November 25, 2024
Former ABC correspondent and anchor Tom Jarriel has died. Jarriel’s death at the age of 89 was announced Thursday by his family, according to ABC. Jarriel was born in Georgia, grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana, and began his career with KPRC in Houston in 1958. Jarriel joined ABC in 1965....

Former ABC correspondent and anchor Tom Jarriel has died.

Jarriel’s death at the age of 89 was announced Thursday by his family, according to ABC.

Jarriel was born in Georgia, grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana, and began his career with KPRC in Houston in 1958.

Jarriel joined ABC in 1965. In 1968, he covered the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

By 1969, Jarriel became ABC’s Chief White House Correspondent, covering the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

In 1979, Jarriel moved to anchor ABC’s “Weekend Report.”

That same year, he began the role in which he is most remembered — as a member of the team of journalists who launched ABC’s “20/20” show.

During his reporting career with “20/20,” Jarriel covered a report of women in the armed services alleging rapes and sexual abuse.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Jarriel traveled to Romania where he reported on children suffering in Romanian orphanages.

Jarriel called the report on the neglected children “the great, defining story of my career.”

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Jarriel won six Emmy awards before retiring in 2002.

Jarriel is survived by his wife Joan, to whom he was married for 57 years, and three sons.

“We honor the depth and breadth of Jarriel’s 38 years at ABC. We celebrate his sense of fairness, of integrity, but most of all, his humanity,” WABC-TV said in reporting about Jarriel’s death.

“On and off the air, Jarriel embodied the best of everyone at ABC News.”

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