Paul Klite, Executive Director of Denver-based Rocky Mountain Media Watch, died June 24. Born in New York, he was 62.
Klite was a founder of RMMW, an activist organization dedicated to challenging the focus on violence, sensation, fluff, and commercialism in the media. Under Klite's leadership beginning in 1994, RMMW received widespread acclaim for its reports detailing the unbalanced content of local television news. As principal author of most RMMW publications, Klite became one of the nation's leading critics of local TV news, logging hundreds of media appearances and lectures. He received a Media Hero Award from the Institute for Alternative Journalism in 1996.
From 1989 to 1992, Klite produced Terra Infirma, a weekly public radio series dealing with social and environmental issues. The program, syndicated on 100 stations, was funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Terra Infirma was voted the best national news program of 1990 by the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, and Klite received the performance art award from the Colorado Federation of the Arts.
Prior to becoming a radio producer and then a media critic, Klite spent 15 years working as a sculptor, producing and exhibiting several hundred pieces in cast aluminum, plastic, concrete and mining waste. His sculptural forms were biomorphic and minimalist.
Klite's career as an artist came after a successful career as a physician. He graduated from Duke University Medical School in 1962, interned at the University of Colorado, spent two years as an International Research Associate at the US Public Health Service and the National Institutes of Health and joined the faculty of the University of Colorado as an Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Medicine. He authored 13 scientific articles based on original research in infectious diseases.
Klite was active in community affairs throughout his life in Denver. From 1969 to 1972, he was the research director for the plaintiffs in the Denver school desegregation suit.
Klite was an avid backpacker and gypsy fiddler.
Klite is survived by his sister, Nicki Klite-Truppman, cousins Marilyn and Stan Kornfeld, numerous nephews, nieces, other cousins, and many loving friends.
A date for a memorial service has not been set. Donations should be sent to Rocky Mountain Media Watch, Box 18858, Denver, CO, 80218.