(WJSV is now WFED in Washington, D.C.) He was the man who first used the on-air label "fireside chat" in reference to radio broadcasts of President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression and World War II.

On Sunday night, March 13, 1938, after Adolf Hitler's Germany had annexed Austria in the Anschluss, Trout hosted a shortwave "roundup" of reaction from multiple cities in Europe—the first such multi-point live broadcast on network radio.

Trout emceed not only news and special events but also occasional entertainment programs during his first tenure at CBS, from 1932 to 1948, including a stint in London while Murrow was back in the United States.

Trout anchored the network's live early morning coverage of the June 6, 1944, Normandy invasion on D-Day by the allied forces and was behind the microphone when the bulletins announcing the end of World War II in Europe, and later Japan, came over the air.

Trout left CBS for NBC, where from 1948 to 1951 he was the first emcee of the game show, Who Said That?, in which celebrities try to determine the speaker of quotations taken from recent news reports.

He doubled as a network correspondent and as main anchor of local evening news at CBS' New York City television flagship, WCBS-TV until June 17, 1965.

On the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, November 22, 1963, Trout took to the streets of Manhattan and spoke on camera with New Yorkers and tourists seeking comments and reactions to the tragic events.

As a member of the news team covering the live events of that day, Trout reflected on the sudden death of President Franklin Roosevelt eighteen years earlier in 1945, which he also reported in a CBS broadcast.

While reminiscing on NPR on July 9, 1999, Trout admitted that an oft-played recording of his announcing the end of World War II — "my greatest hit, as it were" — broadcast at 7 p.m. in New York City on August 14, 1945, was actually a recreation.

"[6] Trout played for his NPR listeners the original transcription of what actually was heard on CBS Radio at that moment: his live introduction of a surrender announcement by British Prime Minister Clement Attlee—followed, not by Attlee, but by the Big Ben chimes.

[7] Kit was "a significant partner in his career, serving as his personal manager, providing him with research for his broadcasts, and critiquing his on-air performances"; together, they maintained a large, systematically organized collection of his papers, correspondence, press clippings, photographs, and recordings, which was bequeathed to the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin.