Newsman Ed Bradley was remembered yesterday as a consummate gentleman, a pioneering journalist who could extract information with a stare, and a “downright lovable” man who never let success go to his head.

“You get to be lovable when after you become top dog you’re still paying attention to the underdog,” the CEO of Sony USA, Howard Stringer, said. The two were colleagues at CBS News in the 1960s, and Mr. Stringer said Bradley was “cooler than cool.”

Bradley died November 9 of leukemia at 65. He’d spent almost four decades at CBS, including a stint as a reporter for Newsradio 88 in New York City, where station management advertised their star education correspondent, himself a former teacher, as a man who ran toward danger.

The memorial service at Riverside Church in Harlem yesterday attracted thousands, including Mayor Bloomberg, the police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, many of Bradley’s fellow “60 Minutes” correspondents, and even shock jock Howard Stern. One of Bradley’s closest friends, Jimmy Buffett, performed a musical tribute at the three-hour service, as did Wynton Marsalis and Aaron Neville.

President Clinton hadn’t been scheduled to eulogize Bradley, but he said he felt obliged to speak as “some representative of the class” that Bradley “persecuted so relentlessly” in hundreds of stories about subjects ranging from the Arkansan ivory-billed woodpecker to his final piece this year, on negligence by an oil company.

Mr. Clinton said he could think of just a single instance where he thought Bradley “got a story wrong.” But he added that he never believed Bradley pursued the unmentioned story to further a larger agenda.

The former president was likely referring to one of Bradley’s “60 Minutes” segments broadcast in 1998, at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. During the program, one of his guests, Kathleen Willey, all but accused a sitting president of sex assault.

Mr. Clinton’s spokesman didn’t return a phone call yesterday seeking clarification.

Most of the mourners weren’t household names.

One of Bradley’s closest friends, Dick Butera, said he once suggested the newsman retire as his health was worsening. Bradley refused, according to Mr. Butera, saying “I’m a journalist, and that’s what I do.”