Longtime CBS, WTOP journalist Tom Foty dies at 77

[mahatmakanejeeves]

I heard it on the CBS radio news at the top of the hour, about 2:00 a.m., this morning.

I believed he died at his home in Arlington.

Longtime CBS, WTOP journalist Tom Foty dies at 77

Dana Sukontarak | [e-mail]
December 26, 2023, 9:37 PM

His was a voice familiar to WTOP listeners, often during the late night and overnight hours: longtime CBS News Radio Washington anchor and reporter Tom Foty died Tuesday at the age of 77.

Foty was a mainstay for CBS News starting in 1998, covering everything from government affairs to international news, according to his colleague Peter King. ... “He managed UPI’s Washington bureau, then he became its executive editor,” King said of Foty’s career trajectory. ... “But he also parachuted into breaking stories like The Peoples Temple mass suicide in Guyana, and the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster.”

Foty was an employee at WTOP from 1997 through 2005, as a radio reporter and editor, and was one of the early editors of wtop.com, which launched in 1996.

“Tom was the first person who trained me, when I came to WTOP, in 1997,” remembered reporter Neal Augenstein. “Like Tom, I’d come from UPI. He’s remained the self-appointed historian of UPI.” ... Augenstein respected Foty’s work: “Old-school journalism ethics, great stories, everyday dependable. And he knew how the equipment worked. He really was the ultimate ‘radio guy.'”

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Dana Sukontarak
Dana Sukontarak is a Digital Writer/Editor for WTOP.com. She loves haiku poetry, short sci-fi stories and word games. She grew up in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and currently lives in Silver Spring.

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