Is KTLA going to find us a 'new Hal Fishman' anchor?

Question

For over 10 years I have been watching the Los Angeles evening news on KLTA with Hal Fishman. Regrettably he died some weeks ago. I miss him a lot. Any clues if KLTA is trying to find us a similar anchor (old, experienced, Anglo, charismatic)? Have you noticed there is no more commentaries with Leila Feinstein? Do you miss Hal too?

Answer 1

Probably not. Hal came to TV from print journalism and was with that station a long time. In fact, he was the reporter on scene when KTLA broadcast an atmospheric atom bomb test from the Nevada Test Site in the late 1950s. The anchor Hal replaced was George Putnam. George was one of the two anchors that formed the character of Ted Baxter on the Mary Tyler moore show. The Baxter character had Putnam's voice with Jerry Dunphy's hairdo. Alas, Jerry is no more.
The number of TV journalists around with a background similar to Hal Fishman's can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Answer 2

I didn't know that he had died. I remember him from the 1970s when I used to sometimes watch the news from LA TV stations. My husband, who grew up in San Bernardino, remembers him from the 1960s. It seemed like he had been around pretty much forever. I'm sorry to hear the news.