Everett (Jake) Jacobs; One of First Blacks in L.A. Radio, TV News
Everett (Jake) Jacobs, a veteran journalist and one of the first African-Americans in the local broadcast field, has died at a Los Angeles hospital. He was 68.
Jacobs had been suffering from cancer and died Thursday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said a spokeswoman at KNX Newsradio, where he worked until his retirement in 1989.
Born in Shreveport, La., Jacobs served in the Navy before joining KNX in 1963. In 1967, he won a CBS News fellowship to Columbia University in New York, where he spent a year studying urban problems before returning to report for the West Coast bureau of CBS News.
He joined KNXT Channel 2’s news department in 1969, then returned to KNX as a reporter in 1973. Jacobs was honored with the AKA Award for Distinguished Service to the Community, the Distinguished Media Men’s Award from the National Assn. of Media Women, and a Citation of Honor from the Radio and Television News Assn. of Southern California.
He received a Golden Mike award for his spot news coverage of the devastating Santa Barbara fire, another Golden Mike in 1982 for the series, “Where the Jobs Are,” and three awards for the 1979 series “The Foreclosure Game.”
Jacobs, who was a member of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and the Los Angeles Urban League, is survived by his wife, Bernice, and three grown children, Phillip, Harriet and Sidney.
A funeral is scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday at Bel-Vue Community United Presbyterian Church.
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