|
From wdbo.com
WDBO-AM 580 veteran reporter Keith Altiero died Sunday, December 19,
2004 after a two-year fight with cancer. Our hearts are heavy with sadness.
Keith was a natural. His brilliance was not taught in journalism school, but
rather gleaned from a life of experience as a writer, race car driver and pilot.
That is what made him a great reporter and story teller. Hired by WDBO in 1999,
he jumped head first right into presidential politics. In August, he broke the
controversial story of Republicans working out of the elections office in
Seminole County. It created quite a stir and he was subpoenaed to testify. Keith
was squarely in the middle of the Bush/Gore controversy. And that's the way
Keith liked it. Square in the middle of things. Keith hated to take a routine
assignment. In fact, if there was a seemingly "routine" story, Keith
would make it extraordinary. He developed his own material and used his own
experience and expertise to frame the story. Being a former race car driver,
Keith covered the death of Dale Earnhardt from an "insiders"
prospective and made us cry. He chilled us with his story of the Oklahoma
bombing survivor who wanted to watch the Execution of her tormentor. He made us
laugh when he rode the Kindergarten bus on the first day of school and had a
first time Kindergartner tell his Mom he was OK over the air. Keith defined
award winning. In 2001 alone he won the lions share of the Newsroom awards -
five from the Florida Associated Press and a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for
his political reporting. There were many more awards in the years that followed.
Keith had heart. He fought his cancer with chemotherapy, surgery and work.
During and in between the sessions, as soon as he could, he'd be back in the
newsroom ready to go. Developing story lines, spouting ideas and formulating his
plan for the next day's Central Florida's Morning News. He did that until he
could do it no more.
|
Born
in New York and raised in the coal-mining town of Shenandoah, Pa., Keith wanted
to be the best at whatever he did. At age 12 he fought Hodgkin's disease and was
part of a pioneering study to find a cure. Keith,
like so many others in the broadcast field, was "bitten by the bug" at
an early age. He worked at a station in Pennsylvania as well as other markets
including North Carolina before joining