Tina Brown's husband the new Alistair Cooke?

British newspaper veteran Sir Harold Evans seems to be easing himself into the shoes left behind by the late Alistair Cooke. Cooke is well known as one of the twentieth century's formost Anglo-Americans. He died in 2004 after having broadcast his famous "Letter from America" for nearly 60 years. (See his Wikipedia entry here). Now Evans is helming his own BBC Radio show that looks at America through British eyes: It's called "A Point of View". (The text of Evans' first piece is here).

A BBC piece on the passing of the baton notes the history and significance of Cooke's series:

Letter from America kicked off in 1946 with a report on Britain's GI brides sailing on the Queen Mary to a new life in the US, and came to a close in February 2004 with a letter about the Democrats' growing belief that they could beat Bush in the Presidential election that year (which, of course, they didn't). A month later, Cooke died at the age of 95.

But Letter from America had become the world's longest-running speech radio programme, listened to by millions of people in more than 50 countries.

In his mellifluous tones (belying his origins as the son of an iron-fitter from Blackpool), Cooke, based in New York, painted a picture of a seemingly strange and vast continent for his British listeners - bridging the gap between two countries that, in the words of George Bernard Shaw, are "divided by a common language."

Harold Evans seems to be a worthy successor. After leaving the editorship of the Times of London in 1981 (he butted heads with its new owner, Rupert Murdoch) Evans "moved to America in 1984 where he and his wife Tina Brown - former editor of Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and the short-lived but zeitgeisty Talk magazine - are about as well-connected as you can get." Wikipedia notes that "Evans was appointed president and publisher of Random House trade group from 1990 to 1997 and editorial director and vice chairman of US News and World Report, the New York Daily News, and The Atlantic Monthly from 1997 to January 2000, when he resigned to concentrate on writing."

Evans is as proud of his American side as his British character, and he hates simplistic, knee-jerk "America-bashing." The BBC piece suggests that "perhaps 'A Point of View' will be less 'A Letter from America' and more of a love letter to America - which, indeed, is how one critic described Evans' first book on American history [The American Century, published in 1998]."

It'll be interesting to see if Evans cultivates a global following - including in the United States - as loyal as that once enjoyed by Alistair Cooke.