Former Newser turned TV journalist Dick Oliver dies age 77
Apr 20, 2018He was 77. The Queens native was an old school presence in the Daily News newsroom of yore, inimitably directing news coverage from the paper’s former E. 42nd St. headquarters. He died after suffering a severe stroke, according to his wife. The Emmy-winning Oliver was also the first TV reporter on the air after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, reporting from the steps of City Hall just a few blocks away.Newser and Pulitzer photog Edmund Peters dead at 88 “Dick Oliver was both the toughest and liveliest of cigar-chomping city editors from the era of clacking typewriters,” recalled current News Editor-in-Chief Arthur Browne. “His mantra was to write ‘Hey, Martha,’ stories, imagining that a husband would call his wife and ask ‘Did you see this?’ on reading a Daily News story.” Oliver earned the Polk Award in 1970 for metropolitan reporting, and he edited a series on Medicaid fraud that won News reporter William Sherman the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for local investigative reporting. “He was the best boss,” Sherman said Saturday. “He just had this unique vision of the news and how to cover it, how to assign people and how news should be written.Former Newser Hughes Forrest Barber dies at age 90 “Yes, he smoked cigars. But he was a very bright, well-read guy. He was my mentor, no question.” Oliver served as a News copyboy in 1961 before moving on to work for United Press International. He returned to the paper as a reporter in 1969, moving up to serve as assistant city editor, city editor, metro editor and assistant managing editor. “Dick was an irrepressible, dogged, take-no-prisoners newspaperman when the Daily News city room evoked a real-life version of ‘The Front Page’ of American journalism,” said former News city editor Sam Roberts, currently of The New York Times. Oliver hosted a Daily News radio program dubbed “Bulldog Edition” from 1979-1995, and became a regular presence on the new local Fox morning show “Good Day New York” in 1988.Mourners remember Michael Feeney, 32, as passionate, kind Oliver, who retired in 2002, enjoyed golf, reading h... (New York Daily News)
