Tom Watson, longtime AP broadcast editor, has died

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Tom Watson, a hall of fame broadcast reporter whose long career of covering breaking news included decades as a broadcast editor for The Associated Press in Kentucky, has died. He was 85.

Watson’s baritone voice and sharp wit were fixtures in the AP’s Louisville bureau, where he wrote broadcast reports and cultivated strong connections with reporters at radio and TV stations spanning the state. His coverage ranged from compiling weather-related school closings to filing urgent reports on big, breaking stories in his home state, maintaining a calm demeanor regardless of the story. Watson died Saturday at Baptist Health in Louisville, according to Hall-Taylor Funeral Home in his hometown of Taylorsville, 34 miles southeast of Louisville.

No cause of death was given. Watson was the “consummate radio newsman of his era,” said retired AP Kentucky bureau chief Ed Staats, who worked with Watson for years. “His news writing for the state broadcast wire, I think, undoubtedly reached more Kentuckians than any other” news organization in the Bluegrass State, Staats said by phone on Tuesday.

“When he wrote a news summary in Kentucky, with the AP serving every significant radio station with a commitment to news, they would hear AP stories fashioned by Tom.” Thomas Shelby Watson was inducted into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame in 2009. His 50-year journalism career began at WBKY at the University of Kentucky, according to his hall of fame biography.