Walter Jacobson
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Walter Jacobson is a Chicago television news personality and former anchor who hosted FOX Chicago Perspective, a one-hour news and political show that aired Sunday mornings on WFLD-TV. He was the principal anchor on WFLD's FOX News at 9 until his 2006 retirement.
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[edit] Biography
During his youth, Jacobson's love for the Chicago Cubs led him to become a batboy for the team. He went by the nickname Skippy, which his close friends still refer to him as today. Furthermore, this love for baseball landed him a job as the sports editor for his grammar school newspaper. He attended New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois.[1] As Walter grew up, he wanted to become to become a political analyst for either New York Times or The Washington Post.
A Chicagoan, Jacobson received his bachelor's degree in political science from Grinnell College and his master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.
Walter Jacobson's son, Peter Jacobson, is an actor who has appeared in the television programs Will and Grace and Law & Order and the film Good Night, and Good Luck, and has also done stage work in New York.
[edit] Career at WBBM-TV
Jacobson began his career at WBBM-TV as a writer and a reporter. In 1971 he moved over to WMAQ for two years, but returned to WBBM as an investigative reporter and anchor. He was solo anchor of the 5pm news for 10 years and co-anchor of the 10pm newscast for 16 years. For most of his time at WBBM, his co-anchor was Bill Kurtis. They formed a legendary anchor team in Chicago during the mid-1970s and early 1980s, when WBBM dominated the Chicago ratings.
Kurtis left for three years in 1982, and WBBM fell out of first place four years later. Jacobson left for WFLD in 1993 after a dispute with WBBM's management. The station crashed into last place two years later, and has only recently begun to recover directly from his loss.
[edit] Career at WFLD-TV
At WFLD, Jacobson was arguably the most popular of all of the station's news personalities, such as Robin Robinson, Tamron Hall, Byron Harlan, Nancy Pender and Corey McFerrin. Largely because of his influence, WFLD's newscasts have less of a tabloid feel than other FOX stations. However, they are much flashier than the other newscasts in Chicago, especially compared to WBBM during Jacobson's time there.
During his career, Walter was the host of his own segment entitled “Walter Jacobson in Perspective”. The basic concept of the segment revolved around Walter’s rants, which usually contained either biting social commentary or attacks at great injustices in Chicagoland. Walter was never afraid to overstep his boundaries. At times, he would often go after corrupt City of Chicago officials, or lash out at city workers and police officers that did little or no work. Also, Walter would use his segment to take up for the disempowered, helping fix various city based problems in poor neighborhoods, and helping numerous blue-collar workers.
Although Walter was able to achieve a lot of positive success for not only himself, but the entire city of Chicago, he was often heavily criticized by various traditional and conservative critics. Walter dedicated one of his segments to share hate mail he received over his career. Although most of the letters contained powerful and vulgar tones, which criticized Walter for what many thought of as ignorance concerning gun control, one letter complimented Walter for his hard work, and Walter thanked the writer for politeness.
Jacobson also often uses his time on the air with his perspective commentaries to tell Chicago some of his humorous, though some may say not newsworthy, anecdotes. He once used at least ten minutes of air time to explain how he lost his baseball glove at Wrigley Field as a child, and how it was recently found and returned to him.
Jacobson was also arrested in May 2004 for driving under the influence, obstruction of traffic, running a stop sign, invalid registration and failure to register his vehicle. The police report stated that an obviously inebriated Jacobson staggered to his car parked in the middle of the street near a local pizzeria, and despite warnings by an officer not to drive, Walter entered his vehicle drove off. However, Walter did a Perspective commentary on Fox News after the incident claiming that he was pulled over by an unmarked car full of people in baseball caps, not policemen. He later went on to say that he was "mishandled" by the police. [2]
In February 2006, following Vice-President Dick Cheney's well-publicized hunting mishap, in which he accidentally shot his friend, Jacobson did a commentary in which he criticized Cheney for not speaking publicly about the incident. Walter proclaimed, "I'm after you, Dick Cheney!" and later "You can't hide in the White House forever, I'll be waiting outside", while flaunting his portable coffee cup at a good moment to show that he would be comfortable with a warm drink while outside the White House.
During the final week of April 2006, Walter Jacobson announced that he would be leaving FOX News permanently in order to retire. During every 9pm broadcast before April 30, WFLD aired a special segment to honor Walter and his memorable contributions and accomplishments throughout his career.
[edit] Awards
Jacobson's commentary, anchoring, and reporting skills have made him the recipient of several prestigious awards. The Chicago Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences recognized his commentaries with Emmy Awards. In 1985, a Washington Journalism Review poll named Jacobson best local anchor in the United States. In 1988, he received his fifth Peter Lisagor Award, his third for "best commentary." During the 1980s, the Du-Pont-Columbia judges honored him twice, once for his commentaries and the other for best local election coverage in the United States because of his work with channel 2. Jacobson's notable WBBM-TV specials and programs included the Emmy Award-winning Walter Jacobson's Journal: China and Studebaker: Less Than They Promised, which received a Peabody Award.
His most infamous news story occurred a year before he had switched to WFLD-TV. He once dressed up as a homeless person and lived on the streets of Chicago for a few days. The twist was that he had a hidden camera and recorded what he experienced. In 1995 at WFLD, he repeated the feat once more in an effort to compare and contrast.
[edit] Sources
- http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20040512/ai_n12540571
- http://www.nbc5.com/news/3283456/detail.html
- http://www.foxchicago.com/_ezpost/data/12467.shtml
