John Roland, longtime New York news anchor, dead at 81

Legendary broadcast journalist and longtime New York City news anchor John Roland died Sunday at 81, his former employer Fox 5 announced.

Roland anchored the 10 p.m. newscast on New York’s Channel 5 for roughly three decades after beginning at the station as a weekday political reporter and weekend anchor in 1969.

The reporter became Fox 5’s nightly news anchor about 10 years later — a position he held up until his retirement in 2004.

His presence remained steadfast on the nightly news desk as he anchored alongside numerous colleagues over his tenure — including Rosanna Scotto in the 1990s.

“He taught me about fairness in presenting the news,” Scotto said of Roland. “I felt his passion and respect for the audience who watched his nightly broadcast.”

Roland delivered New Yorkers the day’s news with “his frank delivery and his compassion” for residents whether it was a quiet day in the Big Apple or a chaotic tragedy like on 9/11, according to Fox 5.

“Sitting next to John was always a learning lesson,” Scotto said. “He took pride in his writing and his down-to-earth communicating. It was never more evident than anchoring next to him during the 9/11 attacks.”

The Pittsburgh-born journalist began his broadcast news career in California in the 1960s, where he first worked for NBC before getting a reporting gig at KTTV in Los Angeles.

Later, he covered the Robert F. Kennedy assassination and the Charles Manson Trial, according to Fox 5.

He swapped coasts and headed to New York in December 1969, where he joined the NY sister station to KTTV which would later be bought by Fox and changed to Fox 5 News.

Roland was also known to make the news.

In 1983, he confronted armed robbers who stormed into the former Racing Club, a restaurant across the street from the Fox 5 studios, where he and a friend were having dinner.

Roland tussled with one of the three robbers and shot him in the leg before he was struck over the head with a gun by the other armed bandits, according to the station.

About five years later, he was briefly suspended from the station for letting his “emotions prevail over objectivity” after getting into an on-air argument with Joyce Brown, a mentally ill homeless woman who the Mayor Koch administration forcibly hospitalized.

After apologizing, Roland returned to the station where he worked for many more years.

The longtime anchor was living in Florida at the time of his death. He is survived by his wife Zayda.