Breaking: Former sports broadcaster Nick Charles passes away

Nick Charles in his CNNSports days

((ht: cnn.com))

Really, this is a sad way to start a Saturday morning. Former Sports Anchor Nick Charles lost his battle with cancer late Friday night, he was 64 years old.

Most in the Sports Journalism world were very familiar with Charles and his excellent work. He was one of the original faces of CNN Sports, when CNN tried competing with ESPN. He was widely admired for his storytelling and his knowledge of boxing and truly as one of the nicest people in the Sports Journalism business.

Read more about the life and times of Nick Charles from CNN.com RIGHT HERE

Quite honestly, there isn't much we can say other than we are truly saddened by the loss of such a great person. We wish the Charles family and those who knew him nothing but the best and hope they will remember him for the wonderfully entertaining person that he was.

A look back at his career, thanks to our friends at CNN:




 

Your Nick Charles Update...

((HT: CNN))

This time, Dr. Sanjay Gupta catches up with one of the originals from CNN- Nick Charles- a role model for a lot of us on different levels. In 2009, he was diagnosed with bladder cancer.

This past January, he called off any future chemo and other treatments and he's spending his time as he should...

Here's the short version...

The March Through The Madness:More Libyan TV Jousting

((HT: Fox News Channel/Huffington Post))

Okay... FNC admitted a bit of a boo-boo when they said that journalists from CNN et al. were being used as human shields...

Here's the almost-apology...
((HT: "On The Record with Greta van Susteren))


But then Steve Harrigan shot back at Robertson's initial assertions in a HuffPo interview...

Harrigan also called Robertson "a hard worker," but added, "I think he's dull. I fall asleep when he gives a report." He noted that many journalists in Libya, such as the four captured New York Times reporters, the BBC reporters who were subjected to mock executions, and the Al Jazeera cameraman who was killed, had been "heroic" in their reporting—even more, he said, than he had been. But he said Robertson could not claim the same thing.

"Is that heroic what he’s doing?" he said. "He puts on his blue blazer and gets on the government bus, and then pats himself on the back and calls that news? Bullshit."

Ain't TV fun...???

The March Through The Madness: Libyan TV Jousting

((HT: CNN))

Okay, we admittedly don't show TV news a lot of the time here at the HQ...
Frankly, it's because it's brutal to watch and not what we grew up being a part of when it came to journalism...

But this kind of "Face And Heel" working of the stick is priceless...
CNN's Nic Robertson calls out FNC and Steve Harrigan for not doing their job in a war zone...


Here's the original thought by Fox News...

Damn funny...

Your Nick Charles Update

The HQ will admit that we watched as much "Nick and Fred" as much as we did the "Big Show" to keep up with things in the business...

Nick Charles and Fred Hickman took the 24-hour idea of Ted Turner's Cable News Network and ran with it... CNN "Sports Tonight" was the standard-bearer for the network with live shots from everything and everywhere.

They would regularly run full-length feature stories in their hour before it was cool to fill time to do it. Charles' beat was boxing and horse racing and Fred's was hoops.

When CNN decided that CNNSI was a failure and that they really didn't want to compete with everyone else anymore, the show faded away.

Hickman spent some time in Bristol himself, and is now at FSN South in Atlanta.
Charles has done boxing for Showtime...

But the big reveal is that the man with the pluperfect hair is in the fight for his life. Charles has Stage 4 bladder cancer that has spread, and he's calling it a career at the end of the month.

The AJC's Steve Hummer gives us the update...

Here's some video from the Nick and Fred days at CNN...
((HT: FreshWesss))


Charles has another round of chemo scheduled, according to Hummer, in May at MD Anderson in Houston, and the HQ sends its thoughts and prayers to one of the coolest cats around...