RIP: Longtime Big Easy Anchor Dead

​Alec Gifford, a born newsman who had been on the local TV-news beat 51 years when he retired from WDSU in December 2006, with a career spanning Hurricanes Betsy and Katrina, and covering countless colorful newsmakers and political scoundrels, has died, WDSU reported late Friday night. He was 85.

“He was an incredible journalist, and a wonderful teacher,” said WDSU anchorNorman Robinson, whom Mr. Gifford, then WVUE’s news director, brought to New Orleans from Mobile, Ala., in 1975. “It was about writing. It was about being aggressive. It was about going to the source of the story, and not being timid about asking questions. That’s what I learned from him.”

More from The Time Picayune