A veteran news reporter for KCNC-4, the CBS owned-and-operated property serving Denver, has died of natural causes at the age of 74.
Rick Sallinger passed away on Wednesday evening. He began at what is today “CBS News Colorado” some 30 years ago, and became known to national audiences for reports that aired on network newscasts.
A Chicago native, Sallinger worked in London for CNN in 1990. This came following a career that included roles as a local news reporter for ABC affiliate WRTV-6 in Indianapolis in the late 1970s, at NBC Owned Stations’ WMAQ-5 in Chicago, and at both KUSA-9 and KCNC-4 in Denver.
He first came to Denver in 1980 and left in 1986, but he returned in 1993.
A video tribute to Sallinger was shared by KCNC on Thursday afternoon.
On X, formerly Twitter, Sallinger’s family posted a message on his profile noting, “We are heartbroken. For 30 years he was a devoted journalist in Denver. He loved every second of it. He was the best father to his two sons and a loving husband to his wife of 30 years. We love you endlessly.”
As WRTV noted in its coverage of his death, Sallinger made his mark “through his no-nonsense approach to reporting often seeking answers and accountability while the camera was rolling.” This included bugging News Director Bob Gamble’s office and calling out WRTV for failing to shovel its own sidewalks after a snowstorm.
In 1979, he even had a little fun, offering WRTV viewers an investigative story on McDonald’s cherry pies.
Sallinger retired on December 7, 2023.
A START IN RADIO
From 1967-1991, he was Program Director/Music Director and a newscaster and reporter for WPGU-FM, the student-run radio station of the University of Illinois at Champaign. In an April 2022 interview with The Daily Illini, Sallinger said, “No question about WPGU prepared me best for my career. I learned as much if not more from WPGU than I did taking my classes.”
Early career roles included a first reporting job in 1973 at WERE Radio in Cleveland. He would then go to WMAQ-AM & WNIS-FM in Chicago, which at the time offered Country and NBC’s pioneering yet troubled all-News format.
The failure of “NIS” led Sallinger in 1977 to take his full-time TV job, at WRTV.
Speaking to the Denver Post‘s John Wenzel days after his retirement, Sallinger commented, “It’s been overwhelming, the amount of calls texts, emails, and posts that I’ve gotten since I announced it. We had a goodbye party at CBS News Colorado … one by one, people got up to say things very kind about me. And I said to myself, ‘Who is this person they’re talking about? Is this really me?’ What I learned, to be honest, is that some people have a higher opinion and respect for me than I give myself.”
