LOCAL : Bill Stout, Veteran CBS Commentator, Dies at 62

Bill Stout, whose gravelly voice and acerbic manner proved both an endearing and enduring aspect of television news and commentary through nearly four decades, died early today.

The former anchor on KCBS-TV, the CBS-owned outlet in Los Angeles, who was most recently known for his trenchant commentaries on the station, was 62.

He died at 9:30 a.m. at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of cardiac arrest. He had been admitted there Thursday night complaining of flu-like symptoms, said hospital spokesman Ron Wise.

Stout, who was CBS News’ West Coast correspondent for nine years in the 1960s and early ‘70s and who had won several Emmys and numerous other awards, suffered a heart attack two years ago. It forced him off the air for several months.

Stout spent 39 years with CBS, nearly all of them at the network’s Los Angeles affiliate.

KCBS news director Michael Singer called Stout “irreplaceable.”

“He represented the best that journalism has to offer,” Singer said. “He was a professional through and through and a keeper of that little flame that lights up the dark for all of us.”