Joe Krebs, a television journalist who spent 32 years at WRC-TV (Channel 4) in Washington, including 18 as an anchor of the NBC-owned station’s early-morning news program, died April 6 at his home in Rockville, Md. He was 78.
The cause was pancreatic cancer, said his wife, Mary Lynne Krebs. After his diagnosis in 2018, Mr. Krebs was featured in a Channel 4 report about his illness and researchers’ efforts to find a treatment and possible cure.
Early in his career, Mr. Krebs was a lawyer and a Navy officer before taking a pay cut to become a television reporter in Greensboro, N.C. In 1973, he moved to Baltimore’s WBAL-TV.
He came to Washington’s Channel 4 in 1980 as a reporter who often drew on his legal expertise in covering such stories as the 1981 shooting of President Ronald Reagan and the subsequent trial of John Hinckley Jr.; the naval espionage case of John Walker and members of his family; the trial of D.C. drug kingpin Rayful Edmond; and the sensational case of abuse and revenge involving John and Lorena Bobbitt.
