A longtime airborne traffic reporter for KFWB, KNX, and KFI who guided Southern California drivers through innumerable sig alerts, freeway backups, and large brush fires, Jeff Baugh de@th on Tuesday night.
Baugh was employed with KFI at the time of his passing. He began reporting for KFWB in 1986. According to former program director Andy Ludlum, Baugh was KFWB’s “secret weapon” and an essential component of its news coverage.
Baugh worked for KNX News from 2008 to 2017, and many of his coworkers still remember him affectionately. Pete Demetriou, a reporter, recalled Baugh’s “encyclopedic knowledge” of the transportation network.
He claimed that “he could actually create word pictures that would affect a person who was actually driving in their car.” “When you say there’s an issue on the 101, that’s one thing, but Jeff would describe where it was and, more crucially, how to go around it in such a way that you could sit there, make up your mind, and say, ‘you know what? I’d best turn and pay attention to this guy, or I’d better leave right away.”
Baugh was like a “warm hug” to Jennifer York, traffic anchor for “LA’s Morning News.” He would come over and give me a hug at the airport whenever I was grounded while travelling for Channel Five, and the two of us would share doughnuts, she recounted. David G. Hall, a former KNX program director, stated that Baugh was committed to his work.
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“Every time he would enter the building, he would find a way or find time to come into my office and ask how he was doing what he needed to do differently,” he claimed. “What worked and what didn’t work. He constantly looked for ways to improve and identify new, seemingly insignificant information to accomplish his job more effectively. If you like, Jeff’s second life was reporting traffic.
Baugh was called a “second dad” Scott Burt by KNX traffic reporter Scott Burt.
We had our moments, like any relationship like that, he tweeted. A mix of good and bad. He occasionally irritated me, and I’m sure I occasionally irritated him as well. Having said that, without this man, I would not be where I am now. When other people didn’t, he had faith in me.
Check the tweet below by Scott Burt, a KNX traffic reporter:
Shocked at the passing of one of my mentors Jeff Baugh. He was a legendary Los Angeles Airborne Reporter, and in some ways like a second father to me. .. pic.twitter.com/ghgFpqpUJg
— scott burt (@scottburtknx) June 7, 2023
Outside of traffic reporting, Baugh led a second life as a vehicle enthusiast who, in Burt’s words, was “inspirational” when maintaining them. He was a Vietnam War veteran, a fan of NHRA drag racing, and a Marine. Additionally, he is one of the co-authors of the book “Stick With Us, And We’ll Get You There: How To Be Where You Want To Be On The Road And In Life.”
Additionally, Jeff Baugh was a DJ at the historic Studio 54 and knew Rick James directly. Burt claimed that Baugh mentioned helping with the disco song “Born to Be Alive.”
“Jeff’s was a life well lived, and we were all a little better for knowing him,” Vicky Moore of the LA Morning News stated.
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