A college dropout schooled in the rough-and-tumble of Chicago journalism, Chancellor covered his first national political convention in 1952. But his most memorable convention was the Republican gathering that nominated Barry Goldwater in 1964. Getting in the way of some media-baiting delegates, he was thrown out for blocking the aisle. He provided live coverage of his own expulsion, signing off as ““John Chancellor, somewhere in custody.''
He pronounced his name, rather grandly, with an emphasis on the last syllable and cultivated the conservative appearance of ““a man who worked for the State Department in the mid-’50s and didn’t need the money,’’ as he put it. When he retired, Chancellor told an interviewer: ““I really think I’ve outlived the culture here.’’ Television culture is the poorer without him.
