Joel Daly (August 21, 1934October 22, 2020)
Early life
Joel Daly was born August 21, 1934, in Great Falls, Montana, and was raised in Washington state. He graduated
magna cum laude from
Yale University in 1956.
Career
Four years after finishing college, Daly joined
WJW-TV in Cleveland in early 1960. Daly served as co-anchor with
Doug Adair,
[" Television". The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. July 2003. Retrieved on July 30, 2008.] and the two became the first co-anchor news team in the United States.
WLS–TV Chicago (1967–2005)
, anchor Joel Daly. Front, from left: weatherman John Coleman, anchor
Fahey Flynn, sportscaster
Bill Frink]] In 1967, both Daly and Adair were hired by WBKB-TV in Chicago. However, Adair stayed in Cleveland for personal and contractual reasons. In Chicago, Daly began doing a solo newscast called
Newsnight. In 1968, about the time the station was renamed
WLS-TV, Daly was paired with
Fahey Flynn, and the two became the highest-rated evening news team in the city,
[ winning a local Emmy Award after just one year on the air.][Brenda Warner Rotzoll. "Sun-Times journalists enter Hall of Fame". Chicago Sun-Times. March 31, 2001. 11.] Daly and Flynn popularized a presentation style known to critics as "happy talk". Unlike most presenters of the time, who delivered the news in an austere, authoritative fashion, Daly and Flynn mixed in playful banter as they segued from one topic to another.[Craig Allen. "Happy News". Encyclopedia of Television News. Ed. Michael D. Murray. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999. 95.] Daly later recalled, "We came down from Olympus, and we just became regular people talking to regular people. It's the best form of communication." News presenters across the country soon began emulating Daly and Flynn, sometimes to the duo's chagrin, as when other presenters became too jokey or unfocused.[Ted Cox. "Daly's news: In a career that spanned the decades, Joel Daly helped change the face of TV news". Daily Herald. May 3, 2005. 1.] Daly himself did not use the phrase "happy talk" to describe his style, noting, "We always took the news seriously, if we didn't always take ourselves too seriously".[Robert Feder. "'Happy talk' – Variety's Chicago bureau chief coined local news catchphrase". Chicago Sun-Times. June 17, 2008. 43.] After Flynn's death in 1983, Daly briefly co-anchored the 10:00 news with Mary Ann Childers. Daly then joined Oprah Winfrey to co-anchor WLS-TV's 4:00 pm news broadcast. Winfrey was replaced by Linda Yu after only weeks on the air. Daly remained there until May 2005, when he announced that he would step down as anchor to pursue other interests. Alan Krashesky became the new 4:00 pm anchor.[Robert Feder. "This just in: Joel Daly to leave Channel 7 on top". Chicago Sun-Times. March 9, 2005. 75.] After that, he occasionally appeared on newscasts to report on legal matters, and also hosted parades for the channel.[Ted Cox. "St. Patrick's parade gets big TV cover". Daily Herald. March 16, 2007. 39.] Daly was inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame in 2001[ and received the first Illinois Broadcast Pioneer Award in 2008.][Robert Feder. "Tracking". Chicago Sun-Times. April 9, 2008. 47.] He won five Emmys over the course of his career.[
]
Other work
In 1988, Joel Daly received a Juris Doctor from Chicago-Kent College of Law after four years of taking evening classes.[Bob Herguth. "Joel Daly". Chicago Sun-Times. June 6, 1988.] He became director of external relations at the John Marshall Law School in 2005, and also taught some classes there.[Robert Feder. "Joel Daly courts 'Chicago Justice'". Chicago Sun-Times. May 17, 2005.]
In 2007, Daly was named a spokesperson for the U.S. District Court in Chicago.[Emma Graves Fitzsimmons. "Ex-TV news anchor changes sides". Chicago Tribune. March 15, 2007. 7.]
One of Daly's other interests was acting. In 1994 he played Atticus Finch in a stage adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird,[Lon Grahnke. "Joel Daly states his case onstage". Chicago Sun-Times. February 20, 1994. Show, 2.] and in 2000 he starred as Patsy McCall in a production of William J. Kennedy's Grand View.[Mary Houlihan. "TV anchor stars in Pegasus play". Chicago Sun Times. April 14, 2000. Weekend, 16.] He played a news reporter in the 2006 film Death of a President, which portrays the fictional assassination of George W. Bush. Daly said he did not regret his involvement, saying, "It's a gutsy undertaking to do the fictional assassination of a living president who's still in office. It's something that's in the American psyche. So dealing with this in a fictional forum – albeit a realistic one – is perhaps a purgative," he told the Chicago Sun-Times.[Bill Zwecker. "Daly has no regrets over role in controversial movie". Chicago Sun-Times. September 15, 2006. 46.]
Daly also dabbled in music, especially country music and yodeling. He sang with a group called The Sundowners and occasionally wrote his own songs.[ His autobiography, The Daly News, was published by Eckhartz Press in 2014.]
Personal life
Daly met and married Suzon "Sue" Weiss in 1955.[
]
Daly died on October 22, 2020, at his home in La Grange, Illinois.[ He was 86 years old and had suffered from Parkinsonism in the time leading up to his death.][
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External links
