Jim Avila, a veteran ABC Information correspondent whose investigative reporting earned him a few of broadcast journalism's most prestigious awards, has died after a prolonged battle with sickness, the community introduced.
Avila, 69, died Wednesday at his home in San Diego, his household stated.
“Jim was a gifted journalist and a beneficiant colleague,” ABC Information boss Almin Karamehmedovic said in an email to staff.
Avila confronted well being challenges “with braveness,” ABC Information stated.
He acquired a kidney transplant donated by his brother in 2020 and left the community in 2021.
Avila labored at ABC Information for practically twenty years as a Los Angeles-based senior correspondent who coated politics, justice, regulation and shopper investigations.
He additionally served as a “20/20” correspondent.
From 2012 to 2016, Avila coated the White Home throughout President Barack Obama's second time period.
He received the distinguished Merriman Award from the White Home Correspondents Affiliation in 2015 for breaking the information that america and Cuba had reopened diplomatic relations.
His profession spanned coverage of major trials together with Jerry Sandusky, Michael Jackson and OJ Simpson.
He made a number of journeys to the southern border to doc immigration tales and coated the demise of Freddie Grey and civil unrest in Baltimore.
Avila's work earned him two Nationwide Emmy Awards and 5 Edward R. Murrow Awards, together with the Cine Golden Eagle Award, the Mongerson Prize for Investigative Reporting and 5 Chicago-area Emmy Awards within the class of Spot Information.
The Nationwide Affiliation of Hispanic Journalists named him reporter of the yr in 1999 and inducted him into its Corridor of Fame in 2019.
Earlier than becoming a member of ABC Information in 2004, Avila labored as an investigative reporter for the native NBC station in Los Angeles, the place his protection of the OJ Simpson homicide case helped the station win an Emmy Award in 1996.
Two years after leaving ABC Information, Avila returned to journalism in 2023 as a senior investigative reporter at KGTV, the ABC affiliate in San Diego.
When requested why he got here again to work, Avila told the Times of San Diego that “retirement was boring.”
“I've been to each state within the nation and each continent besides Antarctica. I've coated the White Home, wars, mass shootings,” he stated in January 2024.
“I nonetheless wish to make an affect in information and San Diego is an efficient place to do it.”
On the time, Avila wrote that KGTV represented the “remaining section of my 50-year profession in broadcasting, spanning each radio and TV.”
Tributes poured in Thursday from colleagues and associates.
“He was such a presence and true old skool journalist,” TV information anchor Scott Thuman wrote on Instagram.
“His legacy will reside on properly past right this moment. I hope his household and associates discover peace.”
Anchor Frank Buckley wrote: “One of many greats in broadcast journalism has handed. Jim Avila, former correspondent for @ABC@NBCNews, a Cubs fan, and certainly one of my shut associates with whom I had too many nights out to depend was somebody who cared deeply about journalism, his associates, his household. I'll miss him.”
“We ship our heartfelt condolences to his household, together with his three kids, Jamie, Jenny, and Evan, and we thank him for his many contributions and unwavering dedication to looking for out the reality,” Karamehmedovic stated.
