© 2024 WRVO Public Media
NPR News for Central New York
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Veteran journalist and SUNY Oswego professor Garrick Utley dies

provided photo

Garrick Utley, a veteran journalist and later a professor at SUNY Oswego and WRVO contributor, has died at the age of 74.

He had been battling cancer, according to NBC News.

Utley spent much of last year producing a documentary for WRVO Public Media, New York in the World, which followed the rise and fall of New York's economy over the last century. 

He began his career with NBC News in Brussels in 1963. He went on to cover the early years of the Vietnam War and and then served as NBC’s correspondent in Berlin, Paris and London. After returning to the U.S. in the 1980's, he was the network’s chief foreign correspondent. He spent time anchoring weekend installments of Nightly News, the Today Show and moderated Meet The Press.

He once speculated that he may have been the only person at NBC News who handled every type of programming as host or anchor, the Associated Press said in its obituary. NBC's Today Show paid their respects to Utley this morning.

He then moved to ABC News in 1993 and was based in London. He was finally a contributor to CNN from 1997-2002. 

Utley taught journalism courses for SUNY Oswego. School president Deborah Stanley issued this statement about Utley:

Garrick always fully engaged with his students and colleagues in his time with us, ever curious about their work and interests and eager to contribute the benefit of his vast experience to current challenges big and small. He had a million fascinating stories, of course, but he shared them judiciously, as he found them pertinent and helpful. We will miss his eminently wise and kind presence among us.

He lived in New York City with his wife Gertje Utley, an art historian. Standing a lanky 6-foot-6, Utley was known for his courtly and knowledgeable on-air manner. An opera buff, he was also a host of PBS' "Live From the Met."