[Infowarrior] - Longtime NBC newsman Irving R. Levine dies at 86

[Richard Forno]

Longtime NBC newsman Irving R. Levine dies at 86

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h-fQ-HruUlzJZ0n-m0Y6cTnc4F_wD976HDJO0

BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) — Irving R. Levine, the professorial NBC newsman  
who explained the fine points of economics to millions of viewers for  
nearly a quarter century, has died. He was 86.

Levine died Thursday, announced Kevin M. Ross, president of Lynn  
University in Boca Raton. Levine taught at the school after leaving  
NBC. Further details of his death were not immediately available.

Known for his dry, measured delivery and trademark bow ties, Levine  
was a presence at NBC since 1950 when he began covering the Korean War  
until his retirement in 1995.

He had become the network's full-time economics correspondent in 1971  
and in the last five years of his tenure also did weekly commentaries  
on CNBC. He also appeared on "Meet the Press" more than 100 times over  
the years.

After retiring from NBC, Levine joined Lynn University as dean of the  
college of international communication.

Born in Pawtucket, R.I., Levine began his career in 1940, writing  
obituaries for The Providence Journal. He also worked as a  
correspondent for the International News Service and The Times of  
London.

After joining NBC, he covered assignments from Korea, Moscow and  
Vietnam to Algeria, Poland and South Africa.

As NBC correspondent in the Soviet Union, he did a half-hour program  
in 1955 giving a tourist's eye view of Moscow, showing Cold War-era  
Americans that the Communist capital had "an amusement park not unlike  
Coney Island (and) another park in which old men played chess and  
mothers relaxed with their children," The New York Times reported. He  
explored similar themes in his 1959 book, "Main Street, U.S.S.R."

In 1965, while in Rome, he interviewed the great film director  
Federico Fellini.

In a 1995 New York Times interview, he recalled that he had hoped to  
cover the State Department after winding up his foreign correspondent  
days. But NBC bosses asked him early in 1971 to cover business news  
instead.

"It was a barren time," Levine said. "Producers just weren't  
interested in those stories." By the time he retired, though, business  
news on television was a booming field — though he noted in 1995 that  
something like the Oklahoma city bombing or the O.J. Simpson trial  
could still push it aside.

At a welcoming ceremony at the Boca Raton school later that year,  
Levine said he didn't miss the daily grind but still read three or  
four newspapers every day, quipping, "Once a news junkie, always a  
news junkie." He retired from the school in 2004 but continued to be a  
prominent fixture on campus, a statement from the university said.

He is survived by his wife, Nancy, and their three children, Jeffrey,  
Daniel and Jennifer.

In a humorous 2001 essay in The New York Times, Levine welcomed the  
return of the middle initial as epitomized by then-new President  
George W. Bush.

He recalled that producers trying to shorten a television news story  
of his "finally suggested I drop the R in my sign-off, Irving R.  
Levine. I held my ground."

"`No,' I said, 'I'd rather drop the B in NBC.'"

Associated Press writer Polly Anderson in New York contributed to this  
report.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.