Shadow Puppet Storyteller

Maintaining the Informed Electorate

The death of someone familiar. I have experienced mourning today over the sudden passing of veteran broadcast journalist Hal Fishman in Los Angeles today. It was less painful than it could have been, since my "knowing" the KTLA evening news anchor was only very minimally more intimate than the average dedicated Angeleno viewer.

Read the article in latimes.com http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-fishman8aug08,0,6792962.story?coll=... and you too may wish you had worked at his side, or been an early student of the man who started out here as a political science professor. It is odd when someone else's life flashes before your eyes and yet, you are all the prouder for having shared a moment of history and the same circles. I'll admit that I contribute to a completely different area of the medium, eventhough employed by the same parent company. I haven't had a chance to check on the company-distributed notice of this co-worker's death. It is one of those moments when the information you may have gathered about a person has never coalesced until it is too late to get to know them better face-to-face. This does not mean that what I have accepted as noble in his life can't live on. I see that he had a purpose-driven life — one that revolved around maintaining an informed electorate. He took his role as a broadcaster seriously. That is the legacy that must survive his passing. Good Night, Hal.