Ed Bell 1940-2025

Ed Bell with Mike Miller in a WHDH production booth

 

Word reached Flyover Country today that Ed Bell died yesterday.

Ed is the man who scooped me up out of Pittsfield, brought me to WHDH in Boston to be an editor in the newsroom, taught me everything I know about how to cover news, and then eventually -- as AM Radio began to die -- gave me the most gentle layoff ever, and then found me a writing gig at WCVB TV in Boston before I headed to RKO in New York.

If there was part of my life I could live over again, it would be the WHDH years. I didn't know how good I had it, even though I knew I had it good.

Ed actually called Fred Lantz at WUPE in Pittsfield to see if he'd be interested in the editor's gig. But Fred wasn't and suggested me. Had he not done that,  I can't imagine how much different things might be.

Eddie took care of his people. He advocated for the newsroom with the suits in ways that news directors stopped doing a long time ago.

Everyone who ever worked for him, it seems went on to big things as an Ed Bell disciple.

He knew everyone in town. One executive had a yacht in Marblehead so during the summer on Thursdays, Ed and he would take some public officeholder for a sail (stopping at Bob and Bill's Roast Beef in Lynn first). All the better to make contacts with.  I was invited once; I think the "guest" was the fire commissioner although Ed took me to a Bruins game one night with Joe Jordan, the Boston police commissioner.

Some of the biggest stories in Boston were broken by that little newsroom - no, really, it's stuns me today to think of how much we did with so few people -- thanks to Ed's contacts.

These are pictures from 1983 election night, which we staged out at WCVB (we had a working relationship with Channel 5). Ed was the first person in the business to tell me I could write, and he made me the writer for election night.   I'm in the back, Ed is producing. Jim Mitchell (who died a few years ago is watching the TV coverage. Neil Ungerleider, who went on to be an exec at WCVB, in the foreground.

Because I watched Ed, I became pretty good at breaking news in subsequent stops.

Here's more of that team:  Mike Miller, the evening talk guy, Mitchell, Bruce Cornblatt, who was Miller's producer and went on to be Bob Costas' producer, and Ed.

The last time I saw Ed was in 1987  at his daughter's wake and funeral. The family had been heading to Bretton Woods on vacation when they were hit by a drunk driver. Mysterious ways, they tell me.

I owe just about everything in journalism to Ed.

I should have told him that.