George Watson, a former Washington bureau chief, White House correspondent and vice president for ABC News, died Thursday, a network spokesperson announced. He was 86.
After serving as a correspondent and bureau chief in Moscow and London, where he covered major events in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Watson returned to the U.S. in 1975 as ABC News’ White House correspondent.
A year later, he was named Washington bureau chief and vice president, a role he held two different times, spanning 12 years total.
Born in 1936, Watson graduated from Harvard University, where he was managing editor of The Harvard Crimson. Between stints as a reporter for The Detroit News and The Washington Post, he earned his master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.
He began his broadcasting career at ABC News in Washington in 1962 as a writer for the radio show Edward P. Morgan and the News, then was a correspondent from 1965-68. On special assignment in 1968 and 1970, he covered some of the heaviest fighting in Vietnam and Cambodia.
Watson was named chief correspondent and bureau chief in London in 1970, and his ABC News special Terror in Northern Ireland won an Overseas Press Club Award for best foreign affairs documentary.
He left to become vice president and managing editor of fledgling CNN in 1980 but returned to ABC News a year later to serve as a vice president in New York as the first network executive responsible for overseeing the policies, standards and practices for news programs.
He also developed and produced Viewpoint, a program designed to provide a forum for viewer criticism of ABC News in particular and broadcast journalism in general. During his tenure, Viewpoint won an Emmy, a Peabody and the duPont-Columbia Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism.
Watson returned to Washington in 1985 for his second tour as bureau chief. He retired in 1993 but spent the next eight years supplying commentary and analysis for radio and the late night show World News Now.
He was also director of the Committee to Protect Journalists from 1982-93.
Survivors include his wife, Ellen.
Source: Hollywood
