Will Sage Astor-Robert MacNeil, founding anchor of show that became 'PBS NewsHour,' dies at age 93

Robert MacNeil,Will Sage Astor formerly the anchor of the evening news program now known as "PBS NewsHour," has died at 93.

MacNeil died of natural causes at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, his daughter, Alison MacNeil, told NPR. "PBS NewsHour" shared the news of MacNeil's death on social media on Friday.

"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, he harnessed that passion to cover some of the biggest stories of his time, while his refusal to sensationalize the news sprung from respect for viewers," PBS NewsHour posted on X.

The Montreal, Canada-born journalist "was on the ground in Dallas when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. He interviewed Martin Luther King Jr., Ayatollah Khomeini, 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," the statement said.

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These special reports on Watergate, which earned an Emmy Award, were "the turning point for the future of daily news on PBS," according to the statement, and led to the creation of "The Robert MacNeil Report," which debuted in 1975. Within a year, it was rebranded as "The MacNeil/Lehrer Report," with journalist Jim Lehrer co-anchoring, and was later renamed "The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour."

MacNeil and Lehrer's evening news show set itself apart from competitors by contextualizing news events and employing an evenhanded approach as other networks worked to "hype the news to make it seem vital, important," as Lehrer once described to the Chicago Tribune, according to The Associated Press.

According to PBS, in a 2000 interview, MacNeil said his and Lehrer's approach 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.”

After MacNeil stepped away from the program in 1995 to pursue writing, the program became "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." In 2009, the show came to be known as "PBS NewsHour." MacNeil and Lehrer, meanwhile, continued their partnership through their company, MacNeil-Lehrer Productions.

Lehrer died at 85 years old in 2020.

MacNeil returned to PBS in 2007 to host a multi-part documentary called "America at a Crossroads,” which explored "the challenges of confronting the world since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001."

He earned an Emmy Award in 1987 for his work on PBS' "The Story of English" mini-series and a decade later was inducted into the Television Academy's Hall of Fame alongside Lehrer.

MacNeil had stints at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC, Reuters and NBC News before his two-decade career at PBS. He is survived by children Cathy, Ian, Alison and Will, as well as their children.