Gil Noble | TV journalist, 80

Gil Noble, 80, a television journalist who hosted

Like It Is

, an award-winning Sunday morning public affairs program in New York, one of the longest-running in the country dedicated to showcasing black leadership and the African American experience, died Thursday in a hospital in Wayne, N.J.

The cause was complications of a stroke he had last summer, said Dave Davis, president and general manager of WABC-TV, which had broadcast Like It Is since 1968.

Though broadcast only in the New York area, Like It Is attracted guests of national and international influence. Some were controversial. His interviews with figures such as Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam drew complaints of one-sidedness. But for Mr. Noble, that was the point:

"My response to those who complained that I didn't present the other side of the story was that this show was the other side of the story," he said in 1982.

His interviews comprised a veritable archive of contemporary black history in America: hundreds of hour-long conversations with political and cultural figures like Lena Horne, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bill Cosby, Sammy Davis Jr., Muhammad Ali, Andrew Young, Dizzy Gillespie, and Stokely Carmichael.

"You learned a lot watching Gil," former New York Mayor David N. Dinkins said. "You didn't have to agree with everything he said, but for many of us, he was required watching."

Mr. Noble was born in Harlem, the son of Rachel Noble, a teacher, and Gilbert R. Noble, who owned an auto repair shop. Both parents were born in Jamaica. He attended City College and was drafted into the Army during the Korean War.

Mr. Noble was hired as a reporter for the radio station WLIB in 1962. In 1967, after nationwide race riots that prompted television stations around the country to recruit some of their first black reporters, he was hired by WABC. He worked as reporter, weekend anchor and sometime correspondent for Like It Is, a show begun in 1968, before taking over as its host in 1975. He received seven Emmy Awards. - N.Y. Times News Service