Richard Wald

Richard Wald is an American television executive who served as the president of NBC News from 1973 to 1977 and senior vice president of ABC News until 1998.

Education

Wald graduated from Columbia College in 1952 and was classmates with future ABC News president Roone Arledge, PBS and NBC News president Larry Grossman, and The New York Times executive editor Max Frankel.[1]

Career

He began his career in journalism with The New York Herald Tribune, where he served as a reporter and rose through the ranks to become the paper's last managing editor, working with Jim Bellows, before the paper's demise in 1966.[2][3] He also served as the Sunday editor of the New York World Journal Tribune and assistant managing editor of The Washington Post before joining NBC in 1967.[4]

Wald became president of NBC News in January 1973 and left the network due to friction with the management over unsatisfactory ratings.[4] His Columbia classmate Arledge, then president of ABC News, hired him to run the day-to-day operations of the news division in 1978.[5] Wald was promoted to senior vice president for editorial quality, nicknamed the "ethics czar" of the network. As Roone Arledge's deputy, he was credited with bringing in talented reporters such as David Brinkley to the network and helped launch This Week with David Brinkley in 1981.[1] He retired from ABC News in 1998.[6]

Outside his professional career, Wald is also the Fred W. Friendly Professor of Professional Practice in Media Society Emeritus at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.[7]

Personal life

His son, Jonathan Wald, is a media executive who was the executive producer of NBC Nightly News and is the senior vice president of Programming and Development at MSNBC.[8]

References
  1. Smillie, Dirk. "Richard Wald '52: "Mr. Quality" Made Big Calls on News Coverage". Columbia College Today. Retrieved May 19, 2020.
  2. "Old Reporters Never Die". NPR.org. Retrieved 2020-05-25.
  3. Roberts, Sam (2013-03-06). "Recalling a 'Writer's Paper' as a Name Fades". City Room. Retrieved 2020-05-25.
  4. "Wald to Quit as Head of NBC News". Retrieved 2020-05-19.
  5. Adalian, Josef (1998-09-10). "Wald to ankle ABC News". Variety. Retrieved 2020-05-19.
  6. Sentinel, Orlando. "ABC NEWS' RICHARD WALD WILL RETIRE AT YEAR'S END". OrlandoSentinel.com. Retrieved 2020-05-19.
  7. "Richard Wald". Columbia Journalism School. Retrieved May 19, 2020.
  8. Pedersen, Erik (2019-06-13). "MSNBC Daytime Shakeup Gives Jonathan Wald & Dan Arnall Programming Oversight". Deadline. Retrieved 2020-05-19.
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