G. Christopher Condon

G. Christopher “Chris” Condon, 99, passed away peacefully on Monday, January 30, 2023 in New Rochelle, NY, where he had lived for the past few years. Born in Union City, NJ, Chris was the son of Matthew G. and Anastasia (Gallagher) Condon and grew up in Hackensack, NJ. He served in the U.S. Army during WWII, in the Asia-Pacific Theatre as a radioman third grade technician for the Signal Corps in the 4025th Signal Battalion. He was honorably discharged from Fort Dix, NJ in 1946. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy from Fordham University, Bronx, NY. 

Chris made his career in radio and then television news, working for many years as a news anchor for KSDK-TV in St. Louis. (An obituary profiling his life and his years as a KSDK TV news anchor and reporter was published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Feb. 3.) He first became interested in broadcasting when he served as news editor of the Armed Forces Radio station at Cebu, Philippines, writing and delivering the newscasts distributed to troops in the Pacific theatre. While completing his studies after the war, he became the first news director for WFUV, Fordham’s brand-new college radio station. The first non-commercial college radio station in the New York metropolitan area, WFUV today is a National Public Radio affiliate station. 

After college, Chris worked for radio stations in Hudson, NY, Montgomery, WV, Huntington, VA, and Annapolis and Baltimore, MD, before finding a more permanent home as a newscaster at WTAG radio in Worcester, MA. There, along with colleague Bill Porter, he received a Peabody Award in the category of news documentaries for a series of brief biographies they did on men in the news. More importantly, there he also met Clare Cassidy, a colleague at WTAG, whom he married in 1956. By then, Chris had begun his first job as a television newscaster at KVOO-TV in Tulsa, OK; Clare joined him there after their brief honeymoon to Niagara Falls. After 3 years in Tulsa, he took a position at WDAF-TV in Kansas City, MO, where his reporting on a local construction workers’ strike contributed to the station being one of seven cited in 1960 for outstanding presentation of news and public service programs by the Radio and Television News Directors Association.

In 1961, Chris moved to KSDK-TV (then KSD) in St. Louis, MO, where he became a well-respected local news reporter, anchoring the news at 6 and 10 for many years. Unlike many newscasters, Chris had continued to write as well as to report and present the news in his television positions before St. Louis. He ran into resistance to this at KSD, until his continued insistence and, ultimately, job offers from rival stations, led to his being allowed to join the Writers Guild as well as AFTRA to enable him to write the news. From 1964 to 1968, Chris also wrote a regular column, “Speaking of Television,” for The National Catholic Reporter, a progressive Catholic newspaper that had recently been founded in Kansas City. In these columns, he provided critique and commentary on the new medium of television and television news in particular. Column subjects included television news coverage of the Vietnam War, the blacklist, the need for the inclusion of African-Americans on television, and the rise of television violence. In one column, he reflected on his firsthand experience of the Selma civil rights march, which he had attended with a group of St. Louis religious leaders. After leaving KSDK in 1984, he worked for a time as a columnist for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. 

Chris was passionate about the promise of television news to bring the events and ideas of the day to those who might not be reading newspapers or listening to radio news. In college he had originally wanted to study archeology, but in a 1961 interview, he said that he “gradually became more attracted to a news career because I felt that there was nothing more important than keeping the people informed in the times we live in. I felt that, particularly in a democracy, with free news media, no job was more vital.” He had entered the profession of television news at its inception, and with colleagues in each city where he worked and others around the country, he helped to form, by trial and error, the practices that would be most effective in this new medium. He loved interviewing St. Louisans of all walks of life, but was also proud to have interviewed international figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X and Mother Teresa.

For someone in the spotlight, Chris was a surprisingly reserved and somewhat private person, but he was always gracious when fans approached him, and grateful for their support. His hobbies were more solitary in nature—reading, sailing, and later, following television news on the internet and television. A lifelong avid reader, he once pointed out the public library in Hackensack to a daughter while visiting years later. “That was my favorite building in town, because it was the one that had all the books.” After leaving St. Louis, Chris continued his retirement in Charleston and Johns Island, SC, Gloucester, MA, Harrisville, RI, and Redding, CA.

Chris is survived by daughter Kathleen Condon and her husband Rick Luftglass of Brooklyn, NY, daughter-in-law Susan Robertson of Watertown, MA, daughter Ann Gallagher and her husband Ron May, and many beloved cousins, nieces and nephews. He is predeceased by his former wife, Clare T. (Cassidy) Condon; and son, Jim Condon, formerly of Watertown, MA. His funeral mass and burial will begin at 11 a.m. on Saturday, June 10 at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, 77 Mendon St., Uxbridge, MA. He will be buried with Clare in St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations in Chris’ memory may be to the United Hebrew Geriatric Center of New Rochelle https://unitedhebrewgeriatric.org/donate-now/ or to WFUV college radio station or Fordham College at Rose Hill at Fordham University fordham.edu/donate. 

To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of G. Christopher Condon, please visit our floral store.