Joseph Donald Schlaerth, Jr., age 62, of Newburgh, IN, passed away Thursday, June 22, 2023, at his home.
Joseph was born December 7, 1960, in Buffalo, NY, to Joseph Donald Schlaerth, Sr. and Sally Gallagher Schlaerth. He graduated from Amherst Central High School in 1978 and earned his Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Buffalo. Joseph was the News Director for 14 News WFIE in Evansville for eight years. Before coming to Evansville in 2015, Joe worked for nearly 15 years at WIVB in Buffalo, starting as Producer, moving up to Executive Producer and finally to News Director for 10 years.
Joe enjoyed swimming laps in his pool and the company of his dog, Toby. Mostly he loved being with his children and watching them grow. A broad smile would cross his face as he talked about their many accomplishments.
Joe’s newsrooms were perennially successful, almost always #1 in every time slot. He and his teams won multiple Emmy, Edward R. Murrow, National Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi awards just to name a few. The Indiana Broadcasters Association declared 14 News the 2018 Station of the Year. 14 News is currently nominated for an Emmy award for News Excellence because of Joe’s leadership.
Joe always insisted on an unwavering commitment to the highest journalistic and ethical standards. He painstakingly searched out and found the very best talent possible to bring onto the 14 News team so that the station would carry on its legacy of news and weather leadership in Evansville.
Joe was a former President and longtime member of the New York State Associated Press Broadcast Board, an adjunct professor at Buffalo State College (State University of New York), and served on the American Red Cross Leadership Council, Southwest Indiana.
Joseph is survived by his wife of 23 years, Vicki Ehrenberg Schlaerth; twin children, Aurora Paige and Joseph Donald Schlaerth: sisters, Katherine Curriden (Scott) of San Diego, CA, and Sharon Sharth (Mark Bryan) of Arcadia, CA.
Joseph is preceded in death by his parents and his sister, Sally Jo Schlaerth, who passed away in 2014.
A Celebration of Life will be held at 7:00 p.m. CST, Thursday, June 29, 2023, at Methodist Temple, 2109 Lincoln Avenue, Evansville, IN with Pastor Randy Moore officiating. Burial will be private.
Original: https://www.boonefuneralhome.net/obituary/Joseph-SchlaerthJr
From the Buffalo News:
Joseph D. Schlaerth Jr., 62, award-winning former news director at WIVB-TV
Joe Schlaerth had just guided the TV news department he directed to the nomination for an award – an Emmy for News Excellence – when he died unexpectedly June 22 in his home in Newburgh, Ind., a suburb of Evansville. He was 62.
Since the early 1990s, Mr. Schlaerth had regularly achieved high honors as a broadcast journalist. During nearly 10 years as news director at WIVB-TV in Buffalo, he and his teams had collected several of them.
The station’s coverage of the crash of Flight 3407 in 2009 brought him two national Edward R. Murrow Awards.
He also received two National Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi awards – one in 2007 for an interview with Lynn DeJac Peters after she served 13 years in prison on a wrongful conviction for the murder of her daughter, and one in 2012 for an investigative series on bullying in schools and online.
Born in Buffalo, one of four children, Joseph Donald Schlaerth Jr. was the son of J. Don Schlaerth, radio-television columnist and TV Topics editor for The Buffalo News, and Sally Gallagher Schlaerth, head librarian at The News.
“I’ve always loved television news,” he told News TV columnist Alan Pergament in 2005. “I remember sitting there with my father, my mom and sisters watching the (casualty) numbers from Vietnam. When I was in school, I rushed home to watch the Watergate hearings. I always had the media bug.”
A 1978 graduate of Amherst High School, he worked his way through Erie Community College and the University at Buffalo. He was a bartender at a racquetball club and a hopper for The News, jumping off trucks to deliver bundles of newspapers to carriers and stores.
He was a year away from graduating from UB when he landed a job in 1985 as an intern at WIVB after another intern didn’t show up for work.
Mr. Schlaerth went on to become assignment editor, then was co-creator and first producer of “Wake Up!,” the station’s morning program, which gained top ratings.
He had similar success as producer and executive producer of news programs at 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. He was WIVB Employee of the Year in 2001.
“He’s done it the right way and the hard way,” WIVB anchor Jacquie Walker told Pergament after Mr. Schlaerth was promoted to news director in 2004. “He’s a journalist through and through and knows what’s important in news in this community.”
Under his guidance, WIVB won New York State Emmy Awards for documentaries on Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown in 2006 and development of Buffalo’s waterfront in 2007. The station won three regional Edward R. Murrow Awards for investigative coverage in 2013-2014.
His tenure ended in July 2014, a year after the arrival of a new general manager who was unhappy to see the station’s newscasts slipping in the ratings.
He went on to become news director for WFIE, an NBC affiliate in Evansville, ranked 107th among the nation’s TV markets. Under his leadership, it was named Station of the Year in 2018 by the Indiana Broadcasters Association.
“He insisted on an unwavering commitment to the highest journalistic and ethical standards. Joe painstakingly searched out the very best talent possible,” WFIE anchorman Randy Moore said after his death.
He was former president of the New York State Associated Press Broadcast Board, a board member of the Associated Press Broadcasters Association, a former adjunct professor of broadcast journalism at what was then Buffalo State College and served on the American Red Cross Leadership Council, Southwest Indiana.
Survivors include his wife of 23 years, Vicki Ehrenberg Schlaerth, an occupational therapist; twin children, Aurora Paige and Joseph Donald III; and two sisters, Katherine Curriden and Sharon Sharth.
A celebration of his life was held June 29 in Evansville.