{"id":9771,"date":"2015-12-17T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2015-12-17T18:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=9771"},"modified":"2015-12-18T08:01:07","modified_gmt":"2015-12-18T14:01:07","slug":"cbs-2-announces-harry-porterfield-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2015\/12\/17\/cbs-2-announces-harry-porterfield-retirement\/","title":{"rendered":"CBS 2 announces Harry Porterfield retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Harry<\/a>

<\/a> Harry Porterfield<\/p><\/div>\n

Harry Porterfield, dean of Chicago television news anchors whose signature series was \"Someone You Should Know,\" is stepping down after a legendary career spanning more than 50 years, CBS-owned WBBM-Channel 2<\/a> announced Thursday.<\/p>\n

Porterfield, 87, who most recently co-anchored the 11 a.m. weekday newscast with Roseanne Tellez, made his final appearance on the air last Friday. He was on vacation this week and could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn typical Harry fashion, he\u2019s told us that he doesn\u2019t want to make a big fuss or throw a party to celebrate his amazing career \u2014 even though we all know he totally deserves one,\u201d Tellez told viewers at the end of Thursday\u2019s newscast. \u201cWhile Harry is retiring from CBS 2, he\u2019ll always be a very important part of our family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coinciding with Porterfield\u2019s retirement at the end of the year, Tellez will shift to full-time reporting duties at CBS 2. Starting December 28, Erin Kennedy and Lionel Moise, who now co-anchor from 4:30 to 7 a.m. weekdays, will add the 11 a.m. newscast to their schedule.<\/p>\n

\"Harry<\/a>

Harry Porterfield (1968)<\/p><\/div>\n

Porterfield had two runs at CBS 2. The first, which began in 1964, ended in 1985 when he left after losing his Monday-through-Friday anchor position. The demotion of the station\u2019s only African American weekday anchor sparked a 10-month viewer boycott led by Operation PUSH. The boycott ended with the signing of a covenant between CBS and Operation PUSH that resulted in the hiring of Lester Holt as a weekday anchor in August 1986.<\/p>\n

\"The first feeling I have is that I'm humbled because I was the focus of this thing, even though I wasn't there,\u201d Porterfield later recalled <\/a>of the controversy. \u201cI was a kind of phantom in all of this. There was a boycott there at Channel 2, there was this picket line in front of that station for 10 months. Can you believe it? Ten months . . . to bring on changes. I wasn't there and to think that I was a catalyst for that is really kind of overwhelming.\u201d<\/p>\n

ABC-owned WLS-Channel 7<\/a> immediately picked up Porterfield, who spent the next 24 years there before rejoining CBS 2 in 2009.<\/p>\n

A native of Saginaw, Michigan, and graduate of Eastern Michigan University, Porterfield began his career as a jazz disc jockey at WKNX Radio in Saginaw. After working various jobs at WKNX-TV, he joined CBS 2 as a news writer, and later moved up to reporter, anchor and program host. He launched his \u201cSomeone You Should Know\u201d profile series in 1977.<\/p>\n

In 1993 Porterfield earned a law degree from DePaul University School of Law.<\/p>\n

Winner of 11 regional Emmy Awards, an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Journalism Award and a Studs Terkel Award, Porterfield was inducted in the the Silver Circle of the Chicago\/Midwest chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 1998.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harry Porterfield, dean of Chicago television news anchors whose signature series was \"Someone You Should Know,\" is stepping down after a legendary career spanning more than 50 years, CBS-owned WBBM-Channel 2 announced Thursday. Porterfield, 87, who most recently co-anchored the 11 a.m. weekday newscast with Roseanne Tellez, made his final appearance on the air last... 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\/9771"}],"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=9771"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9796,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9771\/revisions\/9796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}