Tom Cassidy was the television business anchor for Cable News Network (CNN) an American cable news

United States cable news

Cable news refers to television channels devoted to television news broadcasts, with the name deriving from the proliferation of such networks during the 1980s with the advent of cable television. In the United States, early networks included CNN in 1980, Financial News Network in 1981, and CNN2 ...

 television station and the founder of the weekend show Pinnacle

Pinnacle (news program)

-History:Founded by Tom Cassidy in 1982, the show focused on interviews with business leaders. The show became one of CNN's most prominent business programs. Cassidy hosted the show but was diagnosed with AIDS in 1987. Eventually, he had to step down and he died 1991 at age 41...

in 1982. Significantly, he was the CNN business news anchor during Black Monday

Black Monday

Black Monday is a term used to refer to certain events which occur on a Monday. It has been used in the following cases:* Black Monday, Dublin, 1209 – when a group of 500 recently arrived settlers from Bristol were massacred by warriors of the Gaelic O'Byrne clan...

, 19 October 1987. This was a famous day on Wall Street

Wall Street

Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...

 when the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) fell 508 points to 1739, a frightening drop during which time Mr. Cassidy's ongoing reporting during the afternoon and evening provided both credible information and a significant calmness to the American public. Diagnosed as HIV positive the same day, Cassidy went public on New York area television on an ongoing basis with his dilemma, treatment and progress (including revealing his diagnosis to his family on camera) in order to better educate the public about HIV/AIDS disease.

As Cassidy was a 1972 graduate of Bowdoin College

Bowdoin College

Bowdoin College , founded in 1794, is an elite private liberal arts college located in the coastal Maine town of Brunswick, Maine. As of 2011, U.S. News and World Report ranks Bowdoin 6th among liberal arts colleges in the United States. At times, it was ranked as high as 4th in the country. It is...

, his will endowed Bowdoin with a lectureship in which prominent working journalists give lectures on a wide variety of topics each year. Thomas J. Cassidy lecturers at Bowdoin have included: Lou Dobbs

Lou Dobbs

Louis Carl "Lou" Dobbs is an American journalist, radio host, television host on the Fox Business Network, and author. He anchored CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight until November 2009 when he announced on the air that he would leave the 24-hour cable news television network.He was born in Texas and lived...

 of CNN; Linda Wertheimer

Linda Wertheimer

-Background and education:Wertheimer was born on March 19, 1943 in Carlsbad, New Mexico. She graduated from Wellesley College with the class of 1965.-Career:...

 of National Public Radio; Andrew Serwer

Andrew Serwer

Andrew Serwer, the managing editor of Fortune, was named one of the 100 most influential business journalists of 2007 by NewsBios.com. Serwer is based out of Time Warner’s New York City office....

 of Fortune Magazine; and Amanda Griscom Little, environmental writer for The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

and The Washington Post

The Washington Post

The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...

.