He came up in the age of Watergate, the 1970s political scandal that drove Richard Nixon from the White House \u2014 and drove so many young people to careers in journalism.<\/p>\n
Bill Griffith chronicled the lofty highs and desperate lows across San Diego County, working as a reporter, sports director, talk-show host and weekend anchor. He was a television-news everyman who gained the trust of viewers and told their stories for decades.<\/p>\n
Griffith \u2014 who won practically every accolade bestowed in an unpredictable industry, and who closed most every broadcast he helmed with the hopeful admonition \u201cBe good to one another\u201d \u2014 died on Friday after an unexpected medical issue. He was 77.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrowing up in the \u201970s and \u201980s here in San Diego, Bill Griffith was a huge part of our lives,\u201d longtime local radio producer Tommy Sablan posted on social media over the weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cHave you ever met someone on the radio or TV that feels like family because of the many years they were in your living room?\u201d Sablan wrote. \u201cThat was Bill Griffith!\u201d<\/p>\n
Griffith spent almost four decades covering local news for the ABC News affiliate in San Diego.<\/p>\n
He arrived at KGTV in 1976 and covered some of the most important stories in the region, including the deadly PSA airliner crash of the 1970s, the McDonald\u2019s restaurant massacre in the 1980s, the Heaven\u2019s Gate mass suicide in the 1990s and the horrific wildfires of the 2000s.<\/p>\n
William \u201cBill\u201d Kenneth Griffiths \u2014 he dropped the S in his surname for his professional life \u2014 was born in South Carolina in 1949. He served in the Army before launching his broadcast journalism career and moving to San Diego.<\/p>\n
Over the next nearly four decades, Griffith collected a host of journalism prizes, including multiple Emmys and Golden Mike awards \u2014 as well as the Drew Silvern Award bestowed by the San Diego Press Club in 2004 for a series on his own battle with male breast cancer.<\/p>\n
The series of intimate dispatches was widely credited for its courage and also for raising awareness of\u00a0the disease, which strikes men far less often than women. A devout Christian, Griffith spoke regularly at churches and other venues about his fight against cancer.<\/p>\n
Griffith retired in 2015, capping a 39-year career at KGTV that saw him performing many duties. In addition to directing sports coverage and serving as morning, mid-day and weekend anchor, he was a consumer reporter, hosted a magazine-style show and acted as a longtime community advocate.<\/p>\n
After he retired, Griffith relocated to Yuma, Ariz., where he was most recently living.<\/p>\n
The news of his death hit his former colleagues hard.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are deeply saddened by the loss of Bill Griffith, whose nearly four decades at KGTV made him a trusted voice in countless homes,\u201d said Sarah Cowan, senior director of news at the ABC affiliate.<\/p>\n
\u201cBill was the embodiment of great journalism: thorough, passionate and deeply human,\u201d she said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t just report stories; he lived them, sharing personal experiences that helped viewers truly understand what was happening in San Diego.\u201d<\/p>\n
Assistant news director James Gorcos said Griffith cared deeply about his adopted hometown and his colleagues.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe believed journalism mattered and held us all to a high standard,\u201d Gorcos said. \u201cEvery Friday, Bill brought donuts for the newsroom and made sure everyone had one. Then he\u2019d make sure you had your facts straight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Griffith is survived by two sons \u2014 Adam Griffiths and his wife, Sara, and James Griffiths and his wife, Rachel. He is also survived by a brother, Jim Griffiths; a sister, Debbie Griffiths; his former wife, Jenny Griffiths; and four grandchildren.<\/p>\n
No information about memorial services of donations in Griffith\u2019s name were immediately available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He came up in the age of Watergate, the 1970s political scandal that drove Richard Nixon from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[23,100,8567,74,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-405889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-news-obituaries","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}