Edwards returned to the United States from his overseas radio assignments in May 1946. By 1948, as CBS's top correspondents and commentators continued to shun the fledgling medium of television, Edwards was chosen by network executives to work with director Don Hewitt in presenting a televised news program every weeknight and to host that year CBS's televised coverage of the Democratic and Republican national conventions. While Edwards served as "anchor" of the programs, that term was actually not used within the context of newscasting, at least not consistently, until 1952, when CBS News chief Sig Mickelson reportedly applied it in describing Walter Cronkite's role in the network's political convention coverage. Such news terminology developed quickly in those early days of broadcasting daily news on television, a time fraught with uncertainties not only about the technologies required to present reports in a visual medium, but also about the most effective means of delivering those reports to viewers. Edwards' friends and CBS colleagues in the late 1940s were quick to suggest ways he could make his reports more interesting to his audience. "'I remember', he stated years later, 'guys coming up with brainstorms like wanting me to wear a football helmet to report the football scores.'"