Clete Roberts (February 1, 1912 – September 30, 1984) was an American

broadcast journalist Broadcast journalism is the field of news and journals which are broadcast by electronic methods instead of the older methods, such as printed newspapers and posters. It works on radio (via air, cable, and Internet), television (via air, cable, ...

. He began his career in radio news, then transitioned to television, working for stations in California. In later years, he portrayed himself and fictional broadcast journalists in entertainment media, such as in 1970s episodes of the TV series ''

M*A*S*H ''M*A*S*H'' (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) is an American media franchise consisting of a series of novels, a film, several television series, plays, and other properties, and based on the semi-autobiographical fiction of Richard Hooker. The ...

''.

Career

KNXT Channel 2

After serving as a war correspondent in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and Korea, Roberts settled in the Los Angeles area and became a respected radio news reporter, eventually turning to television in the mid-1950s at KNXT Channel 2 (now

KCBS-TV KCBS-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside independent outl ...

), the local CBS owned-and-operated station. He anchored a nightly newscast and occasionally ventured to far-flung locations to report on national and international stories, taking with him his own

Bell and Howell Bell and Howell LLC is a U.S.-based services organization and former manufacturer of cameras, lenses, and motion picture machinery, founded in 1907 by two projectionists, and originally headquartered in Wheeling, Illinois. The company is now he ...

movie camera with which he shot his own news footage. With him on KNXT's newscasts in that time were three other Los Angeles television stalwarts, anchor and reporter Bill Stout, weather forecaster

Bill Keene Bill Keene (1927 – April 5, 2000) was a television and radio personality who became famous in the Los Angeles, California market as a traffic and weather announcer. He was particularly known for his colorful humorous traffic reports which inclu ...

and sports reporter

Gil Stratton Gil Stratton Jr. (June 2, 1922 – October 11, 2008) was an actor and sportscaster who was born in Brooklyn, New York. He most recently resided in Toluca Lake, California, until his death from congestive heart failure. Early life Stratton was ...

(who at the time also doubled as a radio, television and movie actor).

KTLA Channel 5

Roberts left KNXT in 1959 and joined Los Angeles station

KTLA KTLA (channel 5) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of The CW. It is the largest directly owned property of the network's majority owner, Nexstar Media Group, and is the seco ...

Channel 5 as news director and primary anchor, along with news producer/director Julian Macdonald, virtually remaking that independent station's news operation. The newscast Roberts and Macdonald oversaw included such figures as Stout (who followed Roberts to KTLA in 1960), sports reporter and former football star

Tom Harmon Thomas Dudley Harmon (September 28, 1919 – March 15, 1990), known as Tom Harmon, as well as by the nickname "Old 98", was an American football player, military pilot, actor, and sports broadcaster. Harmon grew up in Gary, Indiana, and playe ...

, and veteran reporter Stan Chambers.

"The Big News"

In 1966, Roberts returned to KNXT, joining the station's highly esteemed 6 p.m. "The Big News" broadcast and its late-night companion "The Eleven O'Clock Report." Roberts joined a staff that included anchor

Jerry Dunphy Gerald Raymond Dunphy (June 9, 1921 – May 20, 2002) was an American television news anchor in the Los Angeles/Southern California media market. He was best known for his intro "From the desert to the sea, to all of Southern California, a go ...

Ralph Story Ralph Story (born Ralph Bernard Snyder; August 19, 1920 – September 26, 2006) was an American television and radio personality. He was best known as the host of '' The $64,000 Challenge'' from 1956 to 1958, and as the writer and host of ''Ralph ...

, Keene, and Stratton. Roberts contributed news and feature reports and anchored the weekend newscasts. Early in 1974 he once again left KNXT for KTLA and took over the station's hour-long 10 p.m. newscasts. After two years Roberts decided to step back from nightly television news and left KTLA; after a hiatus he joined

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

member television station

KCET KCET (channel 28) is a secondary PBS member television station in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is owned by the Public Media Group of Southern California alongside the market's primary PBS member, Huntington Beach–licensed KOCE-TV ...

, contributing feature reports and commentaries. His long tenure in Los Angeles comprised reports and travels ranging from offbeat local stories to the war in Vietnam.

Acting career

Roberts appeared in episodes of ''

'', in which he played himself, as a war correspondent. Roberts appeared as himself in the lengthy introduction to the crime syndicate expose film ''

The Phenix City Story ''The Phenix City Story'' is a 1955 American film noir crime film directed by Phil Karlson for Allied Artists, written by Daniel Mainwaring and Crane Wilbur and starring John McIntire, Richard Kiley, and Kathryn Grant. It had an unusual "triple ...

'' in 1955. He interviewed on camera several of the actual townspeople of

Phenix City, Alabama Phenix City is a city in Lee and Russell counties in the U.S. state of Alabama, and the county seat of Russell County. As of the 2020 Census, the population of the city was 38,817. Phenix City lies immediately west across the Chattahoochee R ...

, who had been witness to the events there in the 1930s, '40s and early '50s. Roberts portrayed reporters in various productions, among them ''

Meteor A meteoroid () is a small rocky or metallic body in outer space. Meteoroids are defined as objects significantly smaller than asteroids, ranging in size from grains to objects up to a meter wide. Objects smaller than this are classified as micr ...

'' from 1979 and the 1983 NBC miniseries '' V'' as well a San Francisco television newsman in the 1983 nuclear war film '' Testament''.

Death

Roberts died at age 73 of

heart The heart is a muscular organ in most animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the body, while carrying metabolic waste such as carbon dioxide t ...

and

respiratory failure Respiratory failure results from inadequate gas exchange by the respiratory system, meaning that the arterial oxygen, carbon dioxide, or both cannot be kept at normal levels. A drop in the oxygen carried in the blood is known as hypoxemia; a rise ...

at 6:55 a.m. PT on September 30, 1984. He had been admitted to

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is a nonprofit, tertiary, 886-bed teaching hospital and multi-specialty academic health science center located in Los Angeles, California. Part of the Cedars-Sinai Health System, the hospital employs a staff of over 2 ...

44 days earlier on August 17 for surgery necessitated by a

brain aneurysm An intracranial aneurysm, also known as a brain aneurysm, is a cerebrovascular disorder in which weakness in the wall of a cerebral artery or vein causes a localized dilation or ballooning of the blood vessel. Aneurysms in the posterior circul ...

. He suffered a fatal

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...

when the aneurysm pressed on his respiratory nerve and caused him to stop breathing."Journalist Roberts succumbs at 73," ''The Associated Press'' (AP), Monday, October 1, 1984.
Retrieved January 28, 2022.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Roberts, Clete 1912 births 1984 deaths American radio reporters and correspondents American television reporters and correspondents American war correspondents American war correspondents of the Vietnam War American male journalists Journalists from California Journalists from Portland, Oregon Television anchors from Los Angeles 20th-century American journalists Burials at Valley Oaks Memorial Park