CBS News Going ‘On The Road’ Once Again

The CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley is bringing back “On the Road,” modeled after the long-running, legendary series that the late newsman Charles Kuralt created and produced for various CBS news programs. In weekly segments, beginning today, CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman will bring viewers “moving stories from the unique people he encounters and the special places he visits as he travels around the country,” CBS announced today.

CBS News’ updated version, “On The Road with Steve Hartman,” kicks off tonight, on the 125th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty with a story about a group of 20-somethings in the small town of Dauphin, Pa., who, 25 years ago, in the middle of the night, a hoisted a replica of Lady Liberty onto her perch atop an old railroad pier in the middle of the Susquehanna River — and it still stands today. Hartman goes there to find out why they did it, and what the statue means to the residents of Dauphin.

Kuralt set out to see the country in October 1967 and spent much of his career “On the Road,” where he often traveled along rural byways and through the small towns of America. He and his crew traveled in a battered motor home, visited every state many times and logged more than a million miles. Charles Kuralt’s “On the Road” series was broadcast on more than 600 editions of The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite throughout the 1960s and ’70s. The acclaimed series won Kuralt personal Peabody Awards in 1968 and 1975.

Hartman has been a CBS News correspondent since 1998, having served as a part-time correspondent for the previous two years. His “Assignment America” reports began in 2006 on the CBS Evening News. He is also well-known for his multiple award-winning feature series, “Everybody Has a Story.”

His many broadcast journalism awards include an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, an Emmy Award for writing and four RTNDA/Edward R. Murrow Awards, including three consecutive citations for best writing.