Longtime Salt Lake City anchorman, Dick Nourse, has died at the age of 83.
Nourse, who was a three-time cancer survivor, started anchoring for KSL when it was a CBS affiliate in 1964 and retired when it was an NBC affiliate in 2007.
He began his broadcasting career in radio at KRAX radio, serving western Colorado and eastern Utah, AM and FM in Grand Junction.
Nourse said he was on his way to a job in Sacramento when KSL offered him a position and the station said the rest is history.
After a year on the news desk by himself, KSL hired weatherman Bob Welti and sportscaster Paul James from Channel 4 and the station said one of the longest running, most popular anchor teams ever was born.
Over his 43 years at KSL, he anchored a conservative estimate of more than 20,000 newscasts.
Nourse was the only Utah television reporter to go to Vietnam during the war and he returned in 1997.
“When I left Vietnam in 1967, I had no idea I would ever return,” Nourse recalled. When he did, he said he was able to find out how the Vietnamese felt about Americans and our involvement there.
“I would like to be remembered as somebody who really cared about that oath that I didn’t take but that I seemed like I took.” Nourse said in 2019.
That silent oath he made to himself was to hold the high standards of journalism. Nothing bothered him more than how some in America came to think of journalism as fake news.
“We are not the enemy of the people, have never been and I will back anyone that I know personally as being responsible to carry that title as a journalist. That’s a very respected profession,” he said. “And, you know, you take it very seriously in this country because you have freedom of the press. Journalism is a fine profession and one we will always need, regardless of technology. Somebody has to find the answers for you and tell you, and that’s what we do.”