Pioneering WMAQ cameraman dies at 88

When Billy Jennings was a young news photographer at WMAQ-TV, it hit him: He'd landed a big job in a big market with big on-air talent. He started to pace the newsroom floor.

Jennings remembers telling cameraman Jim Stricklin he was nervous.

"Let me tell you something," he said Stricklin told him. "There are times you're going to go out without a reporter - but they are never going to go out without you. You're the tip of the spear. If you didn't shoot it, it didn't happen. Tell that story with your pictures, and you'll be fine."

Stricklin, who was one of WMAQ's first Black news photographers and had a 40-year career, died July 26 at Kindred Chicago Lakeshore Hospital of COVID-19, according to Marita Joyce Stricklin, his wife of 57 years. The Hyde Park resident, who was 88, became ill despite having been vaccinated against the coronavirus, she said.

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