The Big Story Becomes Local-

Anderson Passing Recalls Shared Reporting Efforts

Associated Press Foreign Correspondent Terry Anderson was taken hostage in 1985. Photo: AP

I never met Terry Anderson. However, the former Middle East hostage, a reporter for the Associated Press news service, brought back many memories from the years when I worked as a television journalist.

Anderson died on April 20 at the age of seventy-six. It had been thirty-three years since his captors freed him.

Back in 1985, I was working in a local television newsroom in Rochester, New York. Terry Anderson was once a resident of western New York, making his story a local one for our television audience.

It seemed as though every night for weeks following the start of his ordeal, we would run stories about his capture and try to make sense of the efforts to secure his release.

His sister Peggy jumped into the mix within days of his becoming a hostage.

She was engaging with the US State Department, trying to find answers. Over the coming weeks, her frustration was apparent in her routine appearances on the local newscast.

Terry thanked his sister Peggy for her efforts on the homefront to keep his captivity on the forefront of the minds of the public. Photo: Pool coverage from Wiesbaden, Germany, 1991.

It took a lot of work to put up with the apparent lack of progress our government was experiencing.

The weeks turned into months.

Like many other stories that go on for an extended period of time, the audience grew weary, and the news editors slowly removed the story from “front and center” awareness.

But Terry’s sister Peggy did not give up hope. Her perseverance paid off in late 1991. Anderson was released.

By then, I had moved to another station in Rochester, serving as Executive Producer.

Our station was part of an effort with a local radio station to be among the reporters who would meet with him upon his release in Germany.

We covered the return from captivity, asked questions at Terry’s first news conference as a free man, and brought the story home for our viewers.

Some takeaways from the events surrounding Terry’s release were easy to see at the news conference.

He made great efforts to thank his sister, Peggy, for keeping the pressure on the US government to end his captivity.

All he wanted to do was be with his family, including a daughter born within months of his capture.

Terry shared his story in an interview with the Bob Graham Center for Public Service on the thirtieth anniversary of his release by Hezbollah captors. Photo: Graham Center.

An embossed card arrived in our newsroom mail within weeks of Anderson’s return to the United States. It was a mass-produced thank you card that he sent to every news outlet in western New York and probably to national news organizations in New York City and Washington, DC.

He did not know our names, but he knew that the news media had kept the story alive for six years collectively.

He wanted us to know how much it was appreciated.

Terry’s life after captivity appears to have had more downs than ups.

The Associated Press report of his death stated he received millions of dollars from US-held frozen Iranian assets.

Yet, according to the AP, he filed for bankruptcy five years ago. He wrote a book about his hostage ordeal, appeared on the popular Phil Donahue program, and lived out of the limelight.

The AP reported he made unsuccessful investments, taught college students, and dabbled in business enterprises with limited success.

Terry Anderson was the most prominent face in those pictures of Americans who were taken captive by Middle Eastern kidnappers in the 1980s.

His story was kept at the forefront of local news outlets thanks to the tireless efforts of his sister, Peggy.

He was a man who remembered the efforts of the many journalists to keep his story alive. His gratitude is his legacy.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He was a television journalist for several local stations from 1979 to 1994.

Though unrelated to the Terry Anderson story, his new book Rocket Reporter reflects on his years covering the Space Shuttle's early missions as a local reporter in northern Alabama.

The book is available at Lulu.com