David Garcia

Background

Garcia was born in Temple, Texas and briefly attended Baylor University in the 1960s, but said they had little or nothing to teach him, so he left.

Career

Foreign other people sharing this name, see David García (disambiguation). Garcia had the distinction of becoming one of the first Hispanic news correspondents for a major American television network in the 1970s. He began his career at a local radio station and was soon hired by WFAA radio in Dallas, Texas.

He possessed an unusually deep voice with a rounded, warm sound that marked his on-air delivery with authority.

The 1960s were a period when the older style of stern sounding newscasters on radio and television was giving way to a more informal, friendly style. Garcia"s voice and delivery neatly bridged the changing era.

During his time with WFAA radio, Garcia was selected to anchor the Saturday evening newscasts on WFAA-television, a job he was carrying out, along with radio reporting, at the time he was hired by American Broadcasting Company radio in New York in 1969. While working for American Broadcasting Company News, Garcia served as a secondary reporter at the White House during the Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter administrations.

He later was named chief of American Broadcasting Company"s Latin America bureau, where he covered the assassination of Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza Garcia, among other stories.

While working in Latin America, Garcia became interested in environmental reporting after visiting rain forests in the region. He later moved to Los Angeles, California where his career included stints at KNXT (now KCBS-television), National Broadcasting Company, LA, California and KTTV. His duties at KNXT included anchoring general reporting and hosting a public affairs program titled At Issue/With David Garcia. In 2002 he began hosting a newsmagazine show titled Eye on Riverside County at KPSP-LP. Garcia died in Palm Springs, California of complications from a liver ailment at the age of 63.

Achievements

• He covered the environmental beat from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s at National Broadcasting Company, LA, California and from 1993 to 2001 at KTTV, where he served as the station"s environmental reporter earning the nickname "Earthman." As Earthman, Garcia achieved such visibility throughout the Los Angeles area that children would send him letters addressed "Earthman, Los Angeles" and the postal service would deliver them to Garcia at his station.