https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/robert-macneil-co-founder-of-newshour-dies-at-93
Robert MacNeil, co-founder of NewsHour, dies at 93
Nation Apr 12, 2024 2:29 PM EDT
Robert MacNeil, a pioneer of public media journalism and a driving
force behind the show that would become the PBS NewsHour, died Friday
at the age of 93.

A lifelong lover of language, literature and the arts, MacNeil’s trade
was using words. Combined with his reporter’s knack for being where
the action was and a refusal to sensationalize the news out of respect
for his viewers, he covered some of the biggest stories of his time.

He was on the ground in Dallas when President John F. Kennedy was
assassinated. He interviewed Martin Luther King Jr., Ayatollah
Khomeini, Fidel Castro, and former British Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher. But he had his biggest breakthrough with the 1973
gavel-to-gavel primetime coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings.

That Emmy-winning series of special reports was also the turning point
for the future of daily news on PBS, leading to the creation of The
Robert MacNeil Report, before it was renamed The MacNeil/Lehrer
Report, The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, and other subsequent iterations,
all the way up to the PBS NewsHour. As co-founder and anchor, he
helped guide millions through extraordinary times with his
intelligent, passionate and humane storytelling.

In a 2000 interview, MacNeil said that he and news partner Jim Lehrer
aimed to add “a kind of respect for complexity to the news that was
already there.” Their approach, he said, was based on “fundamental
fairness and objectivity, and also the idea that the American public
is smarter than they’re often given credit for on television, and they
don’t all need things in little bite-sized, candy-sized McNuggets of
news.”

“Robin MacNeil was a giant in journalism, and a most gentle giant. His
and Jim Lehrer’s commitment to the news standards we practice still at
the NewsHour are an ongoing inspiration to our newsroom and the
industry overall,” said Sara Just, the senior executive producer of
the PBS NewsHour, PBS News Weekend and Washington Week, and senior
vice president at WETA .

Known to his friends as Robin, MacNeil was born in Montreal and raised
in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His Canadian roots remained important to him
throughout his life, and he spent part of his summers at a home by the
sea — a love that came from his parents. His father, also named
Robert, was a lieutenant commander in the Royal Canadian Navy during
World War II and later a Canadian foreign service officer. His mother,
Margaret, instilled in him his love of poetry and language.

He was married three times, including for 30 years to Donna MacNeil,
who died in 2015. He had four children — Cathy, Ian, Alison and Will —
and numerous grandchildren.

MacNeil set out first to be an actor. But after graduating from
Carleton University in Ottawa, he turned to journalism. He worked for
Reuters and NBC News, for whom he would cover a wide range of stories
both abroad and at home.

He was in Dallas in 1963 when Kennedy was shot and killed, even
reporting live by phone from inside the Texas school book depository
where Lee Harvey Oswald worked.

“I heard that this guy called Oswald had been arrested who worked at
the book depository and I said, ‘Isn’t that odd. That’s the building I
went into. God, he must have been coming out about the time I went
in,’” MacNeil said.

His connection to PBS began in 1971, when he was hired to co-anchor
NPACT, the National Public Affairs Center for Television, which at the
time was public broadcasting’s news-related programming unit in
Washington. But it wasn’t until 1973, during the height of the
Watergate fallout, that MacNeil was first teamed with Lehrer. The two
rebroadcast the hearings with analysis late into the night — some 250
hours in all.

On the 40th anniversary of the hearings, the former anchors remembered
what it was like to react in real time to the revelations, and how the
political and media culture differed from today’s. Back then, some of
the disclosures “came out quite unexpectedly. In a very casual, almost
off-hand manner,” MacNeil said in an interview on the NewsHour.
“Everything is underlined nowadays. Everything has arrows pointing at
it. ‘This is going to be a great day today and we’re likely to hear–.’
We didn’t have any of that kind of buildup. It’s just — The hearings
spoke for themselves.”

The success of their coverage — and the chemistry of their team — led
to the creation in 1975 of The Robert MacNeil Report, with Lehrer as
the show’s Washington correspondent, before becoming a full partner in
The MacNeil-Lehrer Report.

“Many people in public television had thought we should be doing
sophisticated entertainment, and education and culture, and not
journalism, not public affairs, because that would cause controversy
and everything,” MacNeil remembered in 2016. “But our coverage of the
Senate Watergate hearings, which clearly were a turning point in this
country in all kinds of ways, got more and more people suddenly
watching their public television stations and sending money to them.
That turned people’s heads around and public television and people
began saying, ‘Well, you become a team, you should do a daily show.’”

The bold transition to a full hour — as The MacNeil / Lehrer NewsHour
— came in 1983. But providing an alternative to commercial networks
was what Robin and Jim saw themselves doing from the beginning.

Jim-and-Team-in-Office-BW-1200x768Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil meet
with colleagues Judy Woodruff and Charlayne Hunter-Gault. PBS NewsHour
“Robin was one of a kind. With his distinctive voice, he brought
stories to life — unraveling complex issues with clarity and
compassion. Whether it was through his incisive reporting or his
intimate interviews, he possessed a singular ability to connect with
people. As we reflect on his many contributions, we honor his memory
by continuing to pursue the truth and by fostering connections that
bridge divides – just as Robin did with such grace and vigor. We are
deeply grateful for the enduring legacy he leaves behind,” PBS
NewsHour co-anchors Geoff Bennett and Amna Nawaz said.

The hour-long program became noted for its civil tone and the depth of
its coverage, gaining honors, viewers — and the attention of
cartoonists. A 1981 “Doonesbury” comic imagined Robin saying: “I’ll be
asking smooth, urbane questions from New York. Jim Lehrer will handle
the earnest, plain-spoken questions from Washington.” And The New
Yorker poked fun at the way the two were occasionally mixed up by
viewers.

Through the years, Robin insisted on the importance of including the
arts in the NewsHour’s reporting. He regularly talked with writers and
other artists in this country and abroad.

The pair also enjoyed being part of the public television family,
including visiting the cast on “Sesame Street” to interview Oscar the
Grouch.

Even while co-anchoring the nightly program, Robin took on other
projects, especially focused on his passion for language. His 1986
round-the-world, nine-part series, “The Story of English” — broadcast
on PBS and the BBC — explored the history and development of the
language, eschewing the idea that any one version of English was the
“correct” version, and delighting instead in the rich variety. Later
came a sequel about language in the U.S., called “Do You Speak
American?”

“There is nothing more enjoyable than going around the country and
just talking to people,” he said in a 2005 interview. “I’ve always
been fascinated by how differently people talk, and the humor in that
and the sense of personality that comes from that, and the sense of
local identity.”

In 1995, he decided to step away from daily journalism to focus on
writing fiction and other projects.

“He’s leaving permanent tracks along the way he traveled and worked
and created. They are tracks of courage to do what he knew to be right
and to actually do it right and to do it with grace and class and with
good humor,” said the late Jim Lehrer, his longtime partner and close
friend, during Robin’s final appearance in the anchor chair.

SOT/ JIM: “Hey, Robin.”
SOT/ ROBIN: “I guess that is it.”
SOT/ JIM: “ Hey good night, Robin.”
SOT/ ROBIN: “Good night, Jim.”

As one of the heads of MacNeil-Lehrer Productions, Robin remained
involved with the NewsHour until 2014.

His writings include the 1992 novel “Burden of Desire,” which followed
the impact of the famous WWI explosion in Halifax harbor, and numerous
nonfiction works. Among those were three memoirs: “The Right Place at
the Right Time,” “Wordstruck,” and “Looking for My Country,” the last
of which detailed the love he had come to feel for his adopted land.

“All the years I was becoming embedded, so to speak, in this country,
literally and figuratively, living through all the traumas of America,
both personally with, alongside Americans and covering them as a
journalist,” he told CSPAN in 2003. “There was, in my being, a
disconnect between the country I inhabited and the country that
inhabited me. I was a man with a nationality, but without a psychic
country, so to speak.” He became an American citizen in 1997.