Tina Gulland, former head of Washington Post’s radio and TV projects, dies at 62

Tina Gulland, a broadcast journalist who served as director of The Washington Post’s radio and TV projects from the 1990s until retiring in 2007, died May 11 of metastatic lung cancer at her home in Chevy Chase. She was 62.

Mrs. Gulland began her career as a radio station receptionist and rose quickly on the strength of her reporting and on-air presence. During the 1970s and early ’80s, she reported in Washington for a number of local radio stations and was an anchor and news director, both at WRC Radio and Voice of America.

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In 1986, Mrs. Gulland became chief political correspondent and D.C. bureau chief for The Post’s broadcasting division, Post-Newsweek Stations. In addition to covering the White House, Capitol Hill, and national political conventions and campaigns, she served as executive producer of the political roundtable program “Inside Washington with Gordon Peterson.”

Mrs. Gulland arrived in The Post’s newsroom at a time when most print reporters rarely ventured into other media. She helped change that, forging partnerships with national TV and radio networks that gave writers the chance to offer news coverage and commentary through multiple outlets.

“Tina was instrumental in making broadcast a significant part of our newsroom — cheerfully converting skeptics, energetically building facilities and recruiting talented staff, and tirelessly training and shepherding so many of us onto the air,” former executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. said in a statement.

Mrs. Gulland played a major role in 2006 in launching Washington Post Radio, an experiment in finding new audiences for Post journalism. An effervescent personality known in the newsroom for her efforts to prime reporters before their broadcast appearances, Mrs. Gulland described the station’s spirit as “NPR on caffeine.” The radio experiment ended in 2007, several months after Mrs. Gulland retired.

Kristin Mary Spearing was born Sept. 7, 1948, in St. Louis. She graduated from Manhattanville College in 1970 and attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.

In retirement, she lived primarily in her home in the Loudoun County community of Aldie and served as a trustee and chair of the historic Oatlands Plantation in Leesburg. She was a tour guide at the Library of Congress and a volunteer teacher at the Washington Jesuit Academy.

Survivors include her husband of 40 years, Eugene D. Gulland of Aldie and Chevy Chase; three children, Army Lt. Sam Gulland of Fort Benning, Ga., and Michael Gulland and Molly Gulland Gaston, both of the District; a sister, Mary Spearing of the District; a brother, Thomas J. Spearing of St. Louis; and a grandson.