{"id":758,"date":"2013-10-19T08:00:29","date_gmt":"2013-10-19T13:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=758"},"modified":"2013-10-19T10:52:42","modified_gmt":"2013-10-19T15:52:42","slug":"hugh-hill-1924-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2013\/10\/19\/hugh-hill-1924-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Hugh Hill 1924-2013"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Hugh<\/a>

<\/a> Hugh Hill<\/p><\/div>\n

They don\u2019t make reporters like Hugh Hill anymore.<\/p>\n

A giant of Chicago journalism for 43 years, he practically invented the role of political reporter on local television news and played it longer and with more gusto than anyone.<\/p>\n

Hill, who died Friday <\/a>at 89, interviewed every U.S. president from Truman to Clinton and covered every Chicago mayor from Daley to Daley. His in-your-face style of interrogation and remarkable institutional memory made him a legend.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he talked, politicians listened,\u201d veteran reporter Chuck Goudie recalled on Facebook<\/a> Friday. \u201cHugh taught me this: at any news conference ask the first question, make it the only question that matters \u2014 and ask it loud enough that it has to be answered.\u201d<\/p>\n

The son of a coal miner from the southern Illinois town of Gillespie, Hill graduated on the G.I. Bill from the University of Missouri journalism school and worked at radio stations in St. Charles, Aurora and Hammond before joining WBBM AM 780 in 1953. He segued to television as \u201cspecial events director\u201d at WBBM-Channel 2. (\u201c \u2018Special events director\u2019 was a pseudonym for \u2018reporter,\u2019 \u201d he once told me. \u201cThey just gave you a title in those days.\u201d)<\/p>\n

After a decade at CBS, Hill jumped to ABC-owned WLS-Channel 7 (then WBKB-TV), spending the next 33 years working the political beat from City Hall to Springfield to Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

Long before he was known as the dean of Chicago television newsmen, colleagues in the press room dubbed him \u201cGive Me a Fill Hill,\u201d owing to his frequent requests for a synopsis of the day\u2019s big story. But none could match Hill for his tenacity, his thoroughness or his booming voice, which was audible anywhere with no need for amplification.<\/p>\n

Hill declined numerous offers to become a network correspondent over the years, preferring to stay close to home in Naperville with his wife, Jackie, and their five children. \u201cI love local reporting much better,\u201d he said. \u201cYou get paid as much if not more, you have more freedom, and you don\u2019t have to travel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two years after his retirement as political editor in 1996, he returned briefly to ABC 7 to report part-time on political campaigns and election night. In 1999, the year he was inducted into the Silver Circle of the Chicago Television Academy, he suffered a mild stroke.<\/p>\n

In 1988, on the eve of his 25th anniversary at ABC 7, Hill shared his thoughts with me on everything from the politicos he\u2019d covered to the business he loved:<\/p>\n

On politicians\u2019 peccadilloes:<\/strong>\u00a0 \"There\u2019s a lot of things you never put on the air and you never report. Nightlife down in Springfield. Let\u2019s face it, you see a lot of politicians out in circumstances that they wouldn\u2019t want to be revealed back home. You just don\u2019t do it. I don\u2019t like to get into a personal thing with any politician I cover. Their personal life is their own until it becomes part and parcel of their job. Then it\u2019s a different story.\"<\/p>\n

On the key to his success:<\/strong>\u00a0 \"I get by because I know what I\u2019m talking about. It\u2019s been my life. I love the business of television news. I think knowledge is power in journalism as well as any other line. If you know more than the next guy, you\u2019re better off, and you\u2019re worth a lot more to the station or to the newspaper you\u2019re working for, And I have more knowledge about the field of politics than anybody in journalism in Chicago. I have an uncanny memory and can remember a lot of things. And I do a hell of a lot of research and a lot of reading. I mean, I work hard.\"<\/p>\n

On why he jumped from Channel 2 to Channel 7:<\/strong>\u00a0 \"For money. Things were going nowhere at Channel 2 and [Channel 7 boss] Red Quinlan promised to build a news operation. He hired me and Frank Reynolds the same day \u2014 Oct. 7, 1963. I had just done some documentaries about the prison at Stateville and had done an investigative report on slum conditions with the Chicago Daily News. Four years later, [Fahey] Flynn and [Joel] Daly joined.\"<\/p>\n

On the \u201chappy talk\u201d label at Channel 7:<\/strong>\u00a0 \"'Happy talk' was a misnomer. We were much deeper than that. We had a solid news operation. I didn\u2019t like the antics. I didn\u2019t like [John] Coleman standing on his head doing the weather and all the banter back and forth on the air. It kind of sickened me. It was so shallow. We were much better than happy talk. I just refused to get involved in it. I didn\u2019t like it at all. Everybody I talked to at that time I told: We don\u2019t need that kind of silly nonsense on the air. We\u2019re a good news operation.\"<\/p>\n

On working in a young person\u2019s business:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\"If there were something\u00a0I could do that\u2019s as much fun as broadcasting, then I\u2019d go and retire to it. But there is no such thing. This is more fun than I could ever possibly hope for. Sure, it\u2019s a job and you make good money. But I do it because I love it and I wouldn\u2019t ever want to do anything else. It\u2019s very, very tiring and exhausting physically. But mentally, it\u2019s great. It\u2019s an exercise in real journalism. It\u2019s the essence of broadcast journalism.\"<\/p>\n

On anchoring:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\"I anchored\u00a0a morning show for about a year at Channel 2, and at Channel 7 I did a co-anchor with Frank Reynolds at 6. I\u2019ll tell you the truth: I never did really like it. I always thought of it as an acting job. I wouldn\u2019t want to let John Drury hear that, but that\u2019s what I thought. You had to be more of an actor than a newsman. You had to come in, pick up a script and read it. I never enjoyed that very much. It\u2019s going out on the street and covering these things that I really love. That\u2019s my game.\"<\/p>\n

On Mayor Richard J. Daley:<\/strong>\u00a0 \"Daley was the best politician I ever knew in my life, bar none, and I\u2019ve known hundreds of them. Without any question of a doubt. He knew everything about politics and he knew about power. There was no second best. He was always No. 1 and he took over everything. He was a one-man show from beginning to end. He lived and dreamed politics and Chicago. He had the power because of all of that. I admired him very much.\"<\/p>\n

On Mayor Jane Byrne: <\/strong>\"Mayor Byrne threw a hell of a party for the four years she was in. I went to several of them. They were really terrific. She wore magnificent clothes every day to the office. She was fun to cover. But let\u2019s face it, she was a lousy mayor.\"<\/p>\n

On Mayor Harold Washington:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\"He was an extremely\u00a0powerful man. Unfortunately, I don\u2019t think he had enough time to prove whether he could be a good mayor or not. The first term was turmoil. But he overcame them. I think Harold Washington could have become one of the finest mayors this city has ever had. Here was a man devoted to a city and to politics. Like Daley, he was honest and had great integrity.\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They don\u2019t make reporters like Hugh Hill anymore. A giant of Chicago journalism for 43 years, he practically invented the role of political reporter on local television news and played it longer and with more gusto than anyone. Hill, who died Friday at 89, interviewed every U.S. president from Truman to Clinton and covered every... Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":779,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions\/779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}