After a successful career as a print journalist and editor, he transitioned into one of the leading newscasters and commentators of the Golden Age of Radio, attracting a nationwide audience.

By 1916 he had become its political writer while simultaneously reporting on the nation's capital for other papers, first as a side venture for the Milwaukee Sentinel and subsequently for the rival Washington Times (1917–1919).

[5] During the 1920s Godwin took a break from the newspaper business to serve as public relations director for the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company and later (1927–35) for the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).

[9] Godwin benefited greatly from arriving on the scene at a time when experienced Washington correspondents, skilled in reporting and analyzing national news, were supplanting the so-called armchair analysts who had been a popular feature of wartime coverage.

"[12] Godwin was a singular presence, or something of an outlier, on the airwaves during an era when the majority of radio commentators leaned leftward on the political spectrum.

Commenting on this phenomenon, Sen. Robert A. Taft (R-Ohio) complained to Mark Woods, the president of ABC (successor to the NBC Blue Network), in 1946: I quite agree ... that these gentlemen [Orson Welles, Elmer Davis, Drew Pearson, Walter Winchell, and Mayor LaGuardia] are all very far on the left and that their matter is all pro-New Deal and anti-Republican.

Reporter Richard Strout of the Christian Science Monitor remembered him as "genial,"[14] while Time magazine was less generous: "Bumbling Earl Godwin's sudden emergence as one of radio's high-priced newsmen is a triumph for corn.

"[15] In spite of this unflattering assessment, Godwin remained popular with political types as well as ordinary citizens, as evidenced by the State of Texas awarding him an honorary citizenship.

It was all the more remarkable in light of their different politics, since Roosevelt was an unabashed liberal, while Godwin was a conservative whose employer, Cissie Patterson, owner of the Washington Times, detested the president.

On April 24, 1935, [press secretary Steve] Early wrote in his diary that he told Earl Godwin of the Washington Times-Herald to "ask the President what part he personally is going to play in the administration on this work relief bill."

"[28] About his dealings with a New York financier: "I have a small account in his firm, and I have known him a long time, and he bought me some submarine stock that functioned properly and went to the bottom and stayed there.