Garrick Utley

Garrick Utley (born November 19, 1939, Chicago, Illinois) is an American TV journalist. He established his career reporting about the Vietnam War and has the distinction of being the first full-time television correspondent covering the war there.

Early life

Utley graduated from Westtown School in 1957 and from Carleton College in 1961. His mother and father both were correspondents for NBC radio in the mid-20th century, based in Chicago.

Career

NBC News

Utley served as weekend anchor during much of the 1970s, and frequently substituted for John Chancellor during that decade and for Tom Brokaw in the 1980s on "NBC Nightly News". One noteworthy "Nightly News" broadcast Utley appeared on aired on January 22, 1973, the day the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its momentous Roe v. Wade decision. In the midst of that broadcast (fed to affiliates at 6:30 p.m. Eastern), and just before reporting on the decision, news broke that former U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson had died. The final 15 minutes of that broadcast were devoted to news of the passing, with a retrospective on the life of the 36th chief executive by NBC's Ray Scherer, who covered the White House for NBC when Johnson was president. The death of President Johnson also affected the "CBS Evening News" telecast, which aired at the same time; Walter Cronkite interrupted that newscast to receive a phone call on air with information about the event. ABC did not cover the story, since it fed the "ABC Evening News" to its stations a half-hour earlier, at 6 p.m.

In the 1970s, Utley frequently hosted newsmagazine-style programs for NBC News. From January 1989 to December 1991, he moderated NBC's long-running public affairs discussion program "Meet the Press," while simultaneously hosting the newly-debuted Sunday version of the "Today Show."

In 1992, Utley issued a controversial commentary essay at the close of a weekend newscast, expressing a view that then-President George H.W. Bush should forego reelection in the interest of the country.

PBS

For a time, Utley hosted the PBS opera series "Live from the Met", during which he introduced the televised performances and interviewed the participants during intermissions.

ABC News and CNN

He worked for NBC News for around 30 years before moving to ABC. He later moved to CNN, where he worked until 2002. He co-anchored CNN's coverage of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 during the early morning hours of September 12, 2001.

Later career

Utley is currently president of the [http://www.levin.suny.edu/ Levin Graduate Institute of International Relations and Commerce] of the State University of New York, in Manhattan. Also, he co-hosts "America Abroad" on public radio, a program which examines the United States’ role and relationships in the world, and hosts Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on public television.

External links

* [http://www.americaabroadmedia.org America Abroad]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVHas2bFN48 YouTube clip of Utley anchoring "NBC Nightly News," December 21, 1971]