Bill Beutel's Legacy

Today, there are more obituaries about and tributes to former WABC anchor Bill Beutel, who died yesterday. The NY Times' obituary calls him the "dapper and unruffled anchor"; it also states that he died of a progressive neuological disorder. am New York notes that it was Beutel and Eyewitness News co-anchor Roger Grimsby's "mix of 'happy talk' and hard-charging reporting -- would influence television stations across the nation" and recalls what current WABC anchor Bill Ritter said when he took over the anchor slot in 2004, "How do you replace a legend? You don't, you succeed him." He was considered a "father figure" to many reporters, and among the things we didnt realize, Beutel's last named was "pronounced Bill Boydel" but a news director made him change it to "Beutel."

WABC 7 has a slideshow of classic Beutel images, including one of him with Grimsby (photo at top left) and one with Robert Moses (photo, right), as well as thoughts about Beutel from fellow reporters and New Yorkers (Mayor Bloomberg said, "When Bill Beutel died we lost a lot of New York. He was a symbol I think of this city."). Again, Gothamist must say that we are very sad to hear of Beutel's passing - he was a constant presence when we were growing up and he was always both smart and approachable in conveying that city's news.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in Arts and Events, News on March 20, 2006 7:53 AM

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Andrew J. Lederer

Please remove two of my three almost identical entries. (One doesn't have a link to my blog or tv-ark).

And be nice -- leave up one of the ones with the links!

Andrew

Andrew J. Lederer

Channel 7 treated the death of Bill Beutel not just as if it were the most important news of the day but almost as if it were the only news.

And I thought that was the right thing to do.

More interesting was the play given Beutel's passing on the couple of other local outlets I caught. (And I didn't even see NBC, which apparently had a great piece.) I think aside from the genuine affection that gets built up for a guy who delivers the news to a town for more than 30 years, there was a recognition - conscious or otherwise - that this was the kind of personality who dominated the age of television; an era which, essentially, has passed.

The newer media will produce people who, in the fullness of time, will be as loved and regarded as Beutel, but for different reasons and in different ways. It's ironic that local newscasts, which love to report deaths as "the passing of an era", were so emotionally connected to the passing of this era and of one who represented it, that they neglected (from what I saw, anyway) to characterize it that way.

A British website, www.tv-ark.org.uk, has some great little clips from the lengthy Beutel era at WABC. They also have an astonishing clip from 1965 of veteran CBS newsman Robert Trout (a news giant of the radio era) ending his run as anchor of Channel 2's evening news and announcing as his replacement -- Jim Jensen, another guy who rose above the anchor desk like a figure on Mt. Rushmore and delivered the bad news (and good too) to New Yorkers for some 30 years.

The Trout clip seems like it comes to us from across some unfathomably vast chasm of time (yet successor Jensen - though gone now - is a figure of relative modernity, anchoring the news as recently as 1995). So, it was something of a surprise to read in the Beutel obits that he actually anchored Channel 7's newscast as long ago as 1962, three years before News Neanderthal Trout made room for Cro-Magnon Jensen over at 2.

As far back as I can remember seeing the Channel 7 news, there was Beutel (and Grimsby during the best years). I remember as a kid how sometimes ABC network people would turn up on Eyewitness News. (The image of Howard Cosell in a Channel 7 blazer is indelibly etched in a distant portion of my brain.) It was good seeing the Johnson Bros., Doug and John, back on Eyewitness News last night -- they looked good; still looked like they belonged there.

Well, anyway, that was then, this is now. The system we got is a flawed one, what with death and all that.

When it comes right own to it, I guess, really, the only thing we can say is - if news is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it.

Andrew J. Lederer

More thoughts about Bill Beutel from my blog:

Channel 7 treated the death of Bill Beutel not just as if it were the most important news of the day but almost as if it were the only news.

And I thought that was the right thing to do.

More interesting was the play given Beutel's passing on the couple of other local outlets I caught. (And I didn't even see NBC, which apparently had a great piece.) I think aside from the genuine affection that gets built up for a guy who delivers the news to a town for more than 30 years, there was a recognition - conscious or otherwise - that this was the kind of personality who dominated the age of television; an era which, essentially, has passed.

The newer media will produce people who, in the fullness of time, will be as loved and regarded as Beutel, but for different reasons and in different ways. It's ironic that local newscasts, which love to report deaths as "the passing of an era", were so emotionally connected to the passing of this era and of one who represented it, that they neglected (from what I saw, anyway) to characterize it that way.

A British website, www.tv-ark.org.uk, has some great little clips from the lengthy Beutel era at WABC. They also have an astonishing clip from 1965 of veteran CBS newsman Robert Trout (a news giant of the radio era) ending his run as anchor of Channel 2's evening news and announcing as his replacement -- Jim Jensen, another guy who rose above the anchor desk like a figure on Mt. Rushmore and delivered the bad news (and good too) to New Yorkers for some 30 years.

The Trout clip seems like it comes to us from across some unfathomably vast chasm of time (yet successor Jensen - though gone now - is a figure of relative modernity, anchoring the news as recently as 1995). So, it was something of a surprise to read in the Beutel obits that he actually anchored Channel 7's newscast as long ago as 1962, three years before News Neanderthal Trout made room for Cro-Magnon Jensen over at 2.

As far back as I can remember seeing the Channel 7 news, there was Beutel (and Grimsby during the best years). I remember as a kid how sometimes ABC network people would turn up on Eyewitness News. (The image of Howard Cosell in a Channel 7 blazer is indelibly etched in a distant portion of my brain.) It was good seeing the Johnson Bros., Doug and John, back on Eyewitness News last night -- they looked good; still looked like they belonged there.

Well, anyway, that was then, this is now. The system we got is a flawed one, what with death and all that.

When it comes right own to it, I guess, really, the only thing we can say is - if news is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it.

Andrew J. Lederer

More thoughts about Bill Beutel from my blog:

Channel 7 treated the death of Bill Beutel not just as if it were the most important news of the day but almost as if it were the only news.

And I thought that was the right thing to do.

More interesting was the play given Beutel's passing on the couple of other local outlets I caught. (And I didn't even see NBC, which apparently had a great piece.) I think aside from the genuine affection that gets built up for a guy who delivers the news to a town for more than 30 years, there was a recognition - conscious or otherwise - that this was the kind of personality who dominated the age of television; an era which, essentially, has passed.

The newer media will produce people who, in the fullness of time, will be as loved and regarded as Beutel, but for different reasons and in different ways. It's ironic that local newscasts, which love to report deaths as "the passing of an era", were so emotionally connected to the passing of this era and of one who represented it, that they neglected (from what I saw, anyway) to characterize it that way.

A British website, www.tv-ark.org.uk, has some great little clips from the lengthy Beutel era at WABC. They also have an astonishing clip from 1965 of veteran CBS newsman Robert Trout (a news giant of the radio era) ending his run as anchor of Channel 2's evening news and announcing as his replacement -- Jim Jensen, another guy who rose above the anchor desk like a figure on Mt. Rushmore and delivered the bad news (and good too) to New Yorkers for some 30 years.

The Trout clip seems like it comes to us from across some unfathomably vast chasm of time (yet successor Jensen - though gone now - is a figure of relative modernity, anchoring the news as recently as 1995). So, it was something of a surprise to read in the Beutel obits that he actually anchored Channel 7's newscast as long ago as 1962, three years before News Neanderthal Trout made room for Cro-Magnon Jensen over at 2.

As far back as I can remember seeing the Channel 7 news, there was Beutel (and Grimsby during the best years). I remember as a kid how sometimes ABC network people would turn up on Eyewitness News. (The image of Howard Cosell in a Channel 7 blazer is indelibly etched in a distant portion of my brain.) It was good seeing the Johnson Bros., Doug and John, back on Eyewitness News last night -- they looked good; still looked like they belonged there.

Well, anyway, that was then, this is now. The system we got is a flawed one, what with death and all that.

When it comes right own to it, I guess, really, the only thing we can say is - if news is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it.

Brightliner

Drat. I could have sworn I read somewhere that Beutel was a couple of years older than Grimsby. Wrong again.

Sorry, but I just can't get into today's anchors. Liz Cho may be eye candy for many men, but she just strikes me as icy and distant, not to mention perpetually squinting into the camera. Even ABC anchor Elizabeth Vargas seems to be warming up to her job. Bill and Roger were the archetypes of NYC news, no doubt about that. So now only the youngest of the 70s WABC team are left - Roseanne Scamardella, Spencer Christian, Ernie Anastos and "Storm" Field, and many of them aren't even doing news anymore. Oh, for the days of Roger, Bill and Tex Antoine.