Whether investigating government corruption, dodging bullets in war zones or reporting on the risk of food poisoning at a local fair, veteran Colorado journalist Rick Sallinger gave everything he had to every story he covered.
Sallinger, an investigative reporter who spent 30 years on Denver’s airwaves, died Wednesday night of natural causes, according to a statement from his family on the social media site X and CBS News Colorado. He was 74.
A Peabody-Award-winning reporter whose work spanned the globe, Sallinger’s career included radio stints in Cleveland and Chicago and television reporting in Indianapolis, Chicago, at 9News in Denver and as a CNN international correspondent based in London, according to CBS.
Sallinger returned to Denver in 1993 for a job at CBS Colorado. He retired from the station in December due to health reasons.
“Whether he was at work or not, Rick was one of those people who was enormously curious about everything and always looking for a story, no matter where he was,” said longtime colleague and CBS Colorado General Manager Tim Wieland.
Sallinger’s curiosity seeped into every part of his life, whether he was scribbling story ideas on receipts; traveling the world with his wife of 30 years, Isabel, and sons Marc and Eric; or marveling at Colorado’s mountains.
That journalistic curiosity was sparked early for Marc Sallinger, who remembers searching the neighborhood for things to film, a burgeoning 7-year-old reporter with a camcorder in hand.
Whether it was deer in the front yard or a fire down the street, he would bring the footage to his dad at the Channel 4 station, where it would later appear on the evening news with his name in the credit line.
Now a reporter at 9News, Marc Sallinger wanted to be a journalist like his parents — who met on assignment as international correspondents in London — for nearly as long as he can remember.
“It was so much fun to see my dad out in the field, run into him on stories and then come home at the end of the day and ask how a story worked out and watch and compare them,” Marc Sallinger said. “Not a whole lot of people get to go to work every day and compete against their father, and that’s something I didn’t take for granted.”
Rick Sallinger won the prestigious Peabody Award in 2006 for investigating Army recruiters who told recruits how to get fake diplomas and dodge drug tests. He reported on many of Colorado’s most significant news stories, including the Columbine High School shooting, JonBenet Ramsey’s murder and catastrophic wildfires, according to CBS Colorado.
But even the seemingly benign feature stories were no match for Sallinger’s curiosity, Wieland said. When Wieland sent him to cover the People’s Fair in Denver in the ’90s, Sallinger returned with a package about food vendors leaving hamburgers out in the sun long enough to make people sick. He even timed how long the food sat out.
“Needless to say, that was the last year we were sponsors of the People’s Fair,” Wieland said, laughing.
While Sallinger may have struck fear in the hearts of some of his sources, to his family, he was a constant, loving presence.
“His family was the most important thing in his life for him, making sure we were able to do what we wanted, to travel the world and see new places and new things,” Marc Sallinger said.
And though Rick Sallinger’s career took him around the world, Colorado was always home.
“He always said he wanted to move back to Colorado,” Marc Sallinger said. “This is where he wanted to be.”
Services have not yet been announced.
Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter.
