George Henry Watson Jr.

George Watson, age 86 died peacefully June 1, 2023 at home. He is survived by his devoted wife, Ellen Bradley Watson. A beloved son, George Henry Watson III, and precious daughter, Ellen Havican Watson both preceded him in death.

Watson had served as ABC News Washington bureau chief and vice president, on two separate assignments, for a total of twelve years.

His first job in Washington had been in 1960, as a reporter for The Washington Post.

He began his career in broadcasting in 1962, as a radio writer at ABC News for Edward P. Morgan. In 1965 he was named a television correspondent. Shortly thereafter, he was assigned to Moscow as correspondent and bureau chief, a post he held for three years.

In 1969, Watson was assigned to London as the network’s bureau chief. From his base in London, he covered conflicts and major events in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East for the next seven years.

During the war in Southeast Asia, Watson covered some of the heaviest fighting in Vietnam and Cambodia.

He also reported extensively on the conflict in Northern Ireland. His reporting for the ABC News documentary “Terror in Northern Ireland” won the Overseas Press Club Award for best foreign affairs documentary in 1971.

Watson served as president of the Association of American Correspondents in London.

After ten years overseas, Watson was names White House correspondent in 1975. In 1976, he became an executive of ABC News and was assigned as vice president and Washington bureau chief. He served in that post for the next four years during a period of rapid growth of the network.

In 1980, Watson left ABC News for CNN before the cable network was launched. As vice president and managing editor, he played a major role in its creation and early development, establishing the CNN Washington Bureau. Among those he hired were Bernard Shaw, Wendy Walker, Kandy Stroud, and Katie Couric.

Disagreement over its programming decisions, however, led to his resignation from CNN and return to ABC News in 1981.

For the next four years, as vice president of ABC News in New York, Watson was the first network executive responsible for overseeing the policies, standards and practices that apply to news programs. In that capacity, he wrote the network’s first manual of rules and guidelines for television reporting and producing.

Watson also created and produced “Viewpoint” in 1981, a program to provide a forum for critics of ABC News and broadcast journalism. The program won every major award in television, including an Emmy, the George Foster Peabody Award, and the DuPont-Columbia Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism.

In 1985, Watson returned to Washington for his second tour as vice president and bureau chief, a post he held for eight more years.

Shortly after formally retiring from the network in 1993, Watson returned again to broadcasting and became ABC’s senior contributing editor. His most frequent contributions were biweekly commentaries for “World News Now”, the overnight program “where more insomniacs get their news.” Watson believed waking up the audience at that hour, required offbeat writing, with as much wit as possible. He continued in that role for eight years, contributing about 800 commentaries, until his retirement from ABC News in 2001.

Watson also contributed those years to “Nightline”. His program “Beating Depression”, which included an interview by host Ted Koppel, broke audience records for its time period. Another highly rated piece on “Nightline” was “Lollapalooza”, an exploration of the Woodstock of its day.

During his long career, Watson served for a decade as a director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. He was a member of the National Press club for 62 years (1961-2023) and also belonged to the Cosmos Club.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Watson received his early education in Alabama public schools, and while serving as a page in the House of Representatives, at the Capitol Page School.

He graduated with honors in American History and Literature from Harvard College, were he had been the managing editor of The Harvard Crimson. He received a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, as had his father forty years earlier. Watson served with the U.S. Army Reserve, and worked as a reporter for the Talladega News, The Detroit News, and the Munroe News Bureau.

Watson was married in 1979 to the former Ellen Havican Bradley of New York, who had also worked for ABC News.

Services will be private.