Robert MacNeil Dies: Longtime PBS ‘MacNeil/Lehrer Report’ Co-Anchor Was 93

Robert MacNeil, the veteran PBS newsman who co-hosted the long-running MacNeil/Lehrer Report with Jim Lehrer, has died. He was 93.

MacNeil died of natural causes at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. His death was announced by PBS NewsHour broadcaster Judy Woodruff, and confirmed to the Associated Press by his daughter Alison MacNeil.

“I am devastated at the passing of a dear friend and someone who helped transform American television news, Robin MacNeil,” tweeted Woodruff, using MacNeil’s nickname. “He and Jim Lehrer were partners in creating the iconic @NewsHour on @PBS and it was the honor of my life to work with and learn from them.”

Two years after teaming in 1973 on Emmy-winning coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings, MacNeil and Lehrer solidified their partnership in 1975 with the 30-minute PBS news program that would soon bear their names.

Lehrer died in 2020 at age 85.

Unlike other newscasts, The MacNeil/Lehrer Report focused on one story per day, taking a deeper dive beyond the headlines. Their approach and execution would earn them considerable accolades, including Emmys and a Peabody Award.

The title of the show – and its length – changed in 1983 to The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, considered to be the nation’s first hour-long evening newscast. With the expansion to 60 minutes, the program branched beyond the single-topic approach.

Robert Breckenridge Ware MacNeil was born in Montreal on January 19, 1931, and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia. After a brief acting career for the CBC, MacNeil moved to London to become a playwright. While there, he signed on to the new network ITV as a reporter. From there, he landed a job as an editor at Reuters.

He joined NBC News in 1960, working as a London-based correspondent. In 1963, he was transferred to the network’s Washington bureau, where he covered the Civil Rights Movement and the White House, among other beats. Within five years he was co-anchoring, with Ray Scherer, a 30-minute weekend news broadcast.

After his work at NBC and, briefly, the BBC, he joined PBS in 1971 as a correspondent. Two years later, his national profile increased considerably with the award-winning coverage of the Watergate hearings.

Full information on survivors was not immediately available.