Before there was a Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart, Dallas had Canadian transplant Alex Burton reporting the news at midnight on then WBAP, known today as KXAS. Instead of a desk and showy set, he sat in a chair alongside a plant that he called Arthur and read from wire service copy. Sometimes he liked what he read, but we all loved the ones that didn’t meet with his approval. Those got tossed to the floor in disgust.
Eventually, Alex moved onto other media outlets, but retained his curmudgeonly charm. In 2002 he was inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame and years later he was named a Living Legend of North Texas Journalism by the Dallas Press Club.
Today Alex died from prostate cancer at the age of 80.
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