Broadcast News Pioneer Trout Dies
Former CBS News Correspondent Robert Trout, whose career as a broadcast journalist spanned seven decades, died Tuesday. He was 91.
Trout died of congestive heart failure at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
Trout anchored the first CBS News World News Round-Up on March 13, 1938. He most recently participated in CBS News, Radio, coverage of the Republican National Convention this past summer.
The World News Round-Up is now the longest-running news program on American radio.
The first broadcast, in the evening, and the forerunner of the CBS Evening News, covered Nazi Germany's invasion of Austria.
"As German troops swarm across the frontier in their first offensive since 1914, momentous decisions are being reached in the capitals outside Germany," said Trout. "To bring you a picture of Europe tonight, Columbia now presents a special broadcast, which will include pick-ups direct from London, from Paris, and such other European capitals as, at this late hour abroad, have communication channels available."
Trout was also the newsman who told CBS listeners about the D-Day invasion at Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944.
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| In 1964 |
"Among the many other things he was known for was being a real gentleman of the craft and an exceptionally smart dresser in the classic mold," added Rather.
"He worked so long and he did so much and in so many ways, and with a constant high standard of professionalism," recalled former CBS News Correspondent Richard C. Hottelet. "He imparted what he knew in the easiest and gentlest and often the most humorous way he could."
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| Broadcasting from the deck of the USS Indianapolis upon the fleet's arrival in New York, 1934 |
The next year CBS bought WJSV and retained Trout. Among the events he covered were John Philip Sousa's last public performance, campaign speeches by Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the repeal of Prohibition.
It was he who first announced to the country the death of Roosevelt in 1945.
During Roosevelt's presidency, Trout was the broadcaster who first used the term "fireside chat" to describe the radio addresses Roosevelt gave to the nation.
Trout worked in radio and television, mostly for CBS News, with brief stints at NBC and ABC, covering events as varied as Douglas MacArthur's return to Washington in 1949, Alan Shepherd's space flight in 1961, political conventions and the running of the bulls in Pamplona. He won the Peabody Award for "distinguished and meritorious public service" in 1980.
He retired from full-time reporting in 1996 but continued to work as a commentator for All Things Considered.
His wife, Catherine, whom he married in 1938, died in 1994. They had no children.
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