Jim Avila, Former ABC News Correspondent, Dies at 70
He spent almost two decades at the network, covering a wide range of court cases and the White House. He was also at the center of a defamation lawsuit over “pink slime.”
Jim Avila, a former ABC News correspondent who covered several major American trials in a wide-ranging and award-winning career that spanned decades, died on Wednesday at his home in San Diego. He was 70.
ABC News announced his death but did not specify the cause, saying only that it came after a long illness.
Mr. Avila joined ABC News in 2004, and as a national correspondent with a focus on law and justice he covered high-profile court cases, including Jerry Sandusky’s sexual-abuse case at Penn State and the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson’s physician who was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
He gained a reputation as a dogged and versatile reporter, one just as able to grill a sitting president as he was to cover a hot-button investigation, at a time with few Hispanic on-camera reporters in network television.
ADVERTISEMENT
Mr. Avila was also a White House reporter for the network during President Barack Obama’s second term, covering the reopening of diplomatic relations with Cuba, as well as a correspondent for “20/20,” ABC’s newsmagazine show.
Before joining ABC News, Mr. Avila was a national correspondent at NBC News from 2000 to 2004, where he covered the Sept. 11 attacks and the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This followed stints at KNBC Los Angeles, where he covered the O.J. Simpson trial, and other stops at Chicago television stations. His career plaudits include two National Emmy Awards and five Edward R. Murrow Awards.
Mr. Avila was also at the center of a notable defamation lawsuit brought by a meat-processing company in South Dakota. In a series of 2012 reports for ABC, he questioned the safety of processed beef trimmings that were once popular in ground beef, and repeatedly referred to the product as “pink slime.”
ADVERTISEMENT
The company, Beef Products Inc., sued for defamation, seeking $1.9 billion in damages. The Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC News, settled for at least $177 million, despite the network’s standing by the report.
“I wish they had had the chance to hear my side of the story,” Mr. Avila was quoted as saying in The Sioux City Journal, referring to jurors in the trial after the settlement was announced. “It’s important to note we’re not retracting anything or apologizing for anything.”
A native of Los Angeles, James Joseph Simon was born on July 26, 1955, and was a member of an accomplished family of journalists. He was the son of Jim Simon, a talk radio pioneer who died in 1995, and Eve Avila. In changing his name, Mr. Avila said he wanted to lean into his Mexican heritage.
“I decided to take my mother’s maiden name out of pride for the Hispanic people,” he said in a speech at St. Philip’s College in 2015, as recounted by The Junior Ranger, the student newspaper at San Antonio College.
ADVERTISEMENT
A graduate of Glenbard East High School in Lombard, Ill., outside Chicago, his career began at KCBS Radio in San Francisco. Three of his brothers also worked in broadcast journalism: Tom Simon, Jaie Avila and Christopher Simon, who died in 2020.
In the spring of 2018, Jaie saved his brother’s life. Mr. Avila was badly in need of a kidney transplant, and Jaie was a match. In an interview with Adweek after the surgery, Mr. Avila said that without the transplant, he was “just a week or so from being put in the hospice.”
“The surgery for me was also quite an ordeal,” he told Adweek. “But overall, when it’s all said and done, of course it was worth it. I have a future. I didn’t think I did.”
Mr. Avila’s survivors include his children, Evan Simon (also a journalist), James Simon and Jeannette Simon; his two brothers; and his sister, Karie Simon.
In the 2015 speech, Mr. Avila recalled becoming interested in journalism as a result of the Watergate scandal, which brought down President Richard M. Nixon.
ADVERTISEMENT
“They confronted him with words and questions, and he went down,” Mr. Avila said. “That is powerful stuff and it made me want to be a journalist.”
He left ABC News in 2021. Within two years, he went back to local news as a senior investigative reporter for KGTV in San Diego.
“I didn’t want to go back to local news just to cover the latest murder and fire,” Mr. Avila told The Times of San Diego. “I’ve been to every state in the country and every continent except Antarctica. I’ve covered the White House, wars, mass shootings. I still want to make an impact in news, and San Diego is a good place to do it.”
88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
Jim Avila, journalist for NBC, ABC and KNBC, dies at 70
Jim Avila, a longtime network news correspondent who reported on the O.J. Simpson trial for KNBC in Los Angeles, died Wednesday at Providence Hospital in Mission Viejo. He was 70.
Avila died from complications from a fall, according to NBC News correspondent Josh Mankiewicz, a friend and former colleague. A kidney transplant recipient, Avila had been in hospice care for six weeks.
Avila is the son of the late Jim Simon, a radio executive who helped pioneer the news talk format at KABC in Los Angeles. He went by his maternal grandmother’s last name professionally, as did two of his three brothers who all worked in broadcast journalism.
Avila grew up in Lombard, Ill., a western suburb of Chicago where he attended Glenbard East High School. He began his career in 1973 as a reporter for KCBS-AM, an all-news station in San Francisco. He shifted to television three years later at KPIX-TV, where he was the San José bureau chief.
Avila headed to Chicago in 1980 where he joined the local news operation at ABC-owned WLS and later worked for the CBS outlet WBBM, where he reported on politics and served as an anchor.
Avila moved to Los Angeles in 1994 to join KNBC, and became a fixture outside the downtown courthouse where Simpson was on trial in the murder of his wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend Ron Goldman. Avila covered the story from the day police first investigated the killings at Simpson’s Brentwood home. His work earned an Emmy and a Golden Mike Award.
As with many TV journalists at the time, the Simpson saga was Avila’s ticket to a network career. He moved to the Midwest bureau of NBC in Chicago in 1996 and became a national correspondent for “NBC Nightly News.”
Durable and versatile, he averaged 130 reports annually during his years on the NBC broadcast. He reported from Afghanistan and Iraq, and he filed from inside the network’s Baghdad hotel compound during and after a terrorist bombing attack.
Avila jumped to ABC News in 2004, where he was the senior justice and law correspondent and covered high-profile trials for the network. Avila had a stint as White House correspondent from 2012 to 2016.
Avila was the correspondent for a 2012 ABC News report on the use of processed meat product known as pink slime, used as filler in ground beef. A South Dakota meat processor, Beef Products Inc., said it was damaged by the report that questioned the safety of its goods and filed a defamation suit against ABC News for $1.9 billion.
ABC News settled the case for $177 million but stood by its reporting.
In 2017, Avila worked out of Los Angeles, specializing in law and justice and consumer investigations. A frequent presence on “World News Tonight” and “20/20,” he remained with the network until 2022.
Avila won numerous awards over his career, including Reporter of the Year from the National Assn. of Hispanic Journalists in 1999. He won a Cine Golden Eagle Award for a report on an immigrant couple who put their son through MIT by collecting cans through the streets of Los Angeles.
Avila briefly came out of retirement in 2023, working as an investigative reporter for KGTV in San Diego.
He is survived by his mother, Eve Simon; two brothers: Jaie Avila, an investigative reporter for WOAI in San Antonio, and Thomas Avila; a sister, Kari Lemay; and three children, Jamie, Jeanette and Evan.
88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
Jim Avila | |
|---|---|
| Born | James Joseph Simon July 26, 1955 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Died | November 12, 2025 (aged 70) San Diego, California, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Television journalist, news correspondent |
| Years active | 1979–2025 |
| Children | 3[1] |
88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
James Avila (born James Joseph Simon; July 26, 1955 – November 12, 2025) was an American television journalist who worked as the Senior Law and Justice Correspondent for ABC News.
Background
Avila was born James Joseph Simon in Los Angeles on July 26, 1955, to James and Eva (née Avila) Simon, and grew up in the Chicago suburb of Lombard, Illinois, where he graduated from Glenbard East High School.[1][2] His father also worked in broadcasting, as a host and executive in talk radio.[1][3] Avila used his mother's maiden name during his career to pay tribute to his Mexican ancestry.[1]
Career
Before joining ABC in 2004, Avila was a correspondent for NBC News. He frequently anchored ABC's World News Saturday.[4]
From 1994 to 1996, Avila was the investigative reporter for local NBC station KNBC in Los Angeles, where he covered the murder trial of O. J. Simpson.[1] The station won the 1995 Golden Mike Award and a 1996 Emmy Award for that trial coverage.[citation needed]
Avila retired from ABC News in 2021, and later joined KGTV, ABC's San Diego affiliate, where he was an investigative reporter.[1]
Personal life and death
Avila had three children.[1] He had a kidney transplant in 2018; his brother Jaie was the donor.[1]
Avila died after a long illness at his home in San Diego on November 12, 2025, at the age of 70.[2][5]
References
- Deb, Sopan (November 13, 2025). "Jim Avila, Former ABC News Correspondent, Dies at 70". The New York Times.
- "Obituary: Jim Avila". Williston Trending Topics News Radio Live on Facebook. 12 November 2025. Retrieved 13 November 2025.
- "'Father of Talk Radio' Jim Simon Dies at 61". Los Angeles Times. 7 June 1995.
- "White House promotion reminds Avila of Chicago roots". Time Out Chicago. Archived from the original on February 13, 2013. Retrieved February 7, 2013.
- Moore, Julia (14 November 2025). "Jim Avila, Former ABC News Correspondent, Dies at 70 After a 'Long Illness'". People. Retrieved 14 November 2025.
88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
No comments:
Post a Comment