Next month will bring a Little Rock reunion for four longtime Arkansas broadcast journalists when Jim Pitcock, Lew Short, Carolyn Long and Larry Foley are honored by the Mid-America Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
Pitcock, who started as an intern and studio cameraman 60 years ago in Fort Smith and wound up as news director at KATV, Channel 7, will be inducted into the association’s Gold Circle at a dinner and awards ceremony July 22 at the Clinton Presidential Center.
Short, Pitcock’s old crosstown rival as chief photographer at KARK, Channel 4, will be on hand to join the Silver Circle with Long, a former KARK and KATV anchor, and Larry Foley, a former KATV bureau chief and chair of the Lemke Department of Journalism at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.
Long, whose blond good looks were matched by a nose for news, rose through a broadcasting career that began in reporting in 1978 at KARK and continued through anchor jobs at the Little Rock NBC affiliate and in special projects at its crosstown rival, KATV, before she left the state capital in the 1990s.
Short was her colleague for a time at KARK, where he became chief photographer in 1975 and held the position for 30 years. His photography career was cut short by a hit he took on the sidelines of a football game, but remains at Channel 4 as a morning editor.
After his reporting days and a stint as host of “Good Morning Arkansas” on KATV, Foley joined Arkansas Educational Television Network in 1984 and rose to become deputy director. After joining UA as a professor, he founded the campus television station UATV.