Jim Thistle, 66; brought old-style journalism to TV news
Undaunted by near-freezing temperatures and a ferocious January wind, longtime Boston newsman Jim Thistle clung to the satellite mast of a television truck in 1982, in a last-ditch effort to broadcast images of the
"We had been at his house eating supper that night when we got the call," said lifelong friend Clark Booth, who worked with Thistle at WBZ-TV (Channel 4) and WCVB-TV (Channel 5). "He's out there holding this thing, and people were saying, 'That thing's radioactive, Jimmy.'. . . He was just determined and willing to do the hard work."
Mr. Thistle - the city's preeminent news director, who pioneered extended evening television newscasts - died of cancer yesterday at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He was 66.
Family and friends described him as an old-style, hands-on journalist, whose aggressive pursuit of substantive local stories raised the stature of television reporting in Boston. Numerous well-known local television personalities credit Mr. Thistle with jump-starting their careers.
Mr. Thistle's son James of Pelham, N.H., called him a "blue-collar news director," and former colleagues said Mr. Thistle could rarely be found in his office.
"He was just as comfortable changing a tire on a news vehicle as he was changing the lead to the 6 o'clock news 30 seconds before it went to air," said Natalie Jacobson, longtime news anchor at Channel 5. "We all felt we were doing God's work. . . . That's how a Thistle newsroom operated, full of passion, full of sense of purpose, the desire to get it right and to do it right."
Mr. Thistle's career spanned 30 years and included stints at almost every major television news station in the city. He had worked as news director at the old WKBG-TV (Channel 56), as well as WBZ and WCVB, before leaving to teach journalism at Boston University in 1982. He later took a leave of absence to become news director with WHDH-TV (Channel 7).
Born in Everett, Mr. Thistle graduated in 1964 from BU's School of Public Communication. His work ethic astounded classmate Peter Mehegan, who ran the college radio station with Mr. Thistle and later worked for him at Channels 4 and 5.
"He was a reporter for the BU News on the print side. He worked weekends editing the 11 o'clock news on Channel 4. . . . And in the middle of the night he would do the books at the Strahan wallpaper company in Chelsea," said Mehegan, a well-known reporter and anchor at Channel 5. "That's inspiration."
Mr. Thistle worked for several years as news director and later executive producer for programming at Channel 4, where he expanded nightly news coverage to 90 minutes. In August 1974, Mr. Thistle joined Channel 5 and helped extend the evening newscast to a full hour.
He reluctantly took a three-year leave from BU in 1988 and joined Channel 7 as vice president for news in an attempt to resuscitate the station's ailing ratings but told management at the time that he wasn't "some young hotshot with a quick-fix philosophy."
"I take the long-term approach," he told the Globe that year.
Mr. Thistle never managed to bolster Channel 7's newscasts as he had done at Channels 4 and 5, and he left in March 1990 after what he called "a rough couple of months."
In his later years, he preferred teaching a new generation of journalists and sticking up for the serious reporting he saw slipping away from television news, his son said, rather than working professionally. And although he spent little time dwelling on the past, he told friends he cared little for what the industry had become.
"He was not much interested in chasing two-bit fires and the cat that got stuck in the tree," Mehegan said. "He was one of the last practitioners in this town of old-fashioned journalism. . . . He felt that kind of journalism was not out of date and could succeed in this town if someone had the guts to do it."
Thistle, a devout Catholic, battled several forms of cancer for about a year, though his struggle intensified in the past few months, his son said. He lived in Everett with his wife, Jeanne.
In addition to his wife and son, he leaves two daughters, Elizabeth of Boston and Deborah of Amesbury; two brothers, Patrick and Michael, both of Everett; a sister, Victoria of Marblehead; and five grandchildren.
A funeral Mass will be said at 11 a.m. Friday at Immaculate Conception Church in Everett.
