Rich Newberg

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Rich Newberg is the Senior Correspondent for News 4 Buffalo, WIVB-TV. He joined the [CBS] affiliate in 1978 as Weekend Anchorman, later becoming a main anchor for the 5 and 11 p.m. newscasts. Newberg was named Senior Correspondent in 1999, reporting on the big stories of the day and heading the documentary unit at News 4. He serves as a regional vice president of the New York Chapter of the National Television Academy. ^[1]

Newberg has won ten New York Emmy Awards for his television specials, which have included themes ranging from the fight against terrorism, to the challenges facing psychiatric outpatients. “Our documentaries generally deal with the human struggle for dignity,” says Newberg. “We focus on people who have overcome incredible odds by drawing on their own inner strength. Some of our most powerful specials have dealt with the history of slavery and Western New York’s role in the Underground Railroad.” Newberg’s many state, regional, and national awards include the Edward R. Murrow, CINE Golden Eagle, Telly, Hugo, Gabriel, New York Festivals World Medal, AP, and UPI. He was inducted into the Buffalo Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2006.

Newberg considers his work on Holocaust survivors his most important contribution as a broadcast journalist. He and Chief Photographer Mike Mombrea documented a reunion of Jewish survivors who returned to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland, confronting their lost childhood. “Lost Childhood: The Story of the Birkenau Boys” is being distributed nationally.

Newberg and Mike also met Pope John Paul II in Poland and produced an hour special on the pontiff’s life. Newberg had first met the pope in 1985 after covering Solidarity’s struggle for freedom in Poland. In 1990 Newberg traveled to the Persian Gulf covering Air Force reservists from Niagara Falls preparing for war. Other special assignments for News 4 Buffalo have taken him to China, Japan, Panama, and Cuba.

Throughout his thirty-nine years as a broadcast journalist, Newberg has sought to bring the camera and microphone to people who generally don’t have a voice in society. He started his career as a TV News Troubleshooter, helping viewers solve problems that seemed insurmountable to them. Newberg worked at ABC affiliates in Syracuse and Rochester, and the NBC owned and operated station in Chicago.

Newberg received a Bachelor of Science degree in Communication Arts from Ithaca College, and a Master of Arts degree in News and Public Affairs from Michigan State University. M.S.U. honored Newberg in 2005 with its Distinguished Alumni Award.