NEW YORK (AP) — Richard Wald, a longtime journalist who served create ABC News into a powerhouse adhering to a vocation in newspapers, has died. He was 92.
Wald experienced a stroke both Sunday night time or Monday morning and in no way regained consciousness before dying Friday at a clinic in New Rochelle, New York, mentioned his son, information executive Jonathan Wald.
The wiry, optimistic newshound taught journalism at his alma mater, Columbia University, just after retiring from ABC Information in 1999. He served on the boards of the Pulitzer Prizes, DuPont-Columbia and Peabody awards.
He labored at now-defunct New York newspapers the Herald Tribune and Earth Journal Tribune, as well as the Washington Article, and oversaw “new journalism” stalwarts like Jimmy Breslin, Thomas Wolfe and Gail Sheehy.
Describing why he joined NBC Information in the late 1960s, Wald normally explained, “I didn’t leave newspapers. Newspapers left me.”
He was NBC News president from 1973 to 1977, where he installed Tom Brokaw and Jane Pauley as “Today” display hosts. He also allow screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky path him for two times, and turned the product for the community information president in the satiric movie “Network.” Pressured out at NBC simply because of tension with his bosses, he joined ABC News and was a top deputy to the mercurial Roone Arledge.
A sports activities government who was specified authority in excess of a having difficulties news division, Arledge experienced lots of tips but little news expertise. Wald, with fellow executive David Burke, helped employ the fantastic thoughts, stated Tom Bettag, a previous executive producer at “Nightline,” a present that Wald gave a identify to.
“He was enormously upbeat, complete of electrical power,” Bettag said.
With a team that provided Peter Jennings, Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters and Ted Koppel, ABC rose to the best of the broadcast community news divisions at the top of their ability, prior to their impact was lessened by 24-hour cable information and the internet.
“Wald was the man who knew the news business inside and out — not just tv,” Bettag explained.
Wald’s wife of 67 decades, Edith, died in December. He is survived by three young children and 7 grandchildren.