![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thatcrazycajunLongtime NBC News economic reporter Irving R. Levine has died at the age of 86 from complications arising out of prostate cancer, in a hospital near his DC-area home on Friday. Fittingly, he was eulogized on his network's most prominent news program, Meet the Press, this morning, and the MSNBC.com website has an obituary here. Even his competition over at ABC recognized him with a mention on This Week's "In Memoriam" section.
Levine was one of the small handful of Washington figures, along with the late Illinois Democrat Sen. Paul Simon, George Will and Charles Osgood, still keeping alive the bow tie as a sartorial distinction. But beyond his neckwear and his sonorous vocal delivery, he distinguished himself far more by the longevity of his career and the quality of his reportage. Covering the Korean War in 1950 was how he began, but his real journalistic forte proved to be economics, for which he became the first full-time correspondent on a television network. He finally retired 14 years ago, but even until his death he was still reading three or four newspapers a day: "Once a news junkie, always a news junkie," he said. (Your Humble Correspondent can definitely relate.)
He recalled how his NBC producers pressured him to drop the middle initial from his name when he signed off reports, to save a tiny bit of precious airtime; he stubbornly refused, saying "I'd rather drop the B in NBC." It was a small thing, to be sure, but this kind of toughness is what's needed in a truly good and effective journalist...and a quality sadly becoming rarer all the time in today's press corps.
My heart goes out to his widow Nancy and their three children, and to all his relations, co-workers, friends and the many viewers he helped enlighten for 4.5 decades. As we head deeper into the worst economic crisis in our nation's history, the last thing we need is to lose someone like Irv Levine.
Levine was one of the small handful of Washington figures, along with the late Illinois Democrat Sen. Paul Simon, George Will and Charles Osgood, still keeping alive the bow tie as a sartorial distinction. But beyond his neckwear and his sonorous vocal delivery, he distinguished himself far more by the longevity of his career and the quality of his reportage. Covering the Korean War in 1950 was how he began, but his real journalistic forte proved to be economics, for which he became the first full-time correspondent on a television network. He finally retired 14 years ago, but even until his death he was still reading three or four newspapers a day: "Once a news junkie, always a news junkie," he said. (Your Humble Correspondent can definitely relate.)
He recalled how his NBC producers pressured him to drop the middle initial from his name when he signed off reports, to save a tiny bit of precious airtime; he stubbornly refused, saying "I'd rather drop the B in NBC." It was a small thing, to be sure, but this kind of toughness is what's needed in a truly good and effective journalist...and a quality sadly becoming rarer all the time in today's press corps.
My heart goes out to his widow Nancy and their three children, and to all his relations, co-workers, friends and the many viewers he helped enlighten for 4.5 decades. As we head deeper into the worst economic crisis in our nation's history, the last thing we need is to lose someone like Irv Levine.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-03-30 02:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-30 04:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-30 01:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-31 06:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-30 04:49 am (UTC)And that voice -- hadn't thought about it in years, but I can hear it in my head, as distinctly as that of any family member; signing off, appropriately enough: "...Irving R. Levine, NBC News."
no subject
Date: 2009-03-30 01:46 pm (UTC)