Larry King of CNN shares smmething in common with the Tudor king of England: He too has had 8 wives and all of them blondes. I do hope that this is all that they share in common. On a more serious note, "What kind of TV journalism did Larry King represent?

I have been a keen watcher of the Larry King Live show on CNN. His trade mark suspenders that he has converted into a fashion statement, his wry sense of humour, his mischevious glint in the eye and his friendly non-threatening style of interviewing all add up to graet T V journalism. I rember the show that he did with Michael Jackson soon after the 2005 trial, Larry King showed great humanity when he refused to haul the Prince of Pop over the coals just to demonstrate mainstream US's perceptions of MJ led me to believe that for all his shortcomings, Larry King was a fine human being.

The man has interviewed all American Presidents form Eisenhower to Barack Obama and has seen US transform itself from a superpower to a multicultural state during the course of his professional life. In today's TV journalism wherein poets, historians and statesmen have to jostles for space with sundry octopusses, lions, ,monkeys and the like Larry King represented a different era and a gentler world. Commercial interests did not always dictate the priorities of the networks.

Well it can be said that unlike Anderson Cooper, Sanjay Gupta, Jonathan Mann and others who rely on solid research for their programme, the King of Interviews had a more laid back attitude.

When Larry King leaves the air, he will be missed.