Hodding Carter III, State Department spokesman during Iran hostage crisis, dies at 88

Hodding Carter III, then-president, CEO and trustee of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, answers a question during a news conference in Washington, on Nov. 24, 2003. Carter has died at age 88. (Susan Walsh/AP)

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Hodding Carter III, a Mississippi journalist and civil rights activist who as U.S. State Department spokesman informed Americans about the Iran hostage crisis and later won awards for his televised documentaries, has died. He was 88.

His daughter, Catherine Carter Sullivan, confirmed that he died Thursday in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.