Beloved KDKA News Anchor Jon Burnett, 71, Dies of Complications of CTE, Doctor Says

TV journalist Jon Burnett, a CBS Pittsburgh weather forecaster, died of complications of CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) at the age of 71, Dr. Joseph Malone, a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Cognitive Neurologist, said, CBS News reports.

Burnett worked for the Pittsburgh station KDKA-TV, which confirmed his death on Thursday, Feb. 20.

“Beloved former KDKA-TV personality Jon Burnett has died. Remembered as authentic, original, talented and compassionate, he leaves behind an incredible legacy,” the station wrote on Instagram.

The late journalist retired in 2019 and later suffered from neurological disorders, including memory loss and a diagnosis of suspected CTE.

CTE is a rare and progressive degenerative brain condition likely caused by repeated head traumas, according to the Mayo Clinic.

The condition is caused by repeated concussions and traumatic brain injuries. The disease has been found mostly in athletes who play contact sports, members of the military and victims of physical abuse, though not everyone who experiences repeated concussions goes on to develop CTE.

Before his broadcasting career, Burnett played defensive end on the University of Tennessee football team, from which he graduated in 1976.

Throughout his athletic career, he suffered two major concussions, he told KDKA-TV in Feburary 2024. At the time of his interview, he also revealed that he joined an ongoing study by the National Sports Brain Bank at the University of Pittsburgh. Through the study, he agreed to posthumously donate his brain to aid the program’s research and treatment of brain disorders and CTE.

“If I can help anybody on this road, who is on this road or will be on this road in the years ahead, I feel better about being able to do that,” Burnett said during his interview. He also recalled he had hundreds of collisions over the years, and he typically hit other players around 30-40 times each game. 

After his football career, he moved to Pittsburgh in 1982 and hosted KDKA’s Evening Magazine with Liz Miles and later with Mary Robb Jackson. The latter told KDKA, “There’s something that comes through that screen and you really can’t fool it, and I think Jon was just a natural.”

“He was my partner, one of the most significant people in my life,” Miller said, per KDKA.

Three years later, he then hosted Pittsburgh 2Day. By the 1990s, he then served as a meteorologist for the station and kept the job for nearly three decades. His Pittsburgh 2Day co-anchor, Patrice King Brown, said to KDKA, “My TV brother. I will love him forever.”

“When you saw Jon on TV, you would immediately say, ‘That’s a guy I wouldn’t mind having in my living room live and in person,'” former KDKA meteorologist Dennis Bowman added.

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He is survived by his wife, Debbie, and adult children, Samantha and Eric.