In a longform story in the January issue of Los Angeles magazine, Ed Leibowitz describes the long journey taken by veteran L.A. news helicopter pilot Bob Tur–father of NBC News correspondent Katy Tur–from the “ultimate alpha male,” to thoughts of suicide, and finally to a day last summer when Zoey Tur flew into LAX from Thailand, where she’d undergone sex reassignment surgery. A TSA agent asked Tur about the reason for the trip. “‘What have we been up to in Thailand?’ he asked with a genial smile. ‘I had a sex change,’ Zoey said.”
Leibowitz reports Tur, who covered the beating of Rodney King and O. J. Simpson‘s Bronco chase in the chopper for KCBS, has considered a return to TV news. “She knew how risk-averse TV news directors could be. But there was a convincing case to be made that in today’s trans-friendly media landscape, putting a transgender newswoman on the air—especially one who formerly was America’s greatest helicopter newsman—could be a ratings coup.”