Park, NJ.
  He was a copy editor on the Saratoga Springs, NY, Saratogian and 
foreign editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer during World War II. He 
also was a contributing editor to Printing News. At NBC, he was a 
member of the FCC National Industry Advisory Committee that created the 
Emergency Broadcast System, and he wrote the broadcast closed-circuit 
radio advisories from every location to which a President could be 
taken in time of national emergency--in the air, on land, at sea, under 
the sea.
  In 1963, Mr. Sharkey moved to Seattle as managing director of news 
for the King Broadcasting Company's stations there and in Spokane, WA, 
and Portland, OR. While at KING-TV, he won two local Emmys for news and 
documentary programming. When Bonneville International Corporation 
purchased KIRO-TV-AM Seattle in 1964, he was appointed corporate 
director of news for all Bonneville stations nationwide.
  In 1965, Mr. Sharkey was named Newhouse National Service economics 
and labor columnist, based in Washington, DC, later adding the news 
editor role. He entered government in 1972 as public information 
director for the then-new Occupational Safety and Health 
Administration, OSHA, moving to the same position at the FCC in 1975.
  Mr. Sharkey also taught at the Columbia University Graduate School of 
Journalism for 9 years and taught economics and public affairs at the 
Tobe-Coburn School for Fashion Careers in New York. Known as a witty 
speaker, he lectured widely for the Times and NBC News. He also was a 
choral singer, a private airplane pilot, an automobile and outboard 
motorboat race driver, a motor yachtsman, and even a clown in the 
Aquacade at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Mr. Sharkey was a life 
member and former vice commodore of the Capital Yacht Club here in 
Washington, DC.
  Sam Sharkey was a pioneer in journalism for over 70 years, and he 
left an indelible mark, especially in the field of broadcast 
journalism. I extend my condolences to his wife Marilyn and the rest of 
his family.

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