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Thomas Edwin "Tom" Jarriel is a retired American television news reporter who worked for the ABC network from 1964 to 2002.
Jarriel's parents were the late William Lester Jarriel, Sr., and Ella Ruth Jarriel. They had six children, including Tom. In 1947, the family moved to Shreveport, where Jarriel graduated in 1952 from C.E. Byrd High School. In 1956, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Houston. He first worked at television station KPRC-TV, the NBC affiliate in Houston. In 1965, Jarriel joined ABC, first based at the network's southern bureau in Atlanta, Georgia. While there, he attracted national notice for his coverage of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Shortly afterward, he became White House correspondent for ABC, during the administrations of U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Later, in 1979, Jarriel joined the network's newsmagazine 20/20, as an investigative correspondent. On that show and on several hour-long documentaries, he covered subjects such as the defects in the American criminal justice system, wasteful spending by the United States Department of Defense, and transportation accidents. He received severalEmmy Awards for his work.
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