Robert MacNeil, the co-creator of the PBS newscast “The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour,” passed away on Friday at the age of 93. MacNeil died of natural causes at a hospital in New York, as confirmed by his daughter, Alison MacNeil.
MacNeil first gained attention for his coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings for PBS. In 1975, he started his own half-hour show called the “Robert MacNeil Report,” with his friend Jim Lehrer as the Washington correspondent. The show later became the “MacNeil-Lehrer Report” and was eventually expanded to an hour-long program called the “MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour” in 1983. This was the first one-hour evening news broadcast in the country and received several Emmy and Peabody awards. The show is still on the air today with new anchors.
MacNeil and Lehrer created the program because they were unhappy with the style and content of other news programs on major networks. They wanted to provide more context and balance in their reporting. MacNeil left his anchoring role in 1995 to focus on writing, while Lehrer continued until 2009. Lehrer passed away in 2020.
In addition to his work on the newscast, MacNeil wrote several books, including memoirs and novels. He also created the Emmy-winning series “The Story of English” and co-authored the companion book. Another book he co-wrote, “Do You Speak American?,” was adapted into a PBS documentary.
Born in Montreal in 1931, MacNeil began his journalism career with Reuters in London before moving to NBC as a foreign correspondent. He covered major events such as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the funerals of Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, and Dwight Eisenhower. In 1971, he joined PBS, where he teamed up with Lehrer to cover the Watergate hearings, which led to the creation of their famous newscast.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.