Pittsburgh native Roland began his broadcasting career in the 1960s, working for NBC News in Los Angeles and covering high-profile events such as the Robert F. Kennedy assassination and the Charles Manson trial.
Roland was a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, native who graduated from California State University at Long Beach in 1964; he began his broadcasting career in the 1960s.
From there, he was hired as a reporter by then-Metromedia owned KTTV, where he covered the Robert F. Kennedy assassination and the Charles Manson trial, and then went to sister station WNEW-TV (now Fox-owned WNYW) in New York City beginning in December 1969.
In his early years with WNEW/WNYW, he was a political reporter and weekend anchor for The 10 O'Clock News, and even did a cooking segment that was shown frequently on the newscast.
He took over as the main anchor for the weeknight edition in 1979 after Bill Jorgensen, who had presented the newscast from its start in 1967, left to join the rival station WPIX.
[3] In January 1988, Roland was suspended by WNYW-TV (Fox) after an on-air argument with Joyce Brown, a mentally-ill homeless woman whom the Koch Administration sought to have confined to a mental hospital for treatment.
Brown, who was represented by the New York City chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union successfully challenged her incarceration in court.
On May 11, 1983, Roland and his friend were having a late-night dinner at the Racing Club, a restaurant on New York City's East Side, when three armed men burst in and attempted to rob customers.