Obituary - Michael Conlon-a calm, cool general news anchor in the Midwest

Mike Conlon, who for many years anchored general news coverage for Reuters in the US Midwest, died on July 15, 2025, in Park Ridge, Illinois, after a brief illness. He was 84.

Mike retired in 2009 after 28 years with Reuters based in Chicago, following two decades at UPI covering politics and general news out of Chicago and Detroit and Washington DC.

Affable and self-effacing, Mike zeroed in on the core of a story and wrote with a clarity and flair that made the copy sing. His writing was a joy for editing desks and a model for the many reporters he worked with.

Whether it was an airliner crashing almost in his backyard (AA191 near O’Hare airport in 1979) or riots in the streets during the Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968, Mike handled breaking news with a calm, cool hand on the tiller.

At Reuters he was a classic “fireman,” called into teams covering big national or international news, be it the Gulf War, US political conventions or sagas like the Branch Davidian siege near Waco, Texas, in 1993. His coverage of the Timothy McVeigh execution in 2001 won the Lisagor Award, the local Chicago Pulitzers.

In his final decade with Reuters, he produced dozens of elegant columns and features on national beats like Religion or Consumer Health. Working hand in hand with colleagues like Phil Pullella in Rome or Nobel Prize teams, Mike was cheerful, accurate and efficient.

A note by Mike’s wife Jennifer is here: 

https://memorials.countrysidefuneralhomes.com/michael-j-conlon/5617213/#wall

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