Eric Paulsen, anchor at WWL in New Orleans, dies | News | nola.com

Eric Paulsen, a WWL-TV reporter and anchor who was the mainstay of the top-rated morning newscast for most of his 47 years at the CBS affiliate, died Saturday of cancer at Ochsner Medical Center. He was 74.

Paulsen, believed to be the longest-tenured anchor in the region, disclosed his cancer diagnosis in September, less than a month after receiving the Press Club of New Orleans’ Lifetime Achievement Award and a salute from the New Orleans City Council.

“I’ve always been a fighter,” he said in an open letter announcing that he would be taking a leave of absence for treatment. “This is a fight I don’t welcome, but I’m ready for this battle. My attitude is very positive, and I have a lot of support from family and friends, which means I will see you all soon.”

But he did not return to the station that had been his professional home for nearly half a century.

WWL-TV anchor Sally-Ann Roberts reacts while watching a decades old clip play on a monitor of her and her colleague Eric Paulsen, center, during their live broadcast.

“I can’t imagine New Orleans without Eric Paulsen,” said Sally-Ann Roberts, his longtime co-anchor on the morning program. “Eric may not be from New Orleans, but as Frank Davis used to say, he is naturally New Orleans. It’s like he was born here.”

“He did what he did for so long on his terms, and so well,” said Dominic Massa, formerly WWL’s executive producer. “He was more than just the playful, fun-loving spirit you saw. There was more to him, and that was what made him special.”

A native of St. Louis who came to New Orleans after working radio and television jobs in Illinois, Iowa, Georgia and Wisconsin, Paulsen was quick to embrace the area’s culture, and he struck up professional and personal relationships with local icons including Fats Domino, Irma Thomas, Allen Toussaint and Aaron Neville.

Paulsen’s multifaceted insights, and the diverse array of guests he put on the air, helped enhance the station’s content and ratings, said Massa, now executive vice president and chief operating officer at WYES-TV.

“He made it look easy, but I knew he could talk about so many different things, and that’s the life of morning TV," Massa said. "It came naturally to him.”

WWL-TV's Eric Paulsen with Fats Domino at Tipitina's on May 19, 2007, during what turned out to be Domino's final public concert. When Domino tried to leave the stage after only four songs, Paulsen helped convince him to keep playing.

And when the circumstances turned serious, Paulsen was rock-steady. Angela Hill, a longtime WWL-TV anchor, recalled the days after Hurricane Isaac, when she and Paulsen were on the air in three-hour shifts, relaying as much information as they could gather to anxious viewers.

“I could not have done that without Eric,” she said. “We had to keep going, and we were trying to fill three hours without commercials. With Eric, I was so grateful.”

Karen Swensen, a former WWL-TV reporter, said Paulsen relished reporting the news.

“Eric loved the big story," she said. "He loved to be in the middle of it. … He was good at challenging authority on important stories. He could be forthright and respectful at the same time as he was getting to the crux of an issue.”

“I think Eric was a news guy’s news guy,” said Nicole Waivers, the station’s news director.

Even though Paulsen seemed born to be on television, he had considered being a veterinarian. He didn’t take that career path, but he and his wife, Bethany Paulsen, over the years built up a menagerie that included two chickens, two giant tortoises, a room-size aquarium, a parrot and a cat.

He earned a degree in journalism at Southern Illinois University, where he worked at the campus’ radio and television stations.

After graduation, he was a disc jockey in Illinois and Iowa before moving to television. His first television jobs were in Savannah, Georgia, and Madison, Wisconsin.

Paulsen came to WWL-TV as a weekend reporter in 1977. In 1979, he and Lea Sinclair were named co-anchors of the New Orleans version of “PM Magazine,” a syndicated program that featured local and national stories.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO -- Eric Paulsen and Lea Sinclair, co-hosts of the WWL's iteration of the nationally sydicated PM Magazine. The show ran in the 1980s.

During the program’s run of about five years, New Orleans was the source of a disproportionate number of stories that were broadcast nationwide “because New Orleans is just so crazy,” said Sinclair. “We always said it was the greatest gig we ever had.”

In 1985, Paulsen started working the morning shift, first with Andre Trevigne and then with Roberts.

“He could handle the light news, (but) when he was serious, he went to town,” Roberts said. “He was an excellent interviewer. He put people at ease. People would come into the station and they’d be nervous wrecks because they hadn’t been on TV. After a few minutes, they would be relaxed; it was as if they were talking to their best friend.”

Paulsen won a regional Emmy Award for his series about a trip to Cuba that New Orleans musicians and other culture bearers made. He also earned awards from the Press Club, The Associated Press and the Louisiana Association of Broadcasters.

Even though he became a treasured member of the New Orleans community, he didn’t plan it that way, his wife said.

“When he came here, he wasn’t planning on staying,” Bethany Paulsen said. “He wanted a network job. New Orleans embraced him, and he really embraced it back. This has become his home.”

“Whenever anyone needed anything — an MC, an auctioneer — Eric was there for the community,” Roberts said.

From left, WWL's Eric Paulsen, Don Westbrook and Andre Trevigne, circa 1988. (The Times-Picayune archive)

He got an indication of the regard New Orleanians had for him after the announcement that he would be undergoing cancer treatment, his wife said. “All day long, Eric was on the phone, talking to everyone and getting text messages.”

Knowing of Paulsen’s passion for New Orleans music and its practitioners, Roberts played a Thomas gospel CD when she visited him in his hospital room.

He couldn’t speak, she said. “But I saw his foot moving beneath the cover. He was listening.”

Paulsen was “one of a kind,” Roberts said. “There never has been and there never will be another Eric Paulsen.”

Survivors include his wife, Bethany Paulsen; two sons, Emmet Paulsen of New Orleans and Jon-Erik Mitchel of Dodge City, Kansas; a daughter, Lexei Schulz of New Orleans; a brother, Kim Paulsen of Chicago; and a sister, Karen Bauch of Winnipeg, Canada.

Funeral arrangements are incomplete.