Dead Celebrity Alert

Charlie Gillett was a broadcaster, journalist and author who played a significant role in shaping the tastes of several generations of music fans. After writing The Sound of the City, one of the first books to attempt a serious survey of the early history of rock’n’roll, he began his broadcasting career on BBC Radio London, presenting the weekly Honky Tonk show throughout most of the 1970s. The programme became hugely influential, popularising American roots music and unearthing British acts such as Dire Straits, Elvis Costello and Graham Parker, all of whom received their first exposure on his show before any of them had signed a recording contract. He also co-managed Ian Dury and discovered Lena Lovich. …

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Tony Snow, a former White House spokesman and veteran radio and television journalist, has died following a long battle with colon cancer, his former employers said Saturday. He was 53. …

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October 2, 1925 - July 1, 2008

Clay Felker was a pioneering editor whose New York magazine became a template for what became known as the “new journalism” adopted by urban weeklies in America. A sometimes bitchy but always stylish glossy that included Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin and Gloria Steinem in its stable of writers, New York reported on the mixture of ambition, money, culture and fashion that obsessed the city then and now. …

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March 26, 1923 - July 4, 2008

The doyen of BBC foreign correspondents, Charles Wheeler earned a permanent niche in television history through his coverage of the Watergate scandal during his years as the corporation’s chief correspondent in the United States. Often ahead of the American press corps, he exploited the contacts he had built up during seven years in Washington to provide the fullest and most comprehensive reporting available in the British media — and more than matching in quality, though not in quantity, that of the American networks. …

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Tim Russert, the host of “Meet the Press,” and NBC’s Washington bureau chief, has died. He was 58.

Mr. Russert was a towering figure in American journalism and moderated several debates during the recent presidential primary season.

Tom Brokaw, the former anchor of NBC Nightly News, came on the air at 3:39 p.m. that Mr. Russert had collapsed and died early this afternoon while at work. He had just returned from Italy with his family. …

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September ?, 1939 - May 31, 2008

Glamorous and scandal-prone newspaper columnist who confessed to being the long-term mistress of the Irish Prime Minister

Terry Keane, the mistress of the former Taoiseach Charles Haughey, created a sensation in May 1999 when she went on Irish television giving details of their affair, which had gone on for 27 years and had long been the subject of speculation, much of it fanned by herself. She followed on with extracts from a forthcoming book in The Sunday Times containing rather intimate photographs for which she received £50,000. The book never appeared. …

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NEW YORK (AP) — William F. Buckley Jr., the erudite Ivy Leaguer and conservative herald who showered huge and scornful words on liberalism as he observed, abetted and cheered on the right’s post-World War II rise from the fringes to the White House, died Wednesday. He was 82. … Read full obituary

KEYSTONE, Colo. — Former ABC News correspondent John McWethy died Wednesday after a skiing accident at Keystone Ski Resort. … Read full obituary

LONDON — Hugh Massingberd, who developed the obituary into entertaining and irreverent brilliance at The Daily Telegraph, died Tuesday. … Read full obituary

Thomas Morgan III, 56, a former reporter and editor at the New York Times, died Monday of AIDS complications.

According to an obituary in the Times, Morgan’s accomplishments were great: He served as the first openly gay president of the National Association of Black Journalists from 1989 to 1991, received a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University in 1990, and was inducted into the hall of fame of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association in 2005. … Read full obituary

SAN FRANCISCO — The Bay Area news community is mourning the loss of beloved veteran television and radio news anchor Pete Wilson.

Wilson, 62, died Friday night of a massive heart attack suffered during hip replacement surgery at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, according to KGO-TV, ABC-7. …

Wilson received a number of broadcast journalism honors, including the Peabody Award, several Emmy Awards and many local and national awards. … Read full obituary

June 16, 2007 — Claudia Cohen, a high-profile gossip reporter for television and newspapers who was a frequent subject of the gossip columns herself, partly because of her marriage to, and remunerative divorce from, the billionaire businessman Ronald O. Perelman, died yesterday in Manhattan. She was 56 and had homes in Manhattan and Easthampton, N.Y. … Read full obituary

Captured and held hostage in Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

Former Los Angeles Times editor during the 1970s and 80s.

Former racing writer and columnist Bill Casey has died in Sydney after a long illness. He was 72. … Read full obituary

Neal Shine, who began as a copy boy for Detroit Free Press and worked his way up to become its managing editor and later its publisher, died Tuesday of respiratory failure after a recent illness. He was 76. …

Shine also was an impassioned civic activist and Detroit booster… Read full obituary

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Jacob O. Booher, who worked for The Associated Press for 35 years and retired as a bureau chief in Ohio, has died at age 69. … Read full obituary

After a seven-year battle with breast cancer.

Art Buchwald, who took humorous jabs at Washington politicians in syndicated columns for decades, has died, a close friend said Thursday. He was 81. … Read full obituary

PC World lost a treasured colleague and friend Tuesday, when Senior Technical Editor Rex Farrance was killed during a home-invasion robbery attempt. For 19 years, Rex served PC World with professionalism and a passion for accuracy. … Read full obituary

The death of Mohan Seneviratne has friends and family mystified at how a traditional New Year’s Day dip into the waters of Coney Island could have ended in absolute tragedy for a promising young man.

The 32-year-old journalist from Manhattan died on Friday after suffering spinal chord and neck injuries while taking a dive into the ocean, a 104-year-old tradition that draws hundreds of novice cold water swimmers each year. … Read full obituary

Veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley died Thursday at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan of complications from leukemia. Bradley joined the staff of the venerable news magazine 26 years ago. His consummate skills as a broadcast journalist and his distinctive body of work were recognized with numerous awards, including 19 Emmys, the latest for a segment that reported the reopening of the 50-year-old racial murder case of Emmett Till. …

Extensive coverage, tributes, photos & video, from CBS

Obit to come.

CBS News is reporting the death of veteran correspondent Christopher Glenn, who retired earlier this year. He was 68 years old. …

He also covered numerous assignments for CBS News Television. Glenn was the reporter/narrator for the Emmy award-winning “IN THE NEWS” series of current event broadcasts for young viewers throughout its 15 year history (1971-1986). … Read full obituary