Bob Losure

 
Anchoring and reporting from Atlanta with "CNN Headline News" since the early years of the network, Bob Losure covered such history-making events as Hurricane Hugo, the San Francisco earthquake, Manuel Noriega's capture and return to the U.S., and Nelson Mandela's visit to America. His years at CNN provided Losure with opportunities which few national anchors experience.

At the age of 22, Losure took a giant step into radio anchoring and reporting at the legendary CKLW radio in Detroit. He then moved on to television reporting and anchoring for ten years at CBS affiliate KOTV in Tulsa, before beginning his eleven-year position as anchor at CNN in Atlanta.

In Losure's 1998 autobiography, Five Seconds to Air , he relates his hilarious faux pas as a news reporter, as well as the inside scoop on a number of famous people. He also discusses the breaking world events of the time and relates how CNN set the standard for accurate, live news information 24 hours a day.

Losure also shares his very personal battle with cancer. As he lay in a hospital bed after numerous surgeries and chemotherapy, he watched his permanent replacement in his former anchor chair at the CBS affiliate in Tulsa and recounts how his faith, and the help of many people he had never even had the chance to meet in person, got him back on the road to win the battle against cancer. That victory not only gave Losure a different outlook on life, it motivated him to reach for the stars--in this case, a highly coveted job anchoring for "CNN Headline News" in Atlanta.

In his speeches on this subject, Losure strives to provide audiences with a clear understanding that people battling cancer are never alone and that hope always exists. He speaks about patient rights and stresses the importance of spreading facts, not myths, about cancer.

Since retiring from CNN, Losure has devoted himself to a new career as a speaker, corporate spokesperson, on-camera commercial talent, and event emcee for numerous major corporations. Now based out of Las Vegas, he has spoken to over 150 groups and organizations in the past twelve years. In 1995, he was inducted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame at The University of Tulsa, which followed his 1992 induction as a "Distinguished Alumni" of the school. He also has the distinction of joining ABC anchor Ted Koppel as a member of "The Order of West Range," the highest alumni honor given by Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity.

Most Requested Topics:

  • Lights…Camera…Cancer!: In this keynote speech to groups ranging from M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston to American Cancer Society meetings in Orlando, Kansas City and Detroit, Bob gives audiences a heartfelt look at his own battle with testicular cancer. Bob punctuates his remarks by giving his audiences a chance to relax, kick off their shoes, and laugh at all the things that can and do go wrong when you’re doing live news. Now an eighteen-year testicular cancer survivor, Bob makes us realize that we always have hope, no matter what the prognosis.
  • Five Seconds to Air: In his speech and in his autobiography, Five Seconds to Ai , Bob also gives us a humorous look behind-the-scenes at CNN, and looks back at a wedding he attended where he was mis-identified as Headline News anchor Chuck Roberts at the start of the wedding reception line. Not wishing to offend anyone, Bob continued right down the line, glad-handing everyone and introducing himself as Chuck Roberts, and to Bob’s surprise, no one ever noticed.
  • Boss, There’s a TV Crew in the Lobby!: Get the straight facts as award-winning CNN anchor and reporter Bob Losure explains how to get your message out to the media, even if it’s Mike Wallace standing in your office doorway on a Friday afternoon and you’re the only one in the office! Yes, it can happen to you, and Bob gives you a step-by-step approach to handling the most difficult situations. He takes a humorous look at some PR-attempts-gone-wrong, and gives you a comfort level so you feel confident in putting the right spin on your interviews even as everything around you seems to be in turmoil you want to get the full story of how media organizations decide what news to run and how they’ll cover those stories, let a veteran who’s been in the trenches give you the facts in a presentation designed specifically for the needs of your organization or company. As a veteran of over 22 years in local and national television news as a reporter and anchor, Bob helps you prepare for that worst-case scenario, explaining what information to compile beforehand, how to handle media calls when you don’t want to debate the other side, and how to get your point across no matter how negative and tough the questions are.
  • How Politics and Profits are Polarizing The News Media:

    A look at the media’s credibility gap in the post-2004 election era…from Bob Losure,
    former CNN Headline News Anchor and author of “Five Seconds To Air”

    Americans in growing numbers now believe the media makes news rather than reports it. They think that the obsession with “scandal in high places” and “celebrity news” is just another attempt at building audiences rather than advancing the public interest. And when they see the media leaning “left” to do a last-minute story like Dan Rather’s 60 Minutes piece on President Bush, or exit polling that fails miserably at forecasting the 2004 election, they smell a rat. And in every survey now, Americans are saying they’ve chosen sides—“right” or “left.”

    I speak from 12 years of anchoring and reporting at CNN, and all the way back to my first assignment on the campaign trail with President Lyndon Johnson. Did you know that 2/3rds of the audience of CNN and 2/3rds of the Fox News audience today say they won’t even watch the rival network! People are more polarized in their opinion than ever before. The argumentative, boistrous cable network talk shows and the increasingly biased interviews may be fueling huge profits for the news corporations, but coverage of stories is limited to four or five repeated all day.

    Would Fox News boss Roger Ailes ever allow his anchors to say anything detrimental about President Bush? Not likely. There’s the daily “Memo” from Fox management, the Bible of the spin to be firmly stamped on every Fox News story every day. Would CNN ever take a step out of its Columbus Circle tower in New York to do positive stories it used to do about the heartland of America? If anything, it will continue to ignore its Atlanta roots. In my keynote, I use the words of Walter Cronkite, whom I interviewed in 2004: “I think it’s journalists’ job to tell people what they need to know. The scandal sheets tell them what they think they want to know. That’s not our job.”

    Is there help for getting Americans to believe in their journalists again? I truly hope so. A fledgling network I know very well, dubbed “The Chicken Noodle Network”, started from scratch almost 25 years ago. It began with old-line journalists who cared about fair reporting, and were not interfered with by management. I was one of those who came to Atlanta to anchor at the spin-off, Headline News. With a tight, fast-paced format of news from mostly the AP wires, Reuters News Service, and a group of reporters stationed at bureaus around the world, people got a true look across America and the planet like they never had before. In my keynote, I’ll take you back to those early Ted Turner - CNN years, I’ll tell you some humorous stories of what happens when “live” reports go terribly wrong, and I’ll give you an uncensored look at how America’s TV media--CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and their three broadcast brethren—got to this new low in credibility with their viewers…and how they can get that credibility back.

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