Fred Griffith has worked in Cleveland broadcasting since 1959.

He is now with WKYC, the NBC affiliate in Cleveland. For 33 years he was with WEWS, as a reporter, news producer, news and public affairs director, and for over 26 years, host of the daily two hour Morning Exchange program.

For nearly five years he was also co-host of the hour-long Afternoon Exchange.

He holds the national record for time on live TV, more than 13,700 hours. He has conducted over 40 thousand interviews, has written and produced scores of specials and documentaries, and has written and aired 2200 news commentaries.

He is in the Cleveland Press Club Hall of Fame and holds the Distinguished Service Award from the Society for Professional Journalists and the Cleveland Association of Broadcasters Award for Excellence.

He has received Emmys for his work and in 1992 was inducted into the television academy's Silver Circle.

His work had kept him close to community concerns. He has served on the boards of the Appalachian Action Council, the Golden Age Centers of Cleveland, the Cleveland International Film Festival, the City Club of Cleveland, the Bio-Medical Ethics Community Advisory Committee at Case Western Reserve, and is past president of the West Shore Unitarian Church and the Society for Professional Journalists.

Griffith grew up working in his family's restaurant in Charleston, West Virginia. He majored in philosophy at West Virginia University.

After service as an Air Force officer, he became a broadcast journalist, working as a radio news director in Charleston before moving to Cleveland.

He has been a serious climber and a long distance runner, and is among the small group of people who have stood at both the north and south poles. He has been to every continent.

He has worked with his wife, Linda, on five cookbooks. Their latest is Garlic Garlic Garlic from Houghton Mifflin.

The Best of the Midwest (Viking, 1990) profiled creative chefs in the region. The New American Farm Cookbook (Viking, 1993) grew out of a study of the farmer-chef connection.

Their first book for Chapters, Onions Onions Onions, (1994) won a James Beard Award. Cooking Under Cover (Chapters, 1996) was a best seller and a main selection of the Book of the Month Club.

They are now beginning research on a new project tentatively titled Nuts! The Cookbook.

He has also written Cleveland; Continuing the Renaissance (Towery, 1997).

He is a columnist for Currents, published by the Chagrin Valley Times.

Between them they have five children and ten grandchildren. The Griffiths live in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, with a house full of pets, as many as the law allows.

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