Longtime journalist was driven by curiosity, respectful storytelling
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Stuart Brown dedicated half of his life to providing Pittsburgh with truthful, well-told stories.
Working in radio, newspapers and for the last 30 years of his career as a street reporter at WPXI-TV, he covered everything from steelworkers’ strikes to KKK protests to the partial meltdown of Three Mile Island in 1979. He interviewed everyone from Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton to Martin Luther King Jr. to baseball legend Mickey Mantle.
“Pittsburgh was lucky to have him,” said Rick Minutello, director of news operations at WPXI. “It was a big responsibility to make sure that Pittsburghers knew the truth.”
“If we said, ‘Well, this we know,’ his thing would be, ‘Well, we don’t really know that, we need one more sound bite, we need one more interview,’” Mr. Minutello recalled this week. “He’d find the small story in the big event and find the big story in the small event.”
Mr. Brown, 86, died of dementia Sunday at Presbyterian Senior Care in Washington, Pa.
Born and reared in Philadelphia, Mr. Brown received a bachelor’s degree with honors in English from the University of Pennsylvania in 1953.
After working for KYW Radio in Philadelphia, he moved to Pittsburgh. He worked in radio and television at KDKA from 1968 to 1974, and freelanced at WQED before writing about local and state politics for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from 1976 to 1980. Mr. Brown then became a reporter at WPXI-TV.
“He always wanted to know ‘why,’ and he really believed that the public had the right to know,” Mr. Minutello said. The two worked closely together when Mr. Minutellostarted as a photographer at WPXI in 1983, until Mr.Brown retired in 2010.
Mr. Brown had a keen sense of curiosity, nurtured in his youth during four summers he spent with the Merchant Marines. “He said when he was little he was fascinated with transportation and trains, he would just hop on a train and leave, and find his way back. He just knew how to navigate,” said Georgiann Roman, a photographer at WPXI, reflecting on his extensive knowledge on the map system, and how they never got lost on assignments.
Ms. Roman worked with Mr. Brown every weekend from 2006 until his retirement. She became his caretaker in 2013, along with fellow WPXI photographer Terri Flippin. Both considered him extended family.
As a journalist, Mr. Brown was inspired by the work of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. “His voice was so wonderful for me to hear. It reassured a lot of people in the strength of America,” he told Ms. Roman in a conversation. “Between him and Edward R. Murrow, they had these magnificent voices, and we can never return to those days.”
He was a natural mentor, witha wealth of knowledge on history, politics, literature and baseball. “I learned a lot from him,” Ms. Flippin said. “Hewas very intelligent, probablytoo intelligent for his own good,” she said, laughing. She worked with Mr. Brown from 1998until his retirement.
“The new reporters coming in, they really looked up to him,” Mr. Minutello said. He “was like a leader in the locker room.”
While often private about his personal life, those who knew Mr. Brown considered him a firecracker with a sly sense of humor. He would belt out show tunes, Jim Croce and Pete Seeger on the way to assignments. He always carried a copy of one of his favorite books, J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye,” and a legal pad, with pens in his pocket. For lunch, he brought the same thing every day: a half of a banana, a small apple, a peanut butter sandwich, a water bottle and Pennysticks pretzels. He was proud of his two sons, and talked regularly about his travels with them to London and Hawaii.
Mr. Brown was most proud of the publication of his 1976 book, “A Man Named Tony: The True Story of the Yablonski Murders,” on the 1969 Greene County murders and the United Mine Workers.
Upon his retirement, Mr. Brown traded in the suit jacket and light blue buttondown shirt for a New York Yankees baseball cap, in support of his favorite team. In 2013, he moved to Presbyterian Senior Care in Washington, Pa., where he continued to read The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Observer-Reporter front toback, nearly every day.
“It wasn’t just a job for him, it was his career, it was his life,” Ms. Roman said about Mr. Brown’s reporting days. “Stuart would want anyone coming into journalism or finishing a career in journalism to always be fair, to always tell the truth, to always be proud of what you do in your career.”
Mr. Brown is survived by his sons, Jason Brown of the South Hills and Evan Brown of Los Angeles.
A memorial service will be held 10 a.m. to noon Friday at Beinhauer Family Funeral Homes, 2828 Washington Road, McMurray.