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Pioneering CBS Newsman Dies

Dec 2, 2015  •  Post A Comment

An award-winning TV news veteran who was a pioneer at CBS News and a longtime producer on “60 Minutes” has died. The network announced that Harry Radliffe II, the first African American to head a CBS News bureau, died Tuesday at his home in Stamford, Conn., after battling colon cancer. He was 66.

A veteran of 40 years in TV news, Radliffe was most recently working on a story for “60 Minutes” about an orphanage in Tanzania.

“Radliffe traveled around the world to produce stories for the top CBS News correspondents, including Walter Cronkite, Ed Bradley, Steve Kroft, Bob Simon and Scott Pelley,” the network said in its announcement. “As bureau chief in London in the 1980s, he supervised coverage of some of the biggest foreign news events of the time, such as the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, the rise of terrorism in Europe and turmoil in the Middle East. He contributed nearly 100 stories to ’60 Minutes.'”

Jeff Fager, executive producer of “60 Minutes” and a close friend of Radliffe, said in the release: “It is hard to imagine not having Harry with us anymore. He has been an essential part of our lives, our broadcast, and our entire news organization. His body of work is among the most remarkable and diverse in ’60 Minutes’ history. He was elegant, decent and a wonderful friend to so many of us. We are all better off that Harry was in our lives. We will miss him very much.”

Radliffe was named bureau chief in London, the largest CBS News office outside of New York, in January 1986. He later worked as a senior producer on the “CBS Evening News,” before joining “60 Minutes.”

harry radliffeHarry Radliffe II

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