Harold William Walker, one of the first black correspondents to work for CBS News, died on Nov. 25 from prostate cancer. He was 70.
Walker studied English and theater at Denison University in Ohio, then served four years in the Army. In 1963, WTOP-TV (Channel 9), the CBS affiliate in Washington D.C., hired him to work as a reporter. One of his first assignments was covering the funeral of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.
Walker won a local Emmy, a Ted Yates Award from the Washington chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and the Capitol Press Club's "Journalist of the Year" award for anchoring the documentary, "A Dialogue With Whitey." The special report, which focused on the Washington riots following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, attracted attention from the network. The same year it aired, Walker was hired by CBS News.
One of the first black journalists viewers saw on a national television news program, Walker spent 12 years at CBS covering national, political and foreign stories. He was hired by ABC News in 1980 to serve as its bureau chief in Bonn. Before he retired in 1995, Walker broadcast the early morning business report from ABC's London bureau.
Posted on November 27, 2003 5:44 PM