Posted by chicagomedia.org on November 10, 2009 at 10:53:33:
In Reply to: Burleigh Hines Dies At 77 posted by Bud on November 09, 2009 at 11:36:10:
Burleigh Hines, 1932-2009: Television newsman for WBBM Ch. 2
He specialized in human-interest stories
By Trevor Jensen
Tribune reporter
November 10, 2009
Television newsman Burleigh Hines specialized in human-interest stories, and he had the kind of warm screen presence that left viewers thinking he was their friend.
"Everywhere we went, people felt like they knew him," said Edie Kasten, his producer for some 20 years at WBBM-TV Channel 2. "People would come up and hug him."
Mr. Hines, 77, died Sunday, Nov. 8, in a Los Angeles hospital of complications from a fall, Kasten said.
He had moved to California a couple of years after retiring from television in 2001.
Mr. Hines had been a reporter at newspapers in Nashville and Chicago before he joined the staff at WBBM-AM radio in 1968, as the station turned to an all-news format.
He shifted to television six years later, first as an editorial director and then as a reporter. While he did his share of hard-news reporting through the years, features were his forte. He anchored a long-running series called "Side Streets" that focused on unusual and interesting people and places.
With Van Gordon Sauter, a Chicago newsman who went on to become president of CBS News, he wrote the book "Nightmare in Detroit: A Rebellion and its Victims," about the racial riots in that city.
In 2002, he received a Silver Circle Lifetime Achievement Award from the Midwest National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Mr. Hines is survived by his wife, Denise; three sons, Adam, Eric and Peter; three daughters, Anna, Julia and Terri; a brother; four sisters; 12 grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.
No public services are planned.