Richard Liebson
January 14, 1958 — July 28, 2019
Please click the link below to read the editorial in the July 28, 2019, Journal News.
Richard Liebson, the quintessential crime-and-fires reporter, who for more than 30 years at The Journal News/lohud told the stories of police and firefighters, criminals and victims, military veterans, the down-and-out, and so many unsung regular folks not unlike himself, died early Sunday at his White Plains home. He was 61.
He had cancer for about two years. But Liebson didn't want anyone to say that he battled the disease or that he was brave in the end. He saw and wrote about too much real suffering for that, and said that he himself lived a great, fulfilling life. Cancer just got him, like it got so many others.
Liebson was long one of The Journal News' best-known writers and characters, a beat reporter of the old school who chatted up sources on his off hours, huddled with people burned out of their homes, distrusted authority figures (and anyone who didn't answer a question directly), and managed to find the humanity in the most hard-bitten crime stories. In recent years, he covered the City of White Plains, tracking the city's business development and politics, even if he liked visiting police headquarters and the courts best of all.
"Rich was a smart, hardworking reporter and lucid storyteller who was admired by everyone in the newsroom for his trusted and generous counsel and infectious love of journalism," said Mary Dolan, editor of The Journal News/lohud.
Liebson covered many of the high-profile stories that hit the region, from the 1994 propane-truck explosion in White Plains to a sniper's killing of Eastchester Police Officer Michael Frey in 1996 to the fatal shooting of Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. by White Plains police after Chamberlain accidentally triggered a life-alert alarm in 2011. But he took the most pleasure in describing how ordinary firefighters pulled grandma from a second-story window at 3 a.m., or revealing how sleepless detectives found the clue to crack a case, or recalling the forgotten heroics of military veterans, from the Battle of the Bulge to Iraq.
"He was one of the most genuine and unselfish people I've ever know," said Jorge Fitz-Gibbon, a longtime colleague at The Journal News. "He touched more lives than even he knew."
Liebson was a proud military brat who was born on Jan. 14, 1958, in Landstuhl, Germany and grew up on bases in Germany and the U.S. His father, Joseph Liebson, an Air Force master sergeant and plane mechanic, served in Vietnam and Thailand, and died from cancer in 1982 at 47 years of age. He had been regularly exposed to Agent Orange.
Liebson graduated from Valhalla High School in 1976. He served in the U.S. Army from 1976 to 1980, "writing for Stars and Stripes," making lifelong buddies, and coming away with many great stories, that he told again and again, about the shaky early days of the all-volunteer Army.
He was hired as a part-time reporter by what was then Westchester Rockland Newspapers in 1983 -- and got a kick out of knowing he was among the last to enter the newspaper business without a college degree. He went on to do just about everything at The Journal News, including a dissatisfied stint as an editor (or "desk jockey," as he would say) and a much happier period as a weekly columnist. He also developed into one of The Journal News' go-to rewrite people, because he could translate complex policies into direct language that got to the heart of a matter without dumbing it down.
Liebson had his own ways of doing things. He sported a Fu Manchu mustache for much of the ‘90s, and often wore ill-fitting jeans or sweatpants on the job, even as he carried a leather suitcase from story to story. He walked with a pronounced limp for the last 20 years or so because he hadn't seen the sense in rehabbing old football injuries. And he never, ever drove anywhere without his Jets hat on.
He was an always-optimistic fan of the Jets and Mets, a devotee of Muhammad Ali and Bob Dylan, and a lifelong student of Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday his family learned to observe each year. He loved history, especially the Civil War, but was equally fascinated by local history and valued his time with local historians. Liebson was an authority on the Battle of White Plains and his definitive history of the battle hung in Westchester classrooms for many years.
Liebson served as a mentor to dozens of young reporters, including his daughter, Rebecca Liebson, now a fellow at The New York Times. Doing so came easy because his enthusiasm for reporting never waned. He thought it was a privilege to help expose wrongdoing and tell the stories of unknown community heroes. In fact, after filing particularly rewarding stories throughout his career, Liebson would often turn to a colleague and say "I can't believe they pay me to do this."
As Rebecca wrote on Facebook, "My dad was one of the few people I know who was legitimately satisfied with what he had. He was a scrappy air force brat without a college degree that had somehow ended up with family and friends who loved him and his dream job as a reporter. He didn't need to seek outside validation because in his eyes he had already made it."
Liebson married Victoria Hochman on June 15, 1996. Hochman is a former editor for The Journal News and Newsday and is now manager of public relations for Thompson & Bender.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by two daughters, Morgan Shelby and Rebecca Liebson of White Plains, two brothers, Bruce Liebson of Greenwich and David Liebson of Carmel, and two sisters, Liza Liebson and Laura Liebson of Acapulco, Mexico.
Visitation will be Tuesday from 4 to 6 p.m. at Ballard-Durand Funeral Home in White Plains. A memorial service will follow at 6.
Liebson requested no ties.
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