UT Tyler Oral History Collection

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  Mike (Malcolm) Landess Interview

  Archives Account and Mike (Malcolm) Landess

  Mike Landess oral history interview about his extraordinary career and time at UT Tyler.

  Mike (Malcolm) Landess served as news director for The University of Texas at Tyler’s KVUT 99.7 until August 2024 after the station ceased operations.

  Landess is a seasoned broadcast anchor, reporter, producer, writer and editor whose career began in Tyler radio while he was a high school senior. He’s been honored with nearly two dozen National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Emmys—five of which were for “Best Anchor” in Washington D.C., Atlanta and Denver. He’s also received six Edward R. Murrow Awards and is in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame and the Broadcast Pioneers of Colorado Hall of Fame.

  One of those Emmy recognitions was for his series of reports called “Prostate Cancer: My Story.” He reported on his own diagnosis and the state-of-the-art treatment he received in an FDA trial program. Those five reports later became a half-hour special that was eventually made available on DVD. The Prostate Conditions Council sent out hundreds of them, free of charge, to cancer patients worldwide.

  His first TV job at KLTV in Tyler led to WFAA in Dallas. Over the next decades, he was a primary evening news anchor at NBC Cleveland, KUSA in Denver, WXIA in Atlanta, WTTG in Washington, D.C. and back to Denver at KMGH.

  During the 16 years he was at KUSA, the station held the highest-rated local evening newscast in the U.S. (52 share) in 1982.

  He was transferred to anchor at Gannett’s WXIA in Atlanta during the Summer Olympics and on to WTTG in Washington D.C., where he covered the 9/11 attacks.

  Landess came back to Denver in 2002 to anchor the evening newscasts at KMGH for the next 12 years and retired from the anchor desk there in 2014. The TV news business drew him back to work in Texas and Denver over the next four years as an anchor, reporter, managing editor and digital media contributor. He served UT Tyler as News Director for KVUT/UT Tyler Radio, the University’s NPR-affiliate radio station from 2019 - 2024.