Industry News

Retired WBT-AM/FM Charlotte Newsman Jim Barroll Dies at 71

Retired WBT-AM/FM, Charlotte news broadcaster Jim Barroll passed away on Monday (2/5) at the age of 71 after a battle with cancer. Barroll served for more than 30 years in the WBT-AM/FM newsroom, beginning as a reporter before moving on to afternoon drive anchor and eventually news director. Barrollim retired from the station in 2016. Over the years, his focus was often on court reporting and the criminal justice system. He covered multiple Space Shuttle launches, the 1988 Democratic National Convention, the Jim Bakker trial, Hurricane Hugo, the crash of USAir Flight 1016, and the Rae Carruth trial. In 1990, he traveled with a North Carolina political and trade delegation to Germany during the aftermath of the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe and the German reunification. WBT says that Barroll and fellow anchor John Stokes were the backbone of its news operation for over 30 years. His daughter Amy posted to social media: “I will miss this man so, so much. He passed away this morning from an exceedingly aggressive mantle cell lymphoma. He was a completely healthy man a month ago. I am the luckiest person in the world to have called him my father.”