KWTX Waco Names Two Top News Execs

Bob Walters, who has headed news departments in three states, has joined Gray Television’s CBS affiliate KWTX Waco-Temple-Killeen, Texas (DMA 87), as news director. At the same time, Reed Watson, a Texas native whose 40-year television career includes 17 years with CBS News as a regional producer, has been named assistant news director.

Walters succeeds Mikel Lauber, who is now director of news at KOLN-KGIN in Lincoln, Neb.

“The search for the next leader of this newsroom was extensive,” said KWTX VP-GM Mike Wright. “We were looking for people to help this team expand the lead, not protect it. With the many recognitions KWTX has been humbled to receive lately, the person leading this newsroom must be visionary and dedicated to journalistic excellence, taking us to the next level of performance.  Adding Bob and Reed to this team ensures we will remain focused on our goal to operate at a higher level of integrity, further improving our position as the region’s leading content provider.”

The station said the addition of the two veteran journalists to a staff that also includes longtime managing editor and former news director Rick Bradfield, creates a newsroom management team with more than a century of daily news-gathering experience.

Walters holds degrees from Ohio University and Southern Illinois University and has nearly 30 years of experience in broadcast news including stints as news director over the past 20 years in Clarksburg, W. Va.; Evansville, Ind.; and most recently Monroe, La. He also served for five years as an adjunct instructor at the University of Southern Indiana, teaching broadcast news and production courses.

Watson, a 1977 special honors graduate of the University of Texas, worked with CBS affiliates in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana as well as with the CBS Evening News and CBS This Morning, coordinating the network’s coverage in the southwestern U.S.

He has worked as a photographer at stations in his native Midland and San Antonio, covering assignments in such far flung places as communist Eastern Europe, El Salvador, Belize and Mexico.

He left San Antonio to work as an editor at KXAS Dallas-Fort Worth, working his way up to chief editor and then Dallas bureau chief before moving to KTVT Dallas where he spent about a year on the assignment desk before accepting the regional producer position with CBS.