Longtime KNBC Consumer Reporter David Horowitz has died.

Horowitz was best known for his appearances on KNBC’s newscasts with his “Fight Back! With David Horowitz” segments that investigated defective products, advertised claims and confronted companies with customer complaints.

Horowitz became a writer for NBC’s “Huntley-Brinkley Report” and held several other positions with the network before joining KNBC in 1973 as its consumer reporter.

“I don’t consider myself a consumer advocate,” Horowitz told the Los Angeles Times in 1988. “If you’re on television you have to really be broadcasting in the public interest … but you also have to be objective.

Horowitz was on KNBC’s 4 p.m. newscast on Aug. 19, 1987, when a man with what appeared to be a gun took him hostage live on the air. Horowitz remained calm and read the gunman’s statements on camera, but the station had cut the broadcast without the gunman becoming aware of that fact. The gun turned out to be a toy BB gun. Horowitz then joined a drive to outlaw realistic toy guns in California.

He was 81 years old.

H/T LA Times