Television news reporter Greg Barnes, who covered community fundraisers, car accidents and hurricanes in southeastern North Carolina for WTVD with equal enthusiasm for nearly 35 years, died Wednesday after an illness.
He was 73.
Barnes started the station’s Fayetteville bureau in 1983 and led it until his retirement in 2017, becoming a trusted source and a local celebrity. As more reporters joined the station, Barnes taught them the ropes and gave them the advice he tried to follow when they had to be in front of a camera: just be yourself.
“Greg was the best,” says Rob Elmore, now president and general manager at WTVD. From 1998 to 2015, Elmore served as the station’s news director.
“Greg was passionate about his work and committed to the Fayetteville community, and he was a wonderful artist,” Elmore said. A big part of on-air news reporting is performing, Elmore said: getting comfortable in front of a camera and explaining a situation, with or without a script.
“He made something that was very unnatural look natural and easy,” Elmore said. “That’s a real talent.”
Gilbert Baez, now at WRAL, worked with Barnes for 17 years at WTVD and then competed against him in the same region until Barnes retired. They both got their start in radio, which Baez said was great training for when an announcer pitches to a reporter in the field to summarize a day’s events or describe an ongoing situation.
“It’s one thing to cover up a murder,” Baez said. “Those facts are stated there. But if you have to cover the event as it is happening, Greg Barnes was the best.”
Greg Barnes’ Favorite Stories
Barnes got his first news job at age 15, when he was hired by WAGR AM radio in Lumberton, his hometown.
“Your ability to sit in a radio booth with a microphone, an inanimate object, and make it sound like you’re talking to a thousand people in a room is a gift,” Baez said, and Barnes had it. “You bring that ability when you’re in front of a camera. It seems so natural, as if that person isn’t talking to a camera. They’re talking to one person in a living room, and it feels like they’re talking to me.”
Viewers believed Barnes was speaking to them; When Baez posted about Barnes’ death on Facebook, more than 600 people responded, many as if they had lost a friend.
In retirement, Barnes told the News & Observer that some of his favorite stories to cover were embedded with the 82nd Airborne out of Fort Bragg – now Fort Liberty – when troops were deployed overseas, and the homecoming of soldiers on the Green Disaster for the former Pope. Air Force base when they returned.
But he was also known for his weather reporting, especially when tropical storms or hurricanes threatened the southeastern coast of North Carolina.
A vast knowledge of the Carolina coast
The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore might have flown into the region when the local weather forecast looked dire, but Greg Barnes would get there first.
Barnes had a vast knowledge of the Carolina coast, Elmore said; he owned a cottage on Oak Island, and when a storm seemed brewing, he would take half a day off to board it up. He understood wind speeds, currents and beach erosion, Elmore said, “and he had the ability to talk to viewers for literally hours. He can go on and on and it can be meaningful and impactful.
On the beat, Barnes generally always wore a jacket, tie and a pair of cowboy boots, with the boots being as useful as they were recognizable.
He is survived by his wife of 53 years, Lynne Barnes; daughter, Heather Barnes Barker and her husband, Tom Barker of Clayton; son, Joshua Lee Barnes of Lumberton; and five grandchildren.
Floyd Mortuary and Crematorium is in charge of arrangements.
