R.I.P.: Radio/TV Reporter Lew Wood

Lew Wood

Lew Wood, a former correspondent for CBS News who covered President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and later held the news anchor’s chair on the “Today” show, died on Wednesday at a hospice in Riverside County in California.

He was 84, according to the NYTimes.

The cause was kidney failure, his daughter Brigitte Wood said.

NBC hired Mr. Wood to succeed the longtime anchor of “Today,” Frank Blair, in 1975.

Wood, who earned a degree in speech and broadcasting from Purdue, began his career at WDZ-AM in Decatur, Ill., in 1952. A year later, he joined WSBT radio and TV in South Bend, Ind.

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