Clete Roberts

Clete Roberts (1 February 1912 – 30 November 1984) was an American broadcast journalist and film and television actor. 2Career 3KNXT Channel 2 After serving as a war correspondent in World War II and Korea, Roberts settled in the Los Angeles area and became a respected radio news reporter, eventually turning to television in the mid-1950s at KNXT Channel 2 (now KCBS-TV), the local CBS owned-and-operated station. He anchored a nightly newscast and occasionally ventured to far-flung locations to report on national and international stories, taking with him his own Bell and Howell movie camera with which he shot his own news footage. With him on KNXT's newscasts in that time were three other Los Angeles television stalwarts, anchor and reporter Bill Stout, weather forecaster Bill Keene and sports reporter Gil Stratton (who at the time also doubled as a radio, television and movie actor). 3KTLA Channel 5 Roberts left KNXT in 1959 and joined Los Angeles station KTLA Channel 5 as news director and primary anchor, along with news producer/director Julian Macdonald, virtually remaking that independent station's news operation. The newscast Roberts and Macdonald oversaw included such respected figures as Stout (who followed Roberts to KTLA in 1960), sports reporter and former football star Tom Harmon, and veteran reporter Stan Chambers (who retired on August 11, 2010 on his 87th birthday, marking 63 years as a reporter at KTLA). Roberts' signature conclusion to the early news broadcast was, "I bid you a pleasant evening"; for the late news it was "I bid you goodnight." 3"The Big News" In 1966, Roberts returned to KNXT, joining the station's highly-esteemed 6 p.m. "The Big News" broadcast and its late-night companion "The Eleven O'Clock Report." Roberts joined a staff that included anchor Jerry Dunphy, Maury Green, Ralph Story, Keene, and Stratton. Roberts contributed news and feature reports and anchored the weekend newscasts. Early in 1974 he once again left KNXT for KTLA and took over the station's hour-long 10 p.