Roger Field, a reporter who covered health and science stories for CBS-owned WBBM in Chicago in the 70’s and 80’s, was remembered this week. Field was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1985 and died November 12.
Field worked alongside some of WBBM’s best-known personalities, including Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson. Field built his career around a unique storytelling style–and a personal style that included driving around Chicago in a 1920’s Rolls Royce:
“What I try to do is tell people how the advances of civilization are going to affect their lives and tell it to them as clearly as I can,” Mr. Field said in a 1979 promo for WBBM-TV.
On the air, Mr. Field’s delivery involved live demonstrations and diagrams with moving parts to explain such intellectual topics as how gasohol works in an internal combustion engine.
“I think that he had a knack to find creative things in mundane things,” Fitzgerald said. “I think that he always had a way to make something interesting out of something.”
Mr. Field also hosted a series of family-oriented science specials at WBBM-TV and other CBS stations titled “Inside Out.” In one “Inside Out” special on the science behind TV production, Mr. Field demonstrated ChromaKey technology by wearing a bright green garment as he stood in front of a ChromaKey screen – making it appear as though his head was floating high above the downtown Chicago skyline.
Mr. Field also served as a fill-in weatherman for WBBM-TV for a time, Fitzgerald said.