Robert MacNeil

For other people named Robert MacNeil, see Robert MacNeil (disambiguation).

Robert MacNeil OC
File:Robert MacNeil accepting Cronkite Award.jpg MacNeil accepting the 2008 Cronkite Award
Born	Robert Breckenridge Ware MacNeil (1931-01-19)January 19, 1931 Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Died	New York City, New York, U.S.
Nationality	Canadian-American
Alma mater	Carleton University
Occupation	Journalist, novelist
Years active	1956–2020
Children	Ian MacNeil Cathy William Alison

Robert Breckenridge Ware MacNeil, OC (January 19, 1931 – April 12, 2024) was a Canadian-American journalist and writer. A television news anchor, he partnered with Jim Lehrer to create The MacNeil/Lehrer Report in 1975.

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. 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.

Career

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

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 12:33PM 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. 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."

MacNeil sprinted to the phone and dialed the NBC newsroom in New York before telephone lines became overloaded. But 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).

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).

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 pm 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. As he was reporting for NBC, MacNeil was at times in relatively close proximity 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 for PBS.

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).

MacNeil rose to fame during his coverage of the 1973 Senate Watergate hearings for PBS, for which he received an Emmy Award. 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.

Post-retirement work

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

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

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.

In a Sesame Street Special Report, The Muppet Show parody of the Iran-Contra scandal, MacNeil investigated a "Cookiegate" incident involving the Cookie Monster. 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.

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

The Story of English is a nine-part television series, produced in 1986, detailing the development of the English language. 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.

Personal life and death

MacNeil became a naturalized American citizen in 1997. He was the father of award-winning theatre scenic designer Ian MacNeil.

Robert MacNeil died of natural causes at a Manhattan hospital on April 12, 2024, at the age of 93.

Awards and honors

• 1979: LHD honorary degree from Bates College.
• 1997: Officer of the Order of Canada, one of Canada's highest civilian honors, for being "one of the most respected journalists of our time".
• 1990: Paul White Award, Radio Television Digital News Association.
• 1999: Television Hall of Fame.
• 2008: Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.

Bibliography

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

• Breaking News (novel)
• Burden of Desire (novel)
• Eudora Welty: Seeing Black and White
• Looking for My Country: Finding Myself in America
• The People Machine: The Influence of Television on American Politics
• The Right Place at the Right Time
• 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)
• Do You Speak American? (accompanied by a PBS documentary miniseries in 2005)

External links

• Appearances on C-SPAN
• A Tribute to Robert MacNeil (NewsHour with Jim Lehrer)
• Archive of American Television
• MacNeil/Lehrer Productions

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