Pat Collins, longtime general assignment reporter at WRC Washington, has retired. Collins has been at the NBC station, known as NBC4, since 1986. Prior to that, he worked at WJLA Washington and WLS Chicago. He also spent seven years at WDVM Washington, now WUSA.
A Notre Dame graduate, Collins began his career at newspapers, at the Washington Daily News and then the Washington Star. He has earned 10 Emmy awards, two Clarion awards, and a Chesapeake Associated Press Award for Best Feature Reporter.
In a farewell video on WRC, he spoke about getting let go from WJLA for making too much money, and how he was inspired to beat WJLA when he came to work at WRC.
“Learn how to write,” Collins advised aspiring journalists. “Good writing is a window into your soul and you can learn your style by learning a style of writing that’s true to yourself. If you learn how to write, you learn how to tell a story. If you can tell a story you’re halfway there into making it in this business.”
He also urged up and coming journalists not to major in journalism. “What a waste of money,” he said, adding how much of what a student learns in journalism class can be learned outside of college.
Collins was inducted into The Silver Circle by the National Capital Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for his more than 25 years of television service in Washington.
He authored a memoir called News Man.
NBC4 sent Collins off December 21 with a bagpiper, with his grandchildren in attendance. ■
