Photos • Biography • Facebook • Twitter

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other people named Robert MacNeil, see Robert MacNeil (disambiguation).

Robert MacNeil

OC
MacNeil accepting the 2008 Cronkite Award
Born
Robert Breckenridge Ware MacNeil

(1931-01-19)January 19, 1931
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
DiedApril 12, 2024(2024-04-12) (aged 93)
New York City, U.S.
Citizenship
  • Canada
  • United States (from 1997)
Alma mater Carleton University
Occupations
  • Journalist
  • novelist
Years active1956–2020
Children4, including Ian

Robert Breckenridge Ware MacNeil OC (January 19, 1931 – April 12, 2024) was a Canadian-American journalist, writer and television news anchor. He partnered with Jim Lehrer to create the landmark public television news program The Robert MacNeil Report in 1975. [1] He co-anchored the program until 1995. The show eventually became the PBS NewsHour.

A self-described "wordsmith", MacNeil wrote a couple of books on the English language, as well as three memoirs, and fictional novels.

Early life and education

MacNeil was born in Montreal on January 19, 1931, the son of Margaret Virginia (née Oxner) and Robert A. S. MacNeil, a Royal Canadian Navy officer in World War II and later a Canadian foreign service officer. [1] [2] [3] He grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, went to boarding school at Rothesay Collegiate School and Upper Canada College, then attended Dalhousie University and later graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa in 1955. [4]

Career

MacNeil began working in the news field at ITV in London, then for Reuters, and then for NBC News [1] as a correspondent in Washington, D.C., and New York City.[ citation needed]

Kennedy assassination

On November 22, 1963, MacNeil was covering President John F. Kennedy's visit to Dallas for NBC News. After shots rang out in Dealey Plaza, MacNeil, who was with the presidential motorcade, followed crowds running onto the grassy knoll; he appears in a photo taken just moments after the assassination. He then headed toward the nearest building and encountered a young man leaving the Texas School Book Depository at around 12:33 p.m. CST. He asked the man where the nearest telephone was and the man pointed and went on his way. MacNeil later learned the man he encountered might have been Lee Harvey Oswald. [1] Historian William Manchester reached this conclusion in his book The Death of a President (1967). Recounting the day's events to the Dallas Police, Oswald may have mistaken MacNeil for a Secret Service agent because of his suit, blond crew cut, and press badge. MacNeil has said, "it was possible, but I had no way of confirming that either of the young men I had spoken to was Oswald." [5]

MacNeil sprinted to the phone and dialed the NBC newsroom in New York before telephone lines became overloaded. To his horror, an NBC employee who answered his call immediately put down the phone and never returned to the call. NBC tracked down the employee the next day and fired him. [6]

By a matter of mere seconds, the first news bulletins about the assassination were delivered by Merriman Smith of United Press International, as Smith had been riding in the front row of the White House pool car, which was equipped with an AT&T radiotelephone. Smith won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the assassination. [7]

MacNeil relayed by phone his report of the shooting to Jim Holton of NBC Radio, who recorded MacNeil's account of what had happened. He then headed to Parkland Hospital, where he arranged a phone connection with Frank McGee, who was anchoring continuous coverage with Bill Ryan and Chet Huntley of NBC-TV in New York. At approximately 1:40 p.m. CST, MacNeil relayed to McGee that White House acting press secretary Malcolm Kilduff had announced that Kennedy had died at 1:00 CST. That evening, MacNeil went to Dallas police headquarters and saw Oswald twice at close range, including when Oswald said, "[T]hey've taken me in because of the fact that I lived in the Soviet Union. I'm just a patsy", but did not recognize Oswald. [3] As he was reporting for NBC, MacNeil was at times in relatively close proximity [8] to his future co-anchor and partner Jim Lehrer, also covering the Kennedy visit and assassination for the Dallas Times-Herald, but the two did not meet until several years later, covering the Senate Watergate hearings in Washington, D.C. for PBS.[ citation needed]

News anchor

In 1967, MacNeil began covering American and European politics for the BBC. From 1971 to 1974, he hosted the news discussion show Washington Week in Review on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).[ citation needed]

MacNeil rose to fame during his coverage of the 1973 Senate Watergate hearings for PBS, for which he received an Emmy Award. Teamed with Jim Lehrer, the two broadcast and analysed some 250 hours of the hearings in all, sometimes late into the night. [1] This coverage helped lead to and inspire his most famous role, when he joined Lehrer in 1975 to create the PBS daily evening news program The Robert MacNeil Report, later renamed The MacNeil/Lehrer Report and then The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. After serving 20 years in the program, MacNeil retired from his nightly appearances on October 20, 1995; Lehrer anchored the program solo until 2011. The program continues as the PBS NewsHour.[ citation needed] He remained involved with the news program until 2013 as one of the heads of MacNeil-Lehrer Productions. [1]

Other work

In director Michael Almereyda's 2000 modern-day adaptation of Hamlet, MacNeil portrayed the Player King, reimagined as a TV news reporter.[ citation needed]

On September 11, 2001, after the terrorist attacks in New York City and Arlington County, Virginia, MacNeil called PBS and offered to help. [3] He joined PBS's coverage of the attacks and their aftermath, interviewing reporters and giving his thoughts on the events. [3]

In 2007, MacNeil hosted the PBS television miniseries America at a Crossroads, which presented independently produced documentaries about the " War on Terrorism". The series initially ran from April 15–20, with further episodes later that year. [9]

In a Sesame Street Special Report, muppet parody of the Iran-Contra scandal, MacNeil investigated a "Cookiegate" incident involving the Cookie Monster. [10] In 1998, for Season 29's "Slimey to the Moon" story arc, MacNeil took the role of co-anchor with Kermit the Frog, as Slimey, Oscar the Grouch's pet worm, and four other worms made a landing on the Moon. [11] [12]

MacNeil chaired the MacDowell Colony's board of directors from 1993 to 2010. [13] He was succeeded by Michael Chabon. [14]

Inspired by his passion for language he made the nine-part television series The Story of English in 1986 for PBS and the BBC, detailing the development of the English language. [1] The Story of English is also a companion book, also produced in 1986; it was revised in 1993 and 2002. The book and the television series were written by Robert MacNeil, Robert McCrum, and William Cran.[ citation needed]

Personal life and death

MacNeil became a naturalized American citizen in 1997. [4] He was married to Rosemarie Coopland, Jane Doherty, and Donna Nappi Richards MacNeil. [15] With Coopland, he was the father of award-winning theatre scenic designer Ian MacNeil. [16]

MacNeil was known to friends and family as "Robin". [1]

MacNeil died of natural causes at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan on April 12, 2024, at the age of 93, confirmed by his daughter Alison MacNeil. [4]

Awards and honors

Bibliography

MacNeil also wrote several books, many about his career as a journalist. After his retirement from NewsHour, MacNeil also dabbled in writing novels. [1] His books include:

  • Macneil, Robert (1998). Breaking News (A Novel). Nan A. Talese. ISBN  9780385420204.
  • MacNeil, Robert (1992). Burden of Desire. Nan A. Talese. ISBN  9780385420198.
  • Eudora Welty: Seeing Black and White
  • Looking for My Country: Finding Myself in America (memoir)
  • The People Machine: The Influence of Television on American Politics
  • The Right Place at the Right Time (memoir)
  • The Voyage (novel)
  • The Way We Were: 1963, The Year Kennedy Was Shot
  • The Story of English with Robert McCrum (accompanied by a PBS documentary miniseries in 1986)
  • Wordstruck: A Memoir (Published 1989) (memoir)
  • MacNeil, Robert; Cran, William (December 28, 2004). Do You Speak American?. Nan A. Talese. ISBN  978-0-385-51198-8. (accompanied by a PBS documentary miniseries in 2005)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Davenport, Anne Azzi; Brown, Jeffrey (April 12, 2024). "Robert MacNeil, co-founder of NewsHour, dies at 93". PBS NewsHour. PBS. Archived from the original on April 12, 2024. Retrieved April 13, 2024.
  2. ^ Rose, Mike (January 19, 2023). "Today's famous birthdays list for January 19, 2023 includes celebrities Dolly Parton, Jodie Sweetin". The Plain Dealer. Archived from the original on January 19, 2023. Retrieved January 19, 2023.
  3. ^ a b c d MacNeil, Robert (2004). Looking for My Country: Finding Myself in America. Harvest Books. ISBN  978-0-15-602910-0.
  4. ^ a b c Jensen, Elizabeth (April 12, 2024). "Robert MacNeil, Earnest News Anchor for PBS, Dies at 93". The New York Times. Vol. 173, no. 60123. p. A19. Archived from the original on April 13, 2024. Retrieved April 12, 2024.
  5. ^ MacNeil, Robert. The Right Place at the Right Time. p. 213.
  6. ^ David Brinkley discusses John F Kennedys assassination - EMMYTVLEGENDS.ORG on YouTube
  7. ^ "The Pulitzer Prizes". Archived from the original on February 8, 2022. Retrieved August 2, 2023.
  8. ^ Members Only: "MacNeil/Lehrer on the JFK Assassination" on YouTube
  9. ^ https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/14/arts/television/14stan.html
  10. ^ "Throwback Thursday: NewsHour's visits to Sesame Street". PBS. November 13, 2014. Archived from the original on October 9, 2016. Retrieved September 10, 2017.
  11. ^ "Sesame Street Worm to Embark on Space Odyssey". Archived from the original on July 10, 2022. Retrieved July 10, 2022.
  12. ^ "Official Sesame Street YouTube Channel". Archived from the original on July 10, 2022. Retrieved July 10, 2022 – via YouTube.
  13. ^ MacDowell Colony Press Release, Chairman Robert MacNeil and President Carter Wiseman to Retire from MacDowell Leadership Archived February 8, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, April 15, 2010. Retrieved February 25, 2018.
  14. ^ Kellog, Carolyn (December 7, 2010). "Chabon named chairman of MacDowell Colony board". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on February 25, 2018. Retrieved February 25, 2018.
  15. ^ "Robert MacNeil Weds Miss Richards". The New York Times. October 21, 1984. ISSN  0362-4331. Archived from the original on January 30, 2018. Retrieved April 13, 2024.
  16. ^ Dullea, Georgia (May 5, 1994). "At Home With: Robert and Ian MacNeil; A Father and a Son, Growing Up Again". The New York Times. p. C1. Archived from the original on January 6, 2016. Retrieved February 18, 2017.
  17. ^ https://www.bates.edu/president/honorary-degrees/list-of-honorary-degree-recipients/
  18. ^ "Host Robert MacNeil Series Host". PBS. Archived from the original on October 20, 2017. Retrieved September 10, 2017.
  19. ^ "Paul White Award". Radio Television Digital News Association. Archived from the original on February 25, 2013. Retrieved May 27, 2014.
  20. ^ "Robert B. W. MacNeil". American Academy of Arts and Sciences. April 12, 2024. Retrieved April 13, 2024.
  21. ^ Arizona State University (January 29, 2009). "Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication". Archived from the original on March 25, 2016. Retrieved November 23, 2016.

External links

Preceded by
Position created
 The Robert MacNeil Report / The MacNeil/Lehrer Report / The MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour anchor
1975–1995
Served alongside: Jim Lehrer 		Succeeded by
Jim Lehrer
Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Robert_MacNeil&oldid=1219169463"