Ernie Anastos, legendary NYC news anchor, dead at 82
Ernie Anastos, the legendary Big Apple news anchor who was a trusted voice in the tristate area for decades, has died.
He was 82.
“It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of Ernie Anastos, who died at the age of 82,” Fox 5 said in a statement posted online Thursday afternoon.
“An Emmy Award-winning journalist and beloved former Fox 5 news anchor, his voice, integrity, and lasting impact on New York journalism will never be forgotten.”
Anastos died early Thursday of pneumonia at Northern Westchester Hospital, his wife said, according to CBS 2.
During a storied on-air career that spanned decades, he earned 30 Emmy Awards and nominations and covered notable events like the 9/11 terror attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic.
He also clinched the prestigious Lifetime Emmy Award.
The proud Greek-American worked for several different flagship New York television networks and was inducted into the New York State Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame.
He started out at ABC 7 in 1978 and lasted there until 1989. He then joined CBS 2, before moving on to WWOR in 1997 and then returning to CBS in 2001, according to the state broadcaster association.
Anastos inked a deal in 2005 with Fox 5 NY, where he and Rosanna Scotto paired up to deliver the nightly news.
He left Fox 5 around 2020 to enroll in leadership management classes at Harvard Business School.
Calling Walter Cronkite one of his heroes, Anastos was working as a 77WABC radio host leading up to his death.
“We have to teach truth in our homes and in our schools, wherever we have that opportunity,” he said in a March 3 Instagram video.
“I think we all have to sit back and say let’s stand up for truth and support it and make sure that we live it on a day-to-day basis.”
Early in his career, Anastos was pressured to abandon his iconic Greek last name, he told the New York Times in a 2010 profile.
His boss at a Boston radio station asked him if he’d be uncomfortable if he was called Ernie Andrews while a superior at a Rhode Island television station suggested Keith Andrews, according to the Times profile.
“Ethnic names were not all that hot,” he recalled.
Condolences poured in shortly after the news of his death.
“I enjoyed working with him, anchoring alongside of him on the 10 o’clock news. He was a good man and someone we really looked up to,” wrote Scotto in a Facebook post.
“We are all heartbroken.”
Another former Fox 5 colleague, Teresa Priolo, called him the “heart of our newsroom.”
“I’m here to confirm, every single good thing you will hear and read about this man is true. And then some. Times 10,” she wrote on Facebook.
“He was the gold standard in life and in this crazy news business.”
