Steve Bosh: A Reporter Tried and True
“OUR JOB IS ONLY TO HOLD UP THE MIRROR — to tell and show the public what has happened.” Those words, spoken by Walter Cronkite, inspired a young man growing up in the woods of western Pennsylvania, the middle child in a family of 15.
The subsequent career of Steve Bosh has taken him from spinning vinyl at a revolutionary 1960s Colorado radio station to covering the White House and interviewing astronauts. He has won multiple Emmys for reporting and news anchoring and has been with KUSI News for 15 years. Bosh recalls the first time he realized the raw emotion and responsibility of covering hard news as a rookie reporter in 1970. The Wichita State football team plane crashed into the mountains of Colorado, killing 31 people.
“That’s probably the first big story I covered,” he says. “Strangely enough, you see these things, but they don’t affect you right away because you have a job to do. They affect you afterwards. That was when I figured out that reporting hard news is what I’m cut out to do.”
A voracious reader, Bosh is on a never-ending quest to learn. His wife refers to him affectionately as “the learner.”
“It’s true. I like to learn things,” he says. “I’ve never been to college. I’ve educated myself, and I still do. Every day is an education to me. I live for the news, and I take my job very seriously.”
The veteran newsman (nearly four decades covering the news) worked for NBC in Denver and CBS in New York before joining KUSI in San Diego. A subscriber of old-school news ethics, Bosh firmly believes the news must be autonomous. When he has an opportunity to talk to students, he tells them that; and then he gives them the tool with which to conquer the world:
“I tell them to read, read, read,” he says. “It doesn’t matter what you read, just read. If you get into the habit of reading, it will take over and direct you. Maybe one sentence somewhere will excite something in your mind that will take you on a journey. Then, you’ll look for other things that are related to that journey. And once you start reading, you won’t be able to stop.”
Bosh covers the news full time at KUSI and can be found in the 6 and 10 p.m. news slot. He covers City Hall, the City Council, politics and the military. When he’s not working, he’s hanging out with his wife, watching the History Channel or playing a little golf.
