Linda Ellerbee, ‘Nick News’ Journalist, Retires After 44 Years

After four decades as a television journalist, Linda Ellerbee is signing off, according to Variety. She will finish up on December 15, where Nickelodeon will air a retrospective on her 25-year career on Nick News.

“I’m a lucky woman,” said Ellerbee to Variety. “I saw the world, met many of the world’s most interesting people and was well paid to do so. Now I choose to go, and I go smiling. I’ve had a great time. And thank you for asking, but, no, I don’t intend to mellow.”

A native Texan known for her humor and style, Ellerbee began as a TV news correspondent in the ’70s before she landed the gig of co-anchor with Lloyd Dobyns for NBC News Overnight in 1982. She started hosting and producing for Nickelodeon in 1991 with Nick News, which helped kids such as myself better understand harrowing world events like the AIDS crisis, the racial motivations of the 1995 Oklahoma bombings, 9/11, the Kuwait invasion, and the Iraq War.

We ’90s kids like to wear rose glasses when it comes to pop culture nostalgia, but the ’90s were also a pretty shitty time, and it got even worse when we came of age at the turn of the century. But there was Linda Ellerbee, calm as a summer breeze, who walked through us the danger that lurked outside our door. But with intelligence and grace, she treated us like adults and taught us to not be afraid. For young bloggers and journalists like myself, Ellerbee represents one of the first known figures in reporting, and we couldn’t have had a better role model.

And so it goes. Thank you, Linda Ellerbee.