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Fox 4 struggles with death of meteorologist Don Harman
The TV station holds off announcing the news for 18 hours as reaction pours in.
By AARON BARNHARTThe Kansas City Star
Fox 4 weather forecaster Don Harman took his own life Tuesday, casting a pall Wednesday over Kansas City’s top-rated morning newscast.
The 41-year-old native of Marietta, Ohio, was found by his wife, Monica Johns, at their south Kansas City home shortly before 5 p.m. Police said the death was a suicide.
Fox 4, WDAF, held off announcing the news of Harman’s death because it wanted to reach Harman’s 79-year-old father, Gordon, in Ohio. But he was traveling, and in the 18 hours that it took to locate him, word leaked out of the station and onto social networks and blogs.
“I sit here and cry wondering why, how,” one viewer wrote at 4:40 a.m. Wednesday. “Our beloved weather man is gone.”
Harman, a graduate of Miami University of Ohio, was hired in 1999 to replace Gary Lezak. At Fox 4, Lezak had parlayed his popularity into his current position as KSHB’s chief meteorologist. But Harman proved, if anything, to be an even bigger hit with viewers. He quickly became part of a high-spirited team that has been No. 1 in the ratings for most of the past decade.
Inside Fox 4 on Wednesday, the grief of Harman’s colleagues was compounded by their decision not to talk about it on the air until Harman’s father had been reached.
As emails and Facebook comments rained in, the station decided that it would take note of the outpouring of support — but not report the news.
At 4:45 a.m., a shell-shocked Mark Alford, a close friend of Harman’s, read a statement.
“We know a lot of you out there have questions about what’s going on. We do appreciate your concerns. We consider you our friends,” Alford said.
His co-anchor Loren Halifax continued: “We do ask you, though, to remember that family comes first. And we are honoring that.”
The announcement was repeated through Fox 4’s morning newscast. The station asked other broadcast outlets in town to hold off reporting the news as well.
At noon, Fox 4’s Kathy Quinn broadcast a statement from the station confirming Harman’s death.
“To all of us, Don was like family and the news comes as a great shock to all the people he worked with at Fox 4,” the statement read.
Fox 4’s dilemma in reporting Harman’s death was understandable, said Robert Steele, who teaches journalism ethics at DePauw University in Indiana.
“At some point, however, it’s very difficult to hold back on the story about this person who is very much a public figure,” Steele said. “It can be challenging finding that balance between reporting the truth, which is a journalistic obligation, and minimizing harm, which is a professional obligation.”
KMBC-TV’s Bryan Busby had been friends with Harman since they met in the 1990s, when Harman was working in Mason City, Iowa.
“The difficulty in this job is to have that good blend of left-brain, right-brain,” Busby said Wednesday. “We’re scientists, we’re geeks, we know math. So to have a meteorologist who also has that personality — someone who can make you smile — is a rare quality. And Don had both.”
Harman is survived by his wife and a daughter.