Obituaries
-- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/20/2000
Robert Trout, a broadcast pioneer best-known for his work on CBS, died at 91 last week. His voice had been heard on the air for nearly seven decades. Although he retired as a full-time reporter in 1996, he was a commentator on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. NPR called Trout "the last link to the origin of broadcast news."
Trout's career, which includes stints with ABC and NBC, began in 1931 as a news announcer for a local station in Virginia. The following year, CBS, which was to become Trout's longtime home in both radio and TV, bought the station and retained him.
Trout covered virtually every major event of our time, and is credited with coining the term "fireside chat" for FDR's warm radio addresses to the nation. In 1938, he introduced CBS' half-hour World News Roundup two days after the German army marched into Austria. He spent part of WWII in London working with Edward R. Murrow and presenting a program called Trans-Atlantic Call, which featured conversations with low-profile citizens coping with bombardment and privation.
Back in the U.S., he informed CBS listeners about the D-Day invasion of Normandy, staying on the air more than seven hours straight.
He won a Peabody Award for "distinguished and meritorious public service" in 1980.
He wife predeceased him.
Fred W. Albertson, one of the founders of the Washington law firm Dow, Lohnes & Albertson, died on Nov. 13 in Key Biscayne, Fla. He was 92.
He and Horace Lohnes steered the firm toward radio broadcasting, and he represented FM radio pioneer Edwin Armstrong, as well as Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. He would later go on to represent companies with interests in both television and radio.
Mr. Albertson was also a longtime director of the Legal Aid Society of Washington. In the mid '70s, he retired from law and moved to Key Biscayne.
He is survived by a son and daughter, two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. His wife, Catherine, died in 1998.
