Voice of America: Lowell Thomas and the Rise of Broadcast News
Our trailer is the first 3 minutes of the Documentary.
If you watch a news video today, listen to a newscast or download a podcast, then you are benefiting from the work of Lowell Thomas. As Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, Dalai Lama and many others explain in this lively film about a dynamo of a man, Lowell Thomas invented what is now often celebrated or disparaged as traditional journalism. And Lowell was a great adventurer. In a primetime special after his death, Walter Cronkite concluded that Lowell Thomas had crammed a couple of centuries worth of living into his 89 years. Lowell returned from Arabia in 1919 with film of Lawrence of Arabia, a legend he also more or less invented through a multi-media show. After riding a mule caravan up into forbidden Tibet in 1949, just before the Chinese invaded, Lowell returned with his leg broken in eight places but also with film of the young Dalai Lama. Today as mainstream journalists are accused of fake news, the life of Lowell Thomas reminds us why a "free press" is important to Democracy and why a shared faith in factual reporting is a cornerstone of a civil society.