John Charles Daly, radio and television news correspondent and analyst, was born in Johannesburg, South Africa on 20 February 1914. His father, John Charles Daly Sr., a native of Boston, Massachusetts, was on assignment in South Africa as a mining engineer; his mother was Helene Grant (Tennant), a British citizen. Daly attended a Marist Brothers school in Johannesburg until his father's death in 1923. Then the family moved to Boston, and Daly continued his education at Tilton School in Tilton, New Hampshire, from which he graduated in 1930. After two years at Boston College, lack of funds forced him to discontinue his medical studies in 1933.
Daly first entered the communications field in 1937 as a correspondent and news analyst for radio station WJSV, the Columbia Broadcasting System's outlet in Washington, D.C. After two months he was appointed special events reporter and White House correspondent, in which capacity he covered President Roosevelt's Fireside Chats and the U.S. visit of the British King and Queen in 1938. In 1940 he covered the national conventions and presidential election, having travelled for three months on the Willkie campaign trail; he kept his election beat for every national election through 1960. World War II saw Daly serving as a war correspondent for CBS, sending eyewitness reports from London, North Africa, the Middle East, and Italy. Among the major news stories assigned to him after the war were the Nuremburg Trials in 1946 and the Berlin airlift in 1948.
By 1949 Daly, a major radio personality, had to make the transition to television. Switching to the new American Broadcasting Company's network, he did both television and radio news reporting and also moderated several television quiz shows, where his precise diction and talent at ad libbing were at a premium. The most popular of these quiz shows was What's My Line?, which Daly moderated for CBS from 1949 until 1967. From 1953 to 1960 he served ABC as vice president of News, Special Events and Public Affairs as well as one of its major newsmen. Daly has always considered himself a newsman, and in this capacity thinks ABC's full coverage of the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings as his greatest coup in television reporting. For television he has also covered the war in Vietnam, major sessions of the United Nations, the Suez crisis, Vice President Nixon's trip to the Soviet Union in 1959, and the abortive 1960 Paris summit conference. A policy-making dispute led to his resignation from ABC in 1960.
At the time of his resignation, Daly had won virtually every major award for distinguished radio and television reporting, including in 1954 the George Foster Peabody Award, the Sylvania Award, and an Emmy. The 1956 and 1957 Peabody Awards were presented to “John Daly and associates.”
He has also received three honorary degrees: a D. Litt. in 1959 from St. Bonaventure University, a Doctorate of Humane Letters from the American International College in 1963, and an LL.D. from Norwich University in 1964.
In addition to his outstanding work for the privately-owned communications media, Daly has served his country as a member of the Water Pollution Control Advisory Board from 1960 to 1962 and as Director of the Voice of America from 1967 to 1968.
His first marriage was to Margaret Criswell Neal on 7 January 1937, and with her he had three children: John Neal, John Charles IV, and Helene Grant. This marriage ended in divorce in March 1960. His second marriage began on 22 December 1960 to Virginia Warren, daughter of former Chief Justice Earl Warren; their children are John Warren, John Earl Jameson, and Nina.
Daly now makes his home in New York City.
