Joseph Benti Biography
Joseph Benti is a former CBS News television news correspondent who also served as anchor of the CBS Morning News from 1966 to 1970. Benti began his career as a newscaster and straight man on WTHI-TV-10’s “The Jerry Van Dyke Show” in Terre Haute, Indiana, alongside the actor.
Joseph Benti Age
He was born in 1932, in the United States of America.
Joseph Benti Education
Benti studied at Indiana State University. He received a Master’s degree in journalism from the University of Iowa in 1962.
Joseph Benti Married- Wife
In 1955, he married his first wife, Rosalie Ammerman of Dana, Indiana. They divorced in 1974 after having three children. In the late 1970s, Benti lived with TV anchor Christine Lund for several years. In 1980, he married Patty Ecker, and the couple had twins in 1982.
Joseph Benti Career
Benti began his career as a newscaster and straight man on WTHI-TV-10’s “The Jerry Van Dyke Show” in Terre Haute, Indiana, alongside the actor. Benti also spent time worki
Benti then relocated to Los Angeles in 1963, where he first worked for KTLA. He was then hired as a CBS News correspondent before being chosen to replace Mike Wallace as CBS Morning News anchor in 1966. By 1969, the newscast had grown to become the first hour-long broadcast on television. Benti spent the majority of his career in Los Angeles, where he later worked as a local anchor for KABC-TV and KNXT before retiring from journalism. Benti, with CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite and CBS correspondent Mike Wallace.
On December 15, 1966, Benti and Martin Agronsky co-hosted the CBS interview show Face the Nation, where they interviewed Eugene Carson Blake, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches and a close associate of Martin Luther King Jr. Benti was at a nearby bar before preparing for his duties as CBS Morning News anchor when Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968. Benti was the first to announce the shooting on CBS and was the lead anchor during the network’s coverage of the assassination in the early hours. On September 5, 1975, Benti interviewed President Gerald Ford in Sacramento, just hours after Manson family member Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme attempted to assassinate him.
Benti eventually left CBS and worked for KABC-TV in Los Angeles and KNXT (now KCBS-TV) in Los Angeles before leaving the latter station in April 1979. Benti’s KABC-TV co-anchors included John Schubeck, and his KNXT co-anchors included Sandy Hill and Connie Chung. Benti was a close friend of science fiction author Ray Bradbury, and he produced Ray Bradbury: Writer, Storyteller, Dreamer, a documentary about him. He also contributed a television column to the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. Benti dabbled in acting as well, usually as a newscaster in films like Perfect Gentlemen, St. Helens, and Winchell.
Joseph Benti Awards
Benti was inducted into the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences School of Journalism and Mass Communications Hall of Fame at the University of Iowa in 1968. Benti also won two Emmys at KNXT for a series he wrote and reported on about the Panama Canal.
Joseph Benti Net Worth
He has an estimated net worth of 500 thousand dollars.