Former WDSU anchor and reporter William “Bill” Slatter died Sunday.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports Slatter worked at the New Orleans NBC affiliate in the 1950s and 60s before he left for Germany to serve as managing editor of radio news for the Armed Forces Network in Germany. He came back to the station in the early 70s.
His years in New Orleans also included anchoring and reportering for WDSU radio, and the memorable stories he covered for both outlets included events of the Civil Rights movement and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Advertisement“That and hurricanes, right?” [his daughter Katherine Slatter] Kirlin said. “We lived through Betsy. Daddy wasn’t home for like three days. He was at the station. It was wild.”
John Corporon, WDSU-TV’s news director from 1961-1967, said Mr. Slatter “was an outstanding reporter and a terrific anchorman.”
“I’d put him in the ranks of Bill Monroe, Ed Planer and Alec Gifford,” Corporon added. “They were sort of the four journalist horsemen” of New Orleans television news in that era.
A memorial service is planned for Slatter in Natchez.
image: Katherine Slatter Kirlin