Robert MacNeil, who created the even-handed, no-frills PBS newscast âThe MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHourâ in the 1970s and co-anchored the show 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 âRobert MacNeil Reportâ on PBS in 1975 with his friend Lehrer as Washington correspondent.
The broadcast became âThe MacNeil-Lehrer Reportâ and then, in 1983, was expanded to an hour and renamed âThe MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour.â
The nationâs 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 MacNeilâs and Lehrerâs disenchantment with the style and content of rival news programs on ABC, CBS and NBC that led to the programâs creation.
âWe donât need to SELL the news,â MacNeil told the Chicago Tribune in 1983. âThe networks hype the news to make it seem vital, important. Whatâs missing (in 22 minutes) is context, sometimes balance, and a consideration of questions that are raised by certain events.â
MacNeil left anchoring duties at âNewsHourâ 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.
âIt 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,â he said.
MacNeil wrote several books, including two memoirs, âThe Right Place at the Right Timeâ and the bestseller âWordstruck,â and the novels âBurden of Desireâ and âThe Voyage.â
âWriting is much more personal. It is not collaborative in the way that television must be,â MacNeil told the Associated Press in 1995. âBut when youâre sitting down writing a novel, itâs just you: Hereâs what I think, hereâs what I want to do. And itâs me.â
MacNeil also created the Emmy-winning 1986 series âThe Story of English,â 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, âDo You Speak American?,â was adapted into a PBS documentary in 2005.
In 2007, he served as host of âAmerica at a Crossroads,â 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: âIf something really serious did happen to the nation â a stock market crash like 1929 … the equivalent of a Pearl Harbor â wouldnât the news get very serious again? Wouldnât people run from ‘Hard Copyâ and titillation?â
âOf course you would. Youâd have to know what was going on.â
That was the case â 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 NBCâs 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 Kennedyâs successor, Lyndon Johnson, and Republican Barry Goldwater.
In 1965, MacNeil became the New York anchor of the first half-hour weekend network news broadcast, âThe Scherer-MacNeil Reportâ on NBC.
While in New York, he also anchored local newscasts and several NBC news documentaries, including âThe Big Earâ and âThe Right to Bear Arms.â