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José Griñán, the longtime Houston news anchor for Fox 26, has died. He was 72.
The Houston affiliate, where Griñán worked for 30 years, announced his death in a news report Monday. No cause of death was revealed.
“Beloved former FOX 26 Houston anchor José Griñán has died,” Fox 26 wrote Monday on social media. “Though José may no longer be with us, his legacy will continue to shine brightly in the stories he told, the lives he touched, and the city he loved.”
In 1993, when Griñán began working with the station, he became the first male anchor of the channel’s morning show. He anchored his final broadcast for Fox 26 in June 2023.
KABC anchor Ellen Leyva reflected on her tenure, recalling ‘my biggest fear was I would not make it and I wouldn’t be good enough to stay on the air.’
The news anchor took an extended break from the station in 2022 after getting diagnosed with polymyalgia rheumatica — an inflammatory condition mostly affecting people over 65 that causes stiffness and pain in the joints and muscles, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Reflecting on his time at Fox 26 at the end of his broadcast career, Griñán told Houston’s Chron.com in 2023 that he deeply valued how his job helped him help others.
“Working at the station has allowed me to, in a sense, provide life saving information for someone who was searching, and comfort someone who may have thought that the world was coming to an end, but letting them know that things are under control,” he said.
Aaron Brown, a veteran TV news anchor whose steady hand helped guide CNN viewers through the unfolding tragedy of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, has died.
Griñán was born on July 24, 1952, in Tampa, Fla., to a Cuban father and a first-generation Cuban American mother. Before appearing on-screen as an anchor, he worked as a cinematographer and documentary filmmaker for the U.S. Army.
His first anchor role came in 1975 at a news station in El Paso, Texas. From there, Griñán held jobs in his hometown of Tampa, Miami, New York City and Dallas before landing in Houston in 1993.
He held decades-long memberships to both the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Griñán is survived by his wife, Kathy Griffin Townsend Griñán, his two daughters and three stepdaughters.
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