Tom Jarriel, a legendary national TV journalist, died on Thursday, according to The New York Times and ABC News. The longtime 20/20 contributor died from stroke complications. He was 89.
Jarriel, who won 19 News and Documentary Emmy Awards, died while in the care of an undisclosed nursing home in Annapolis, Maryland. The journalist suffered a stroke sometime in 2023; his son Steve confirmed that complications from that medical incident caused his death.
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The ABC News correspondent was a fixture of the network’s broadcasts from the ’60s to the 2000s. Often seen on 20/20, the broadcast news legend covered numerous high-profile stories, including the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal, the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, sexual assault in the military, elder abuse in nursing homes and the infamous murder of civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo carried out by Ku Klux Klansmen.
Jarriel is survived by his wife Joan, three sons (Steve, Michael and Jeffrey), seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
