Don Harrison

Don Harrison (August 8, 1936 – May 2, 1998) was an anchor on CNN Headline News from 1982 until his death from renal cancer in 1998. He was a member of the original team of anchors when Headline News went on the air for the first time as "CNN2" in 1982.

Harrison, a native of Ottawa, Kansas, graduated from Ottawa High School in 1954 and attended Kansas State Teachers College, now Emporia State University. He spent over three decades in the broadcast business. He began his TV career at WIBW in Topeka after previously doing radio. From 1962 to 1973, he was on the staff of KCMO-TV (now KCTV) in Kansas City. While there, he won an award from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for a documentary called "This Old House." On January 10, 1992, Harrison came seconds away from reporting false reports of the death of George H. W. Bush after he vomited on the Japanese Prime Minister before an off-screen staff member intervened and shouted, "No! Stop!" The tip had been given by a man in Idaho who had claimed to be Bush's physician. Harrison later said, "In my heart, I knew it wasn't accurate...I just knew that reading it was wrong."

Harrison lost his left leg due to bone cancer at age 13 and a kidney, also because of cancer, in 1993. At the time of his death, he was married to his wife Carolyn and had two sons and a daughter. A previous marriage to his wife, Marilyn, ended when she died from leukemia on May 24, 1976, aged 31.