Steven R. Hurst, who over a decades-long career in journalism covered major world events including the end of the Soviet Union and the Iraq War as he worked for news outlets including The Associated Press, NBC and CNN, has died. He was 77.
Hurst, who retired from AP in 2016, died sometime between Wednesday night and Thursday morning at his home in Decatur, Illinois, his daughter, Ellen Hurst, said Friday. She said his family didn’t know a cause of death but said he had congestive heart failure.
“Steve had a front-row seat to some of the most significant global stories, and he cared deeply about ensuring people around the world understood the history unfolding before them,” said Julie Pace, AP’s executive editor and senior vice president. “Working alongside him was also a master class in how to get to the heart of a story and win on the biggest breaking news.”
He first joined the AP in 1976 as a correspondent in Columbus, Ohio, after working at the Decatur Herald and Review in Illinois. The next year, he went to work for AP in Washington and then to the international desk before being sent to Moscow in 1979. He then did a brief stint in Turkey before returning to Moscow in 1981 as bureau chief.
He left AP in the mid-1980s, working for NBC and then CNN.
Reflecting on his career upon retirement, Hurst said in Connecting, a newsletter distributed to current and former AP employees by a retired AP journalist, that a career highlight came when he covered the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 while he was working for CNN.
“I interviewed Boris Yeltsin live in the Russian White House as he was about to become the new leader, before heading in a police escort to the Kremlin where we covered Mikhail Gorbachev, live, signing the papers dissolving the Soviet Union,” Hurst said. “I then interviewed Gorbachev live in his office.”
Hurst returned to AP in 2000, eventually becoming assistant international editor in New York. Prior to his appointment as chief of bureau in Iraq in 2006, Hurst had rotated in and out of Baghdad as a chief editor for three years and also wrote from Cairo, Egypt, where he was briefly based.
He spent the last eight years of his career in Washington writing about U.S. politics and government.
Hurst, who was born on March 13, 1947, grew up in Decatur and graduated from Millikin University, which is located there. He also had a master’s in journalism from the University of Missouri.
Ellen Hurst said her father was funny and smart, and was “an amazing storyteller.”
“He’d seen so much,” she said.
She said his career as a journalist allowed him to see the world, and he had a great understanding from his work about how big events affected individual people.
“He was very sympathetic to people across the world and I think that an experience as a journalist really increased that,” Ellen Hurst said.
His wife Kathy Beaman died shortly after Hurst retired. In addition to his daughter, Ellen Hurst, he’s also survived by daughters Sally Hurst and Anne Alavi and four grandchildren.
“Beyond his remarkable career, Steve was the consummate gentleman, treating everyone around him with respect and kindness,” said Ken Guggenheim, a news editor in AP’s Washington bureau. “I recall in particular his care and support for his wife Kathy during her tough fight against cancer and how proud he was of his daughters.”
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