Donn Reed, 88; Radio Reporter Relished Drama of News

Donn Reed, an early Los Angeles radio reporter who specialized in dramatic on-the-scene accounts of stakeouts, fires and gang warfare, died Monday, according to Richard Lefevre, a longtime family friend. Reed was 88.

The retired journalist, who was also credited as the first radio reporter to board a helicopter to report on L.A. traffic from the air, died of cancer at his home in Tarzana, Lefevre said.

Reed was a familiar figure in Los Angeles in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s as a reporter first for KABC-AM and later for KMPC-AM radio. During the course of his career, he won several Golden Mikes and other awards.

Los Angeles Times columnist Don Page once wrote of Reed, “What he really relishes is investigative reporting, and he does it with the dash and flair of a fiction writer’s cop.”

On another occasion, Page described one of Reed’s most dramatic news reports -- of a stakeout and narcotics arrest:

“After setting the scene, he let the suspect’s footsteps fill the airwaves almost interminably -- until the officer’s voice cracked, ‘Freeze!’ It was like a bolt of lightning coming through your speaker.”

Reed once said that such sound “is 50% of radio.”

“A fire in an old warehouse can be more meaningful if you let the audience hear the sirens approaching [and] the sounds of equipment setting up,” he said.

Don Barrett, author of “Los Angeles Radio People,” wrote of Reed, “No broadcaster around Southern California radio in the ‘60s or ‘70s can forget the word pictures Donn created as he covered Los Angeles wearing a trench coat, mike cord down his sleeve and microphone hidden in his flashlight.”

But Reed also covered many other kinds of news. In later years, he would regale friends with one tale that radio audiences never knew about: the circumstances of his interview with then-Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts during the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles.

Reed went to Kennedy’s hotel room for the interview, but it was so noisy there that the two men adjourned to the small toilet that adjoined. Kennedy dropped the toilet lid and sat down, Reed would recount.

“So Donn conducted the interview with the future president sitting on the you-know-what,” Lefevre said. “That really taxed his professionalism, but he did it in his normal deadpan style.”

A Los Angeles native, Reed began his career in radio covering dance bands. After World War II, during which he served as a navigator on a B-17 in North Africa for the U.S. Army Air Forces, he produced “Nightwatch” for CBS, gathering material while out with police and then re-creating the gun battles, vehicle pursuits and arrests he had witnessed.

In the late 1950s, Reed and his business partner, Max Schumacher, a pilot during the Korean War, launched AirWatch, contracting with KABC to run airborne traffic reports every 15 minutes during the evening rush hour.

Every evening after landing, Reed would report the news until midnight, signing off as “Donn Reed, nightside.”

A helicopter accident in 1958 in which Reed and Schumacher were badly injured ended Reed’s traffic reporting days. Schumacher died in a midair collision near Dodger Stadium in 1966.

After retiring in 1986, Reed taught broadcast journalism at Santa Monica College. He had a wide circle of friends, with whom he was generous.

“He loved Christmas especially, and he knew how to keep it well,” Lefevre said, paraphrasing Dickens.

Reed, who was widowed twice, has no survivors.

A funeral Mass will be said at 11 a.m. today at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church in Encino.