Wallace Westfeldt, veteran journalist who produced network news programs, dies at age 91

Wallace O. Westfeldt, whose half-century journalism career started in print and led to network and public broadcasting, has died at the age of 91.

Westfeldt's death Sunday in Plattsburgh, New York, was confirmed by his family.

His first newspaper job was as a reporter at the Nashville Tennessean during a time it was at the forefront covering desegregation. He worked alongside David Halberstam, Tom Wicker and John Seigenthaler and was assigned to cover the landmark U.S. Supreme Court school segregation case, Brown v. Board of Education.

Westfeldt left in 1960 to work on the documentary series "NBC White Paper" and held a succession of top positions in the NBC and ABC newsrooms and at PBS.

The New Orleans native retired from NBC in 1982 and went on to several projects with interviewer David Frost. His awards included four Emmys and a Peabody.