Rich Lamb Retiring From WCBS-AM/NYC
• After an incredible 50-year career, the past 43 with Entercom’s WCBS 880/New York, City Hall Reporter Rich Lamb announced his retirement, effective at the end of February. In a staff memo announcing his impending departure, Lamb said, “It has been a most extraordinary honor of a professional lifetime to have been a member of the WCBS radio team. Even as I write this notice of my imminent departure, a flood of fond memories crowds my mind with the names of the scores of exceptionally talented people with whom I have had the honor of professional association and friendship, too many to mention here.”
Lamb’s radio career began in Detroit in 1970. In 1974 he moved to New York and joined the late WXLO (99X). In the course of doing street work, legendary WCBS political reporter Steve Flanders (after whom the plaza in front of City Hall is named) urged Lamb to try out for the reporter’s position being vacated by the renowned Jerry Nachman. In December 1977, WCBS News & Program Director Lou Adler hired Lamb, with a start date of Feb. 26, 1978. “Thus,” Lamb said, “I have requested that my last day will be February 26, 2021 — 43 years to the day after my first assignment, covering the ‘Polar Bear Plunge’ in Coney Island.”
“Rich is a one-of-a-kind reporter and human being,” said Tim Scheld, WCBS 880 News Director. “He will be missed not just for his broadcast journalism and eloquent storytelling but Rich is a selfless friend, colleague and mentor whose influence and friendships can be seen across the New York City landscape in business, journalism and politics. Rich may be leaving, but he has left each one of us at WCBS 880 with something to help us carry on his legacy.”
In closing, Lamb said to his co-workers, “I shall miss you all, and the privilege of what a colleague called ‘the best seat on the 50-yard line of life.'”
