Barney Morris, 66; News Anchor at Stations in L.A.

Barney Morris, a news anchor and reporter at television stations KTLA and KABC in Los Angeles for most of three decades, died Friday. He was 66.

Morris died of heart failure at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville. He had been in failing health for some time, said his son, Bob Morris.

Born in New York City, Barney Morris spent most of his youth in Chicago. He attended the University of Notre Dame before deciding on a career in broadcasting.

His first job was in radio at a station in Monroe, Mich. From there he went on to a number of other radio jobs in the Midwest before getting his first television job at WXYZ in Detroit. While there, Morris anchored and reported on the city’s riots in 1968.

Morris first came to Los Angeles in 1970 for a news anchor job at KTLA-TV Channel 5. The following year, he anchored KTLA’s coverage of the Sylmar earthquake.

“He was one of the true treasures in Los Angeles broadcasting,” said Jeff Wald, news director at KTLA, who worked with Morris at the station in the early 1970s. “He was very well-liked and was fair in his treatment of the people he covered.”

Morris moved on to KABC-TV Channel 7 in 1972, co-anchoring its “Eyewitness News” for three years.

He left Los Angeles for a news-anchoring job at the CBS affiliate in Philadelphia in 1975, but moved to San Diego’s KFMB a year later.

Morris came back to Los Angeles and KABC in 1980, working mainly as a reporter running the station’s Orange County bureau. He was there until his retirement in 1995.

Survivors include his wife, Carol; eight children; and 17 grandchildren.