During my lifetime - 83 years - there are but a handful of national broadcast journalists and commentators upon whom I would place the “iconic” label and far fewer on a local or regional level.

One does not see the likes of a Walter Kronkite, David Brinkley and Peter Jennings very often. On a regional basis, John Facenda, newscaster for WCAU-TV when it was channel 10 in Philadelphia, is one of the few who come to mind - until now.

I willingly place ABC-6’s Jim Gardner into this rarefied air category. Gardner gave his final 6 p.m. newscast on Dec. 21. Leading up to this finale, Gardner had previously finished up doing the 11 p.m. newscast, which he also anchored, in January. Gardner had been with WPVI-TV (previously WFIL-TV) for 46 years.

Being a journalist myself, I always considered Gardner as head and shoulders above any of the current local and regional newscasters because of his competency and professionalism. He has a sense of humor, but he is not one of those “happy talk” anchors who at times trivializes the role that journalists are intended to play.

Gardner, whose real name is Jim Goldman, received a sustained round of applause from his colleagues on the set for his last broadcast, but he was honored and congratulated by his legion of viewers for making them more informed.

Acknowledging that he does have a sense of humor, Gardner said: “Maybe Jim Gardner is going away, and I’m going to reclaim ‘Jim Goldman,’ It’s interesting to sort of think about that. Jim Goldman will probably shave off the mustache, right?”

Viewers who sent Twitter and text messages told him that he did his job “with grace.”

Leading up to his final broadcast, Gardner was escorted by Radnor Township police with Chopper 6 flying high above the procession.”What I need you to know is how much I’m going to miss you,” Gardner said to Action News viewers.

Viewers began arriving outside of the TV studios several hours before his last hurrah. He even made a special appearance before he went inside to do the final broadcast. WPVI-TV aired a special one-hour tribute to Gardner last Thursday night that highlighted his amazing career.

Beloved broadcasters and commentators such as Gardner leave lasting impressions. In many cases, to us viewers they become sort of a valued member of the family - someone you can rely on, someone you trust to tell you the truth about what is going on in the world.

Of course, I was watching Gardner’s last broadcast, and I was so thrilled that he took the last minute to do a personal opinion on the state of media in our country.

“We are not the enemy of the people,” he began, a reference of former President Donald Trump’s assertion about the news media. “The American free press has been under attack, not by forces from other countries, but from elements embedded in our society, even our own government.”

Saying that it worries him deeply, Gardner said it both feeds into and exploits people’s lack of understanding of what the Founding Fathers intended: the kind of democracy the United States and only a handful of other nations aspire to.

“Thomas Jefferson said to John Jay in 1786, ‘Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press.’”

Gardner ended his comment with this: ‘“Serving the people with responsible and unbiased journalism - this is our mission now and in the future.”

Jefferson also said, “Where the press is free and every person can read, all is safe.”

Without a free press, our country would be headed down a path to oblivion. I regret to say that there are forces within our own nation which are attempting to subvert and dismantle the free press as a prelude to turning ours into an authoritarian society.

By Bruce Frassinelli |tneditor@tnonline.com