Robert Vitarelli, innovator at both CBS and Press Club

Robert Vitarelli, who capped his CBS career as an innovator of television news by directing the Club’s “Kalb Report,” died July 30 at the age of 86, just a year after working on his last program at the National Press Club.

Vitarelli, known to his friends as “Vit,” was the man working behind the scenes for Walter Cronkite and CBS News, traveling the world and keeping the CBS Washington Bureau on top of breaking news during his 39-year network career.

Starting in the CBS mailroom in 1953, Vitarelli climbed to become director of the “CBS Evening News,” working with both Cronkite and Dan Rather on stories from the first American manned space shot with astronaut Alan Shepard, through the funerals of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Sen. Robert Kennedy. He was in Berlin with President Kennedy and in China with President Richard Nixon. He directed coverage of the Watergate hearings. He narrowly missed a bomb explosion at his hotel in Saigon while reporting for “Face the Nation,” which he directed for 22 years, during the Vietnam War.

He was one of the driving forces to get the evening news expanded from 15 minutes to 30 minutes, and he directed “Face the Nation” with moderator George Herman, as well as the overnight newscast “Nightwatch,” “CBS This Morning” and the “Point-Counterpoint” debate segment on “60 Minutes.”

In a rare tribute to a behind-the-scenes person, “Face the Nation” moderator John Dickerson lauded Vitarelli as a man who “directed history from the CBS control room.”

When the National Press Club created “The Kalb Report” in 1994, moderator Marvin Kalb, who had worked with Vitarelli at CBS, enticed him to be the director for the award-winning series.

Kalb said he started working with Vitarelli 60 years ago on the 11 p.m. network news with Eric Sevareid. At that time, Vitarelli directed in New York while Kalb wrote the script.

“'Leave it to Vit' was an expression we all used, no matter the challenge,” Kalb said. “Vit always obliged – no fuss, smooth professionalism. He was the incomparable master of the control room, and I shall miss him very much, as a pro and, more important, as a friend.”

Vitarelli was in the control room when the Club launched “The Kalb Report” in September 1994, and he was still there, working behind the scenes 22 years later during the last program in the 2016 season when Kalb interviewed historian David McCullough. Even after he moved to The Villages in Florida, he would fly to Washington to direct the program.

Michael Freedman, a member of the Club’s Board of Governors who created The Kalb Report and has served as its executive producer since it launched, said Vitarelli “was a consummate professional, a true gentleman, a wonderful mentor, and a caring and kind man, who added class to every project and every person his life touched.”

The quality of Vitarelli’s work made it possible for “The Kalb Report” to air on hundreds of public television stations, as well as Sirius XM Satellite Radio and the CBS Radio Network. That has encouraged the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation to underwrite the program for more than a decade.

Everyone connected with the program was always pleased to walk into the Club’s ballroom and see Vitarelli in his customary seat in the audience helping the staff put together the set and fix the lighting. When the program began, he was watching from the control room, directing camera shots and keeping the pacing on track.

While Vitarelli said how blessed he was to be able to be directing a television program well into his 80s, a whole generation of students and Club employees benefitted from the knowledge he imparted.

Lindsay Underwood, who started working on "The Kalb Report" as a student at George Washington University, and continues today as a Club employee, noted that even though there was a 60-year difference in their ages, she was lucky to be able to learn from such a legend.

“He was so willing and so eager to share it all with me - I gratefully soaked up every story and every trade secret like a sponge,” Underwood said. “He was a keystone in our 'Kalb Report' family and the reassuring voice in my head(set) for almost eight years."

A memorial service at the Club will be planned for this fall.