Ray Scherer; Pioneering TV Newsman

Ray Scherer, 81, former White House correspondent for NBC News. Scherer joined the network as a news writer in 1947 after working as a newspaper feature writer in his native Fort Wayne, Ind., and quickly became an on-air reporter. A pioneer television journalist, he was among the first to report live from the White House and in 1956 from the floor of the presidential nominating conventions. He served as NBC’s London correspondent from 1969 to 1973 and returned to Washington, D.C., as a senior reporter until becoming vice president of RCA’s Washington office in 1975. Scherer retired in 1986. On Saturday in Washington, D.C., of cancer.