Robert McNeil, whose coverage of the Watergate scandal led to PBS's first nightly newscast, died Friday after a long illness. He was 93 years old.
A PBS representative confirmed McNeil's death. The cause of death was not mentioned.
MacNeil was the founding anchor of “PBS NewsHour,” which was first launched in 1975 as “The Robert MacNeil Report” and later renamed “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.” In the years before cable news and the Internet, the program was the only national television alternative to the newscasts on ABC, CBS and NBC.
MacNeil was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on January 19, 1931, the son of a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He left Dalhousie University in Halifax to pursue an acting career and became a broadcaster for the CBC.
After moving to England in 1955, he turned to journalism and joined the Reuters news service. Five years later he became a correspondent for NBC News in London.
MacNeil was transferred to NBC's Washington bureau in 1963 during the Kennedy administration, and reported extensively from Dallas when President John F. Kennedy was murdered by an assassin. Viewers watching NBC News on November 22, 1963 heard McNeil call from a phone booth to confirm the president's death.
McNeil became an anchor at NBC News and on the network's local New York station, WNBC.
NBC News Washington correspondent Robert McNeil in 1963.
(NBC/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
MacNeil was hired by PBS in 1971 to be the host of its first public affairs program, “Washington Week In Review.” The service planned to pair him with another former NBC News journalist, Sander Vanocur, to cover the 1972 presidential campaign.
But PBS's plans to enter the news business were met with resistance from the Nixon administration. Nixon objected to the appointment of Vanocourt, who was known to be close to Kennedy, who defeated him in the presidential race in 1960.
McNeil believed that the opposition was motivated by Nixon's general disdain for the media.
“I think it was primarily because of fear of a fourth network, as he saw it, which was a ‘liberal’ network,” MacNeil said in a 2020 interview with The Times.
Vancore did not take the job, and McNeil eventually teamed up with Jim Lehrer, a former Dallas newspaper reporter who worked behind the scenes at PBS. They ended up providing coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings.
The coverage made the couple TV news stars.
Commercial networks have been reluctant to pre-empt their own game shows and television series to provide hearings. They took turns providing hammer-to-hammer coverage.
But for non-commercial PBS, the hearings were a big opportunity. For 47 days and nights in 1973, the service covered every minute of the proceedings. They were repeated in prime time for viewers who missed the ongoing daytime saga in an era before DVRs and streaming.
Viewers enjoyed the generous mix from MacNeil, who spoke in a terse and cultured manner; Lehrer, a Kansas native with a soft heart. Off camera they became close friends and business partners. (Lehrer died in 2020.)
Their Watergate coverage brought great ratings to PBS. Financial contributions poured in from viewers.
A year after the hearings, MacNeil was given his own half-hour nightly show, produced from WNET's flagship studios at PBS New York. Lehrer reported from Washington, D.C., and his name was added to the program's title in 1976 when it was shown on stations nationally.
In 1983, the program was renamed “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” and became a signature series for PBS that still airs today as “PBS NewsHour.”
The broadcasting duo entered into a unique arrangement when they founded a production company and became owners of the program in the mid-1980s. They produced “PBS NewsHour” until 2014, when it was acquired by the service's Washington station, WETA.
“The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” has never deviated from its mandate of providing a calmer, more serious approach to covering the news of the day. When the O.J. Simpson trial became a dominant television news story in the mid-1990s, the NewsHour devoted little attention to it outside of the ruling.
After leaving the program, MacNeil continued to produce and host documentaries for PBS. He also wrote many books.
“He was smart and polite, but always had a delightful sense of humor,” said Judy Woodruff, who later served as anchor of the PBS NewsHour. “I'm so grateful to have spoken with him in January on his birthday, when that iconic deep Canadian voice sounded exactly as it did when he last anchored the 'NewsHour' nearly 30 years ago.”
MacNeil leaves behind two children from his first marriage, Ian and Cathy MacNeil. two children from his second marriage, Allison and Will MacNeil; And five grandchildren.
