Joel Daly (August 21, 1934October 22, 2020) was an American

news anchor A news presenter – also known as a newsreader, newscaster (short for "news broadcaster"), anchorman or anchorwoman, news anchor or simply an anchor – is a person who presents news during a news program on TV, radio or the Internet. ...

, most known for serving as an anchor for

WLS-TV WLS-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios on North State S ...

(an

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

-affiliate) in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, for 38 years from 1967 to 2005. Daly served as co-anchor on the 4 pm news broadcast alongside

Linda Yu Linda Yu (born December 1, 1946) is a Chinese-American former news anchor and author. Yu is best known as co-anchor on the Eyewitness newscast for WLS-TV in Chicago, Illinois from April 1984 until November 2016. Yu became Chicago's first Asian� ...

from January 1985 until his retirement in May 2005. Daly was inducted into the Silver Circle, a group of elite Chicago broadcasters, in 2003. Following his retirement from news broadcasting in 2005, from March 2007 until October 2013, Daly served as spokesperson for Chicago's

Cook County Cook County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of Illinois and the second-most-populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, California. More than 40% of all residents of Illinois live within Cook County. As of 20 ...

federal courthouse.

Early life

Joel Daly was born August 21, 1934, in

Great Falls, Montana Great Falls is the third most populous city in the U.S. state of Montana and the county seat of Cascade County. The population was 60,442 according to the 2020 census. The city covers an area of and is the principal city of the Great Falls, M ...

, and was raised in

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

state. He graduated ''

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some So ...

'' from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

in 1956.

Career

Four years after finishing college, Daly joined

WJW-TV WJW (channel 8) is a television station in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, WJW maintains studios on Dick Goddard Way (named for the station's late longtime weatherman—previously ...

in Cleveland in early 1960. Daly served as co-anchor with

Doug Adair Doug Adair (May 29, 1929 – April 29, 2019) was an American television news anchor and journalist who worked in the Cleveland, Columbus, and Dayton, Ohio markets. Career Born in Xenia, Ohio, Adair got his start in journalism in television in Da ...

, and the two became the first co-anchor news team in the United States.

WLS–TV Chicago (1967–2005)

In 1967, both Daly and Adair were hired by WBKB-TV in Chicago. However, Adair stayed in Cleveland for personal and contractual reasons. In Chicago, Daly began doing a solo newscast called ''Newsnight''. In 1968, about the time the station was renamed

, Daly was paired with

Fahey Flynn Fahey Flynn (August 6, 1916 – August 8, 1983) was a radio and television newscaster who spent the majority of his career in Chicago. Robert Feder of the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' described him as "an avuncular Irishman with a jaunty bow tie nda twi ...

, and the two became the highest-rated evening news team in the city, winning a local

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

after just one year on the air.Brenda Warner Rotzoll. "Sun-Times journalists enter Hall of Fame". ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...

''. March 31, 2001. 11. Daly and Flynn popularized a presentation style known to critics as "

happy talk Happy talk, also called banter, is the additional and often meaningless commentary interspersed into television news programs by news anchors and others on set. It may consist of simple jokes or simply a modified wording in asking a question of ...

". Unlike most presenters of the time, who delivered the news in an austere, authoritative fashion, Daly and Flynn mixed in playful banter as they segued from one topic to another. Daly later recalled, "We came down from Olympus, and we just became regular people talking to regular people. It's the best form of communication." News presenters across the country soon began emulating Daly and Flynn, sometimes to the duo's chagrin, as when other presenters became too jokey or unfocused.Ted Cox. "Daly's news: In a career that spanned the decades, Joel Daly helped change the face of TV news". ''

Daily Herald Daily or The Daily may refer to: Journalism * Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks * ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times'' * ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...

''. May 3, 2005. 1. Daly himself did not use the phrase "happy talk" to describe his style, noting, "We always took the news seriously, if we didn't always take ourselves too seriously". After Flynn's death in 1983, Daly briefly co-anchored the 10:00 news with

Mary Ann Childers Mary Ann Childers is an American media consultant and former newscaster. From 1980 to 1994, she worked as an anchor at WLS-TV in Chicago,Robert Feder. "Anchor With Jay? 'Not in the Cards". ''Chicago Sun-Times''. August 8, 1994. Section 2 Features, ...

. Daly then joined

Oprah Winfrey Oprah Gail Winfrey (; born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954), or simply Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', br ...

to co-anchor WLS-TV's 4:00 pm news broadcast. Winfrey was replaced by

after only weeks on the air. Daly remained there until May 2005, when he announced that he would step down as anchor to pursue other interests. Alan Krashesky became the new 4:00 pm anchor. Since then, he has occasionally appeared on newscasts to report on legal matters, and has also hosted parades for the channel. Daly was inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame in 2001 and received the first Illinois Broadcast Pioneer Award in 2008. He won five Emmys over the course of his career.

Other work

In 1988, Joel Daly received a

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

from

Chicago-Kent College of Law Chicago-Kent College of Law is the law school affiliated with the Illinois Institute of Technology. It is the second oldest law school in the state of Illinois. It is ranked 91st among U.S. law schools, and its trial advocacy program is ranked in ...

after four years of taking evening classes.Bob Herguth. "Joel Daly". ''

''. June 6, 1988. He became director of external relations at the John Marshall Law School in 2005, and also taught some classes there. In 2007, Daly was named a spokesperson for the

U.S. District Court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

in Chicago.Emma Graves Fitzsimmons. "Ex-TV news anchor changes sides". ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

''. March 15, 2007. 7. One of Daly's other interests was acting. In 1994 he played

Atticus Finch Atticus Finch is a fictional character in Harper Lee's Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel of 1960, ''To Kill a Mockingbird''. A preliminary version of the character also appears in the novel '' Go Set a Watchman'', written in the mid-1950s but not pub ...

in a stage adaptation of ''

To Kill a Mockingbird ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' is a novel by the American author Harper Lee. It was published in 1960 and was instantly successful. In the United States, it is widely read in high schools and middle schools. ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' has become ...

'', and in 2000 he starred as Patsy McCall in a production of William J. Kennedy's ''Grand View''. He played a news reporter in the controversial 2006 film '' Death of a President'', which portrays the fictional assassination of

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

. Daly said he did not regret his involvement, saying, "It's a gutsy undertaking to do the fictional assassination of a living president who's still in office. It's something that's in the American psyche. So dealing with this in a fictional forum – albeit a realistic one – is perhaps a purgative," he told the ''

''. Daly has also dabbled in music, especially

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

and

yodeling Yodeling (also jodeling) is a form of singing which involves repeated and rapid changes of pitch between the low-pitch chest register (or "chest voice") and the high-pitch head register or falsetto. The English word ''yodel'' is derived from the ...

. He has sung with a group called The Sundowners and occasionally wrote his own songs. His autobiography, ''The Daly News'', was published by Eckhartz Press in 2014.

Personal life

Daly met and married Suzon "Sue" Weiss in 1955. They had three children, two sons (Doug and Scott) and one daughter (Kelly). Both sons predeceased him; Scott died in his early 40s after struggling with addiction, while Doug died in his early 50s after suffering an asthmatic seizure. Daly died on October 22, 2020, at his home in

La Grange, Illinois ''(the barn)'' , nickname = , motto = ''Tradition & Pride – Moving Forward'' , anthem = ''My La Grange'' by Jimmy Dunne , image_map = File:Cook County Illinois Incorporated and Unincorporated areas La Grange Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 26 ...

. He was 86 years old and had suffered from vascular Parkinsonism in the time leading up to his death.

References

External links

Biography
from ABC 7 News {{DEFAULTSORT:Daly, Joel 1934 births 2020 deaths Television anchors from Chicago Yale University alumni Lawyers from Chicago People from Great Falls, Montana Chicago-Kent College of Law alumni Television anchors from Cleveland