Tom Jarriel Retires from ABC News (1964-2002)

The Shreveport Times | 10-11-02 | Staff Reports

[Theodore R.]

Ex-Shreveporter Tom Jarriel retires from ABC News today Staff and Wire Reports Posted on October 11, 2002

Former Shreveporter Tom Jarriel, the ABC 20/20 correspondent whose reporting on the plight of Romanian orphans led to thousands of adoptions, retires today after 38 years with the network.

Jarriel - a native of LaGrange, Ga.(west of Atlanta), and a graduate of C.E. Byrd High School in Shreveport - returned here last month to accept the Congressional Medal of Honor Society's "Tex" McCrary Award for Excellence in Journalism. While here, Jarriel also was inducted into the Walk of Fame on Shreveport's riverfront.

"It was the great, defining story of my career," Jarriel said of the series of nine stories he did from 1990 to 2001 that chronicled the wretched living conditions in Romanian orphanages. His reports prompted many Americans to adopt Romanian children. In fact, his producer, Janice Tomlin, now of CBS' 60 Minutes, adopted two children.

"It was sweet and sour on balance," Jarriel said. Although many kids found good homes, other adoptions didn't work.

And Jarriel said when he returned last year, conditions were as bad as ever. Kids he met years ago are back on the street. "They go out and steal all day. After all we had done and all the attention we had given to that wretched country, a lot hasn't changed."

[Theodore R.]

Obviously, the post-communist government in Romania is another of the world's many, many failures.