John Korbel, a longtime journalist, television news director and journalism professor who also chronicled the Carnival activities of the Rex Organization for more than 40 years as a member of its public relations committee, died Saturday. He was 75.
Korbel had battled cancer in recent years but the disease was in remission up until this summer, according to his son Todd.
This past Mardi Gras, Korbel served on Rex’s public relations team, a job he held for more than 40 years. He helped arrange publicity material for the media about the krewe’s monarchs and chronicled nearly every aspect of the celebration for the organization as a photographer and producer.
“It is hard to imagine a Rex event without John there, camera in hand, preserving and documenting Rex’s colorful history as it unfolded,” said Dr. Stephen Hales, the Rex Organization archivist who reigned as King of Carnival in 2017. “John was one of those generous, in-the-trenches workers whose labors often go unnoticed and unpraised.”
The Rex Organization does plan to recognize Korbel’s efforts by naming its video archives in his honor, Hales said. He was able to visit Korbel and his family shortly before his death and tell him of the honor. The archives are comprised of hours of footage taken of Rex monarchs and krewe members not just during parades but also at krewe functions and pre-parade activities as well as the Rex ball and Meeting of the Courts. “I can’t begin to count how many hours of the video collected in what will now be known as the John G. Korbel Rex Video Archives came from John’s own camera,” Hales said.
Mark Romig, who also serves the Rex Organization on its public relations committee, said Korbel’s long career in broadcast journalism made him a natural for the job of video archivist for the King of Carnival. Korbel also coordinated annual live coverage of the Rex parade, which through his efforts was made available to broadcasters around the world, live via satellite.
“John represented the generation of communication and broadcast professionals who never counted the hours or the challenges,” Romig said. “Instead, he always made the stories the main objective. For the Rex Organization, he was a storyteller extraordinaire.”
Originally from Chicago, Korbel’s New Orleans journalism career dates to the mid-1960s, when he worked as a news anchor at WVUE-TV. By 1969, he was anchoring at WDSU-TV, where he also served as managing editor and eventually as news director from 1972 to 1974.
"John gave me my first job in a newsroom when he hired me as an intern at Channel 6," said former WWL-TV reporter Bill Capo, who also studied under Korbel when he taught journalism at Loyola University. "He was my teacher, my mentor, my boss, my co-worker, but best of all, my friend throughout my career. He was always such a good friend, a highly engaged, consummate professional with the highest standards."
After leaving WDSU, Korbel formed his own production company and handled video work for clients in a variety of fields.
In the 1980s, Korbel worked as assignment editor at WWL-TV, supervising story assignments for reporters and photographers and overseeing coverage of breaking news for more than a decade. He was part of the Eyewitness News team which won the National Edward R. Murrow Award in 1989.
In 1994, Korbel became news director at KATC-TV in Lafayette and also led the KVHP-TV newsroom as news director in Lake Charles in the 2000s.
While mentoring and guiding young journalists as a manager at both stations, Korbel also educated future journalists in his role as a journalism professor at Loyola and later at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. In recent years, he would commute from his home in New Orleans to Lafayette several times a week for classes.
“To say John was beloved by his students would be an understatement. His classes, elective and required, maxed out in enrollment and the praise of his students was sky high,” wrote Dr. William Davie, a professor at the University of Louisiana Lafayette and coordinator of the Department of Communication’s broadcast sequence.
Korbel was a graduate of Western Michigan University and a U.S. Army veteran.
He is survived by his wife of 52 years, Cheryl Navarro Korbel; four children: Cezanne K. Weis of Salina, Kansas; Todd Korbel; Adam Korbel and Chavanne K. McDonald of Memphis, Tennessee; as well as four grandchildren; a brother, several nieces and nephews.
A funeral Mass will be said Thursday at 3 p.m. St. Patrick Catholic Church, 724 Camp St. in New Orleans. Visitation will be from 1 p.m. until Mass time.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Manresa Endowment Fund, P.O. Box 89, Convent, LA 70723.