SALON

Wednesday, Dec 12, 2012 11:15 PM UTC

Joe Allbritton, 87, DC media, banking giant, dies

By

Topics: From the Wires,

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Joe L. Allbritton, who became one of Washington’s most influential men through a media conglomerate that included newspapers and television stations and a financial empire that once included Riggs Bank, died Wednesday. He was 87.

He was suffering from heart ailments and died at a hospital in Houston, where he lived, said Frederick J. Ryan Jr., president of Arlington, Va.-basedAllbritton Communications.

Allbritton’s fortune was self-made, beginning with real estate trades and banking investments. By age 33, he was a millionaire, Ryan said.

His media holdings included eight television stations in seven markets, including WJLA, the ABC affiliate in Washington whose call letters bear his initials. In an era of corporate media ownership, WJLA stood out as a family-owned station. Ryan said it is the largest privately owned ABC affiliate in the country.

He owned the Washington Star for several years in the 1970s and his son Robert founded one of the successes of the new media era, Politico, a must-read online and print publication for political junkies.

Allbritton also owned Riggs Bank for more than 20 years, including its final years, which were mired in scandal. Riggs, an old-line Washington institution that provided banking services to large numbers of embassies during his tenure at the helm, got into trouble for concealing suspicious transactions involving former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. In 2004, Riggs was ordered to pay a then-record $25 million fine for alleged violations of money-laundering laws. Shortly thereafter the bank, which had a prominent location on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House, was acquired by PNC Financial Services Group Inc.

He was a fixture on the D.C. social circuit and good friends with Prince Charles. Jerry Fritz, senior vice president of Allbritton Communications Co., who worked for Allbritton’s companies for 25 years, described him as “one of the great raconteurs.”

His philanthropic efforts were extensive, including large gifts to Baylor and George Mason universities. He was heavily involved in horse racing and owned the thoroughbred Hansel, which won the final two legs of the Triple Crown in 1991.

At the height of his influence “if there was something important happening in D.C, Joe Allbritton was involved, right in the center of it,” Fritz said.

He was born in D’Lo, Miss., and raised in Houston. He served in the Navy during World War II.

Allbritton’s family said in a statement that his life “was defined by a love, wit, charm and attentiveness that will be forever cherished by all of us. Joe’s life was also one of great achievement, as a businessman, innovator and philanthropist. He was fiercely passionate and unfailingly generous.”

More By Matthew Barakat.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations