10 Classic Ways News Anchors have Signed off the Air

News celebrities always want to make their mark.  They want to have their own way of doing things so that people will remember them over the next guy on another channel.  Morning shows now have their weather guys who each have their own way of going to local weather.  Al Roker will say, “Here’s what going on in your neck of the woods.”  Sam Donaldson will say, “That’s the weather around the nation.  Here’s what you can expect this morning.”  News anchors have been doing it for many years as well.  See if you remember these famous sign offs.

1. Good Day! This famous sign off was made by Paul Harvey.  He was a famous Midwesterner that was on the radio for 75 years.  He signed a 10 year, $100 million contract with ABC news in 2000.  He didn’t quite finish out his contract as he died Feb. 28^, 2009 at the age of 90.  He never stopped broadcasting.  He wrote a book about his “Rest of the Story” tag line and it sold millions and the book hit its 18^th printing in only four years.
2. And so it goes: Linda Ellerbee made this sign off so famous that she actually did a guest appearance on the television show Murphy Brown.  She was competing with Murphy Brown to see if Murphy Brown could come up with a sign off better than Linda’s.  Linda is one of the few women that really had a famous sign off.  This category seems to be dominated by men.
3. And that’s the way it is … followed by the date was the way that Walter Cronkite signed off on the CBS news.  Cronkite is credited with creating the news anchor job.  He covered big stories like, the Kennedy assassination, the Watergate scandal, and the Apollo 11 moon landing.  Cronkite passed away July 18, 2009 at the age of 92.
4. That’s the nightly news for this Wednesday night: This is how Tom Brokaw ended the nightly news on NBC.  Brokaw was on NBC for 22 years and retired in 2004.  He now does special reports for NBC and is a well-respected author of several books and is the only news personality to host Meet the Press, The Today Show and NBC Nightly News.  These are NBC’s three top news programs.
5. … and that’s part of our world tonight: Dan Rather ended his broadcasts with this famous sign off for 24 years on CBS.  Rather followed Cronkite at CBS and filled his rather big shoes very well.  Rather was forced to quit in 2005 over a story he did on then president George Bush.

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