Longtime Chicago Anchor is Dead
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The news was a shocker at WMAQ in Chicago.
“I am stunned to tell you all that Dick Johnson passed away this morning,” Frank Whittaker, the station manager and vice president of news, told the WMAQ staff on Tuesday. “Dick was being treated at a hospital in northern Michigan the last several days for complications related to a respiratory condition. Because of that condition, Dick had gone to northern Michigan in early March after the advent of COVID-19.
“He loved working here and he exuded that,” Whittaker told the Chicago Sun-Times. “He couldn’t wait to get back and cover the big story.”
Johnson was one of the good guys in this business that could certainly use more of those kinds of people.
“Our newsroom is heartbroken,” NBC 5 political reporter Mary Ann Ahern tweeted. “Dick Johnson loved it all — curious, fantastic storyteller and a kind colleague. There are tears for his loss, knowing Dick was the real deal; mentor to so many, a news soldier.”
On March 19, Johnson posted to Facebook about being off the air and in northern Michigan, a region he loved:
“My apologies for disappearing from NBC Chicago so suddenly. Like so many, I had no other choice. The Coronavirus, my age and a respiratory issue prompted my doctors to send me packing. So here we are, settled in ‘up north’ and riding this out as safely as possible.”
Asked whether the coronavirus was a factor in his death, Whittaker said, “I don’t believe that was the issue here. He had this lung issue. He had an infection at the end.”
Our best wishes to his family, friends, and those at WMAQ.
