NEW YORK (AP) 鈥 Robert MacNeil, who created the even-handed, no-frills PBS newscast 鈥淭he MacNeil-Lehrer 六合彩开奖记录Hour鈥 in the 1970s and co-anchored the show for with his late partner, Jim Lehrer, for two decades, died on Friday. He was 93.
MacNeil died of natural causes at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, according to his daughter, Alison MacNeil.
MacNeil first gained prominence for his coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings for the public broadcasting service and began his half-hour 鈥淩obert MacNeil Report鈥 on PBS in 1975 with his friend Lehrer as Washington correspondent.
The broadcast became the 鈥淢acNeil-Lehrer Report鈥 and then, in 1983, was expanded to an hour and renamed the 鈥淢acNeil-Lehrer 六合彩开奖记录Hour.鈥 The nation's first one-hour evening news broadcast, and recipient of several Emmy and Peabody awards, it remains on the air today with Geoff Bennett and Amna Nawaz as anchors.
It was MacNeil鈥檚 and Lehrer鈥檚 disenchantment with the style and content of rival news programs on ABC, CBS and NBC that led to the program鈥檚 creation.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 need to SELL the news,鈥 MacNeil told the Chicago Tribune in 1983. 鈥淭he networks hype the news to make it seem vital, important. What鈥檚 missing (in 22 minutes) is context, sometimes balance, and a consideration of questions that are raised by certain events.鈥
MacNeil left anchoring duties at 鈥溋喜士奔锹糎our鈥 after two decades in 1995 to write full time. Lehrer took over the newscast alone, and he remained there until 2009. Lehrer died in 2020.
When MacNeil visited the show in October 2005 to commemorate its 30th anniversary, he reminisced about how their newscast started in the days before cable television.
鈥淚t was a way to do something that seemed to be needed journalistically and yet was different from what the commercial network news (programs) were doing,鈥 he said.
MacNeil wrote several books, including two memoirs 鈥淭he Right Place at the Right Time鈥 and the best seller 鈥淲ordstruck,鈥 and the novels 鈥淏urden of Desire鈥 and 鈥淭he Voyage.鈥
鈥淲riting is much more personal. It is not collaborative in the way that television must be,鈥 MacNeil told The Associated Press in 1995. 鈥淏ut when you鈥檙e sitting down writing a novel, it鈥檚 just you: Here鈥檚 what I think, here鈥檚 what I want to do. And it鈥檚 me.鈥
MacNeil also created the Emmy-winning 1986 series 鈥淭he Story of English,鈥 with the MacNeil-Lehrer production company, and was co-author of the companion book of the same name.
Another book on language that he co-wrote, 鈥淒o You Speak American?,鈥 was adapted into a PBS documentary in 2005.
In 2007, he served as host of 鈥淎merica at a Crossroads,鈥 a six-night PBS package exploring challenges confronting the United States in a post-9/11 world.
Six years before the 9/11 attacks, discussing sensationalism and frivolity in the news business, he had said: 鈥淚f something really serious did happen to the nation 鈥 a stock market crash like 1929, ... the equivalent of a Pearl Harbor 鈥 wouldn鈥檛 the news get very serious again? Wouldn鈥檛 people run from `Hard Copy鈥 and titillation?鈥
鈥淥f course you would. You鈥檇 have to know what was going on.鈥
That was the case 鈥 for a while.
Born in Montreal in 1931, MacNeil was raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa in 1955 before moving to London where he began his journalism career with Reuters. He switched to TV news in 1960, taking a job with NBC in London as a foreign correspondent.
In 1963, MacNeil was transferred to NBC鈥檚 Washington bureau, where he reported on Civil Rights and the White House. He covered the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas and spent most of 1964 following the presidential campaign between Kennedy鈥檚 successor, Lyndon Johnson, and Republican Barry Goldwater.
In 1965, MacNeil became the New York anchor of the first half-hour weekend network news broadcast, 鈥淭he Scherer-MacNeil Report鈥 on NBC. While in New York, he also anchored local newscasts and several NBC news documentaries, including 鈥淭he Big Ear鈥 and 鈥淭he Right to Bear Arms.鈥
MacNeil returned to London in 1967 as a reporter for the British Broadcasting Corp.鈥檚 鈥淧anorama鈥 series. While with the BBC, be covered such U.S. stories as the clash between anti-war demonstrators and the Chicago police at the 1968 Democratic Convention, and the funerals of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Sen. Robert Kennedy and President Dwight Eisenhower.
In 1971, MacNeil left the BBC to become a senior correspondent for PBS, where he teamed up with Lehrer to co-anchor public television鈥檚 Emmy-winning coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings in 1973.