A Stellar 50 Year Radio Career

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Legendary WCBS Newsradio 880 reporter Rich Lamb is retiring after 50 years in the radio news business, 43 years with WCBS. Lamb started his broadcasting career in Michigan in 1970, working as an anchor and reporter at WEXL in Royal Oak, WNIC in Dearborn, and at WOMC in Detroit.

In 1974, he landed at New York City’s WXLO, known then as the rock station 99X, where he had been the “sidekick” of morning man Jay Thomas.

Three years later, at the urging of legendary WCBS 880 political reporter Steve Flanders, Lamb applied for the reporter’s position being vacated by the Jerry Nachman. In December 1977, News and Program Director Lou Adler hired Lamb.

Over the years Lamb has covered the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, 9/11, four major plane crashes, all of the mayoral, gubernatorial and presidential elections since 1978, murders, fires, blackouts, St. Patrick’s Day, Columbus Day, West Indian Day and ticker tape parades.

Lamb has traveled the world covering news and visiting places such as Nicaragua with then-Mayor Ed Koch; Havana, Cuba to see Pope John Paul II; and Rome, Italy where, he covered Vatican events — including the elevation of Cardinal John O’Connor, the Funeral of Pope John Paul II, and the election of popes Benedict and Francis. In 1990, he traveled to Saudi Arabia to witness the buildup to the Gulf War.

“Rich is a one of a kind reporter and human being,” WCBS 880 News Director Tim Scheld said. “He will be missed not just for his broadcast journalism and eloquent storytelling but Rich is a selfless friend, colleague and mentor whose influence and friendships can be seen across the New York City landscape in business, journalism and politics. Rich may be leaving, but he has left each one of us at WCBS 880 with something to help us carry on his legacy.

“It has been a most extraordinary honor of a professional lifetime to have been a member of the WCBS radio team,” Lamb said. “Through all the news stories, great and small, beautiful and terrible, it has been my good fortune to have reaped the benefits of the skills, knowledge and camaraderie of my fellow professionals at this station.”

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