Hal Fishman: The Last of the No-Frills News Guys

First Tom Snyder, and now Hal Fishman -- dying a week apart? This is an awful time in the television news business. The legendary Fishman passed away early this morning at 75 in succumbing to colon cancer with seeming supersonic speed, which to some degree makes sense when you realize he also was a record-setting pilot and student of aviation. It was only six days ago that Fishman was hospitalized for the first time with a bacterial infection, and it was then doctors discovered the colon cancer that already had spread to his liver. Of course, if you're going to get taken down by cancer, quickly is the way to go.

But because of the swiftness of the illness that claimed Fishman, a lot of people are going to feel blindsided by this. The guy was still on the air in his longtime 10 p.m. perch on KTLA-Channel 5 as recently as late last month. And while a lot of folks took Fishman for granted, he leaves quite the void, having served as an unflappable and reassuring presence on the L.A. news scene for an unfathomable 47 years (the last 32 at KTLA co-anchoring every weeknight).

There was nothing at all remarkable about either Fishman or his on-air persona. He was dry of delivery, whitebread-looking, bespectacled, professorial in his demeanor and a bit straight-arrow dull -- as far from the pretty-boy smooth operators who populate the news anchor business as one can get. I mean, the man was a geek. But he's one of those guys whom you can already sense will be greatly missed now that he's gone. It was comforting to know Fishman was there if we needed him -- such as when a big L.A. story broke, like the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy or the 1994 Northridge earthquake or the 1991 Rodney King beating and subsequent riots.

As long as Hal wasn't sweating it, we were conveyed the feeling that things were going to be alright. There always existed the sense that Fishman had it all under control, which could sometimes be annoying but more often demonstrated an unforced journalistic authority too often lacking in today's image-obsessed TelePrompTer reciters. And talk about consistency. In the most fickle of worlds where anchors shuffle from station to station and market to market like so much driftwood, Fishman was a rock. He was "KTLA News at Ten." You could absolutely set your watch to him over not just years but indeed decades, coming to be seen as the most recognizeable and respected face on the local TV news dial.

There was also a warmth that the otherwise bland and unassuming Fishman exuded that felt utterly authentic. It never seemed like he was just blabbing words but truly talking to us, though not in a self-conscious way. You came away believing that while this guy got paid simply to read the words written by others, he also understood what he was saying and was far better-read and informed than he needed to be. His style may not have been hip in the slightest, but it was effective.

All of that, and he was a class act and a gentleman, which I observed from interviewing him on three occasions.

So while it's easy to pull out the maudlin sentiment in mourning the recently departed, in Fishman's case the praise is entirely justified. And you can't say that about too many people who spend the majority of their adult lives in the cuthroat world of local television news. Fishman rose above the nastiness and the superficiality to thrive as a rare erudite -- and gracious -- personality, one who managed somehow never to go tabloid. I bid him a very good night.

(Photos courtesy the Los Angeles Times)