John Cameron Swayze was chosen in 1949 to host NBC's first television newscast, the fifteen-minute Camel News Caravan. He read items from the news wires and periodically interviewed newsmakers, but he is remembered best for reporting on the Korean War night after night and for his two catch-phrases: "Let's go hopscotching the world for headlines" and his signoff: "That's the story, folks—glad we could get together. And now, this is John Cameron Swayze saying good night."

 

In early 1955, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, maker of Camel cigarettes, reduced its sponsorship to three days a week. Chrysler's Plymouth division sponsored the other days, and on those days the program was labeled the Plymouth News Caravan. In time, Swayze's almost manic style seemed frivolous compared to that of Douglas Edwards, whose rival show on CBS, Douglas Edwards with the News, Swayze once outrated but whose anchor sounded sober and no-nonsense. During 1956 Swayze was dismissed in favor of a new anchor team, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. The Huntley-Brinkley Report soon became the nation's top-rated television newscast; Edwards was replaced during 1962 by Walter Cronkite.