Hal Fishman Dies at 75

This is more than shocking for Los Angeles news viewers. Just a few days ago I had the story that Hal Fishman, long time anchor at KTLA Channel 5 in L.A., had been diagnosed with colon cancer. As I flipped on the morning news I heard the sad announcement that Hal passed away this morning at 3 am with his family by his side. Apparently the doctors were not able to get a handle on the bacterial infection that caused his collapse the other day and led to the cancer diagnosis.

Just a week ago tonight the KTLA family held a gala party in honor of his many years on Los Angeles television, and the next day he collapsed and was hospitalized. Life changes quickly.

As I explained in the previous post, Hal was quite an accomplished pilot and had special interest in aviation-related stories. Being a pilot myself, I could pretty much guess how Hal would respond to certain stories if airplanes were involved. One other thing I always appreciated about him was that he truly hated car chases. L.A. is the car chase capital of the world, and when the news producers would insist on staying with a chase that interrupted the 10 pm news broadcast, you could hear the aggravation in his voice. He knew that car chases are little more than crime porn and the only reason to follow them on TV is to either see the crash or shootout at the end. Otherwise, they were a waste of airtime and he knew there was far more important news that should be broadcast.

I've watched Hal several nights a week since the early 80's and always found his broadcasts to be as balanced and fair as anything I've heard on TV news (at least until Fox News came along). He was a pro, and as the staff at KTLA struggles to get through this morning's broadcast, a lot of Angelenos will be missing him as well.

KTLA's bio of Hal can be found here.