Bert Case remembered as great newsman, friend
TV icon dies after extended illness
Bert Case was remembered Monday as a great reporter and friend.
A memorial service was held at St. Paul Catholic Church in Flowood for the 76-year-old broadcasting legend who died Thursday after an extended illness.
Gov. Phil Bryant and Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace were among those who spoke during the service.
“Bert’s drive, his ability to see through the fog to get to the truth was unparalleled. He had a relationship with the people of the state of Mississippi. They trusted him. They had confidence in him. If Bert Case said it, it was the real deal,” Pace said. “Whether he was bringing good news, or often times bad news, he had a way of relaying it as if it were from a family member. You just trusted him.”
Many friends and co-workers shared fond, and often times funny, stories about Bert. Everyone spoke of how Bert was a caring, thoughtful friend.
“The man is the TV news business in Mississippi. One of my favorite days was walking into the newsroom and telling them that Bert was going to be on our news team. Keegan (Foxx) walked up to Bert and told him, ‘It feels like Christmas morning,’ and it really did. It felt like we were unwrapping a gift,” 16 WAPT news director Ben Hart said. “Bert wanted to tell the stories and save history so we could all learn from it.”
The governor said he and Bert had been friends for 40 years.
“Bert, on that day, as he did every day I talked to him after, always knew exactly what he wanted to ask you and didn’t hesitate in doing so,” Bryant said. “When that light came on, Bert Case was going to ask you the question (and) he expected you to know the answer. He made me a better public official. He held me accountable. Bert Case was a professional and he expected you to be in your answer."
Bryant said Bert will be remembered for generations to come for his body of work, his wonderful demeanor and dedication as a journalist.
Bert was surrounded by his family and friends when he passed away Thursday afternoon at the VA Medical Center in Jackson. He would have celebrated his 77th birthday on Saturday.
Bert had been hospitalized since Sept. 1 after a diagnosis of sepsis, a complication from an infection. His condition had improved over the past few weeks, but he recently took a turn for the worse, his wife, Mary Wieden, said.
"This is very sad, because we all lost someone, not just me, Mississippians have lost their guy," Wieden said.
Bert covered some of the biggest stories of the century. He began his career in 1960 at WMPS radio in Memphis. In 1971, Bert went on to become the first news director and anchor at 16 WAPT. After leaving WLBT, Bert returned to 16 WAPT, where he would finish his career.
Some of Bert’s stories have become legendary in Mississippi.
“There’s hardly a day that goes by that somebody doesn’t says something to me about Gov. Kirk Fordice threatening to ‘whip my ass’ for asking him about what it felt like to go to Europe with his childhood sweetheart, while he left his wife of 44 years at home. Naturally, he didn’t take kindly to that question,” Bert said last year. “He had told me five years prior to that that he had told his wife to leave and she wouldn’t leave. I said, ‘Governor, do you realize you’re telling me something and you didn’t say it was off the record? I can use that.’ And he said, ‘I don’t give a damn what you do with it.’ He walked off, and that’s when I decided I was going to do the story.”
Bert had his share of memorable moments, including a short stint as a rapper. Bert recorded a rap of “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)” that went viral.
“It’s a new world,” Bert told Y101’s Carson and Murphy last July. “I come out here to report on a rap song, read a little bit of it into a television camera and it produced all this. I just can’t believe it.”
Bert spoke last year with former Gov. Haley Barbour about the state's response to Hurricane Katrina. The governor and Bert flew over the coast in a helicopter the day after hurricane hit the Gulf Coast in 2005.
"Bert Case, who I referred to as the most grizzled television reporter in Jackson and the dean of all television reporters in our state, we saw each other and both cried," Barbour said.
Bert covered every major story in Mississippi either as a news director, reporter or producer for 50 years.
“A lot of stories stand out in my mind as being important, but nothing like Hurricane Camille and nothing like Fordice,” Bert said. “But I’m also very well known for having fought off a bulldog.
"A pit bull was attacking me one time. I was covering a story out in the Queens section of Jackson. A little girl had gotten shot in her house. I was out there with Megan (West). We were both there at the same time. This dog comes charging down. I had seen the sign, ‘Beware of Dog,’ and here I am out there with nothing to protect myself with but a reporter’s notebook. That’s all I had. I started swinging it at it, telling the dog to go home.”
Bert said the spiral of his notebook hit the dog on the nose, which made him back off.
“I thought I had done everything wrong fighting that dog off,” Bert said. “But I found out they use that video to teach people the right thing to do if a dog charges you. Charge back, you know, yell at him. Don’t try to outrun it because you can’t do it. The dog will catch you every time.”
Bert was not just known for his stories, but also for his voice.
“This is how I’ve always talked. Ask anybody who’s known me since those days,” Bert said. “I think it’s very important to read news very carefully and very articulately and to pronounce your words well. I have old people tell me all the time, ‘You’re the only one I can understand on television,’ and I always remember that.”
Just his name, Bert Case, is something people that remember.
“Here’s the way it happened. I was walking across the parking lot at a Walmart on Lakeland Drive. A woman yelled at me, ‘Is your name Bird Cage?’ I said, ‘No ma’am, my name is Beeerrrt Case.’ She said, ‘If you said it like that on TV, people wouldn’t think you were saying Bird Cage.’ I said, ‘You know, I’ll try that, and I tried it and people liked it. They laughed about it. They remembered it and they imitated it. Every time I walked in Walmart, people walked by and they’d go, ‘Beeeerrrt Case.’”
Bert said one of the favorite parts of his job was talking to young people.
“And what’s the most important part of this business and how do you go about doing this business? I tell them to remember something out of the Bible, ‘Ask and ye shall receive. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened to you.’ It absolutely works every time. There’s no failure with that message. If you follow what that message says, you will get a news story,” Bert said.
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