Retired New York City journalist David Diaz, who delivered the news to Big Apple residents for decades and was affectionately known as a “reporter’s reporter,” died last week, CBS News announced Monday.
He was 82.
The trailblazing on-air talent covered 9/11, presidential elections and other major breaking news events throughout the five boroughs and nation on NBC 4 and then CBS 2 for about 30 years.
Former colleagues remembered him Monday as a mentor always willing to help others.
“A reporter’s reporter. New York City guy,” “CBS Evening News” anchor Maurice Dubois called Diaz in a tribute by the station. “Hardscrabble, you know, bringing himself up and wanted to bring others up as well.”
CBS News anchor Mary Calvi added that the longtime broadcast reporter “understood New York like very few journalists know.”
“He was a consummate professional, a charming, charming man,” she said.
While the cause of death was not revealed, Diaz’s family told his former station that he suffered from a form of dementia that made it harder for him to communicate as he got older.
The newsman was born in Puerto Rico in 1942 before he moved to Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan as a toddler. He graduated from Fordham Prep, then City College and then earned a master’s degree at Columbia University, according to CBS.
He worked as an activist and print reporter before NBC 4 brought him aboard for 15 years. He then was hired at CBS 2, where he spent more than 12 years before leaving in 2015.
Following his news career, Diaz taught future journalists as a way to give back.
He was a lecturer at CUNY, where he taught mass media and politics and journalism, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Diaz notched five Emmy Awards and was the first Hispanic anchor at a major New York television station, according to a blurb in 2017 by CUNY, which was presenting him with an honorary degree at the time.
“I first met David Diaz when I was a print reporter and we went on a complicated trip to South America and Central America,” CBS political reporter Marcia Kramer said in the station’s tribute.
“He was able to take this complex story with multiple, multiple locations and cut in the field and feed a piece back and be on the evening news every single night. He was able to do it and make it look so incredibly effortless.”
In 2008, he told the Daily News that he suffered from health issues, including a sinus problem and headaches, stemming from his on-the-ground coverage at Ground Zero following the terror attacks at the World Trade Center.
He leaves behind his wife, Andrea, two daughters and a son-in-law.
