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In addition to working at CBS and NBC, he has made stints on PBS’s “MacNeil / Lehrer NewsHour” and the History Channel.
When he joined the Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer show in 1987, Mudd told The Associated Press: “I think they view news and information, facts and opinions with reverence and respect. truly admirable.
He wrote a memoir, “The Place To Be,” which came out in early 2008, and described the challenges and conflicting egos he encountered while working in Washington, where he notably covered Congress for CBS during 15 years old.
In an April 2008 interview on “NewsHour,” he said he “loved” keeping tabs on the country’s 100 senators and 435 representatives, “all wanting to talk, have good access, play politics morning, noon. and evening, as opposed to the White House, where everything is zipped and neat. “
Mudd received a George Foster Peabody Award for his November 1979 special “CBS Reports: Teddy,” which aired days before Kennedy officially announced his attempt to challenge President Carter for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination.
In the report, Mudd asked the Massachusetts senator a simple question: “Why do you want to be president?”
Kennedy was not able to give a focused response or specify what he personally wanted to do.
“Well, I, uh, if I had to announce my candidacy, the reasons I would run is because I have a great belief in this country. … We are facing complex issues and problems in this country right now, but we have faced similar challenges at other times. … And I basically think that it is imperative for this country to move forward, that it cannot stand still, otherwise it will back down.
That was enough to prompt New York Times columnist Tom Wicker to award Kennedy the “Safire Nattering Nabob of the Year Award”. Carter won the nomination for a second term, before falling to Ronald Reagan in the general election.
As Mudd told viewers, “On the stump, Kennedy can be dominant, towering and masterful, but out of the stump, in personal interviews, he can get stilted, elliptical and sometimes look like he doesn’t want to. really not that America is getting to know. him.”
Mudd spent quite a bit of time as chairman of “CBS Evening News”, replacing Walter Cronkite when he was away and anchoring the Saturday night news shows from 1966 to 1973.
But he lost to Dan Rather in the competition to succeed Cronkite as CBS news anchor when the latter retired in 1981. Cronkite, for his part, had supported Rather because he didn’t believe Mudd had sufficient experience abroad.
It was then that Mudd moved to NBC as chief correspondent in Washington. Additionally, he co-anchored NBC’s “Nightly News” with Tom Brokaw for a year before Brokaw went solo in 1983, and for a time he co-hosted “Meet the Press,” the Sunday morning interview show.
But when he left NBC, he said management viewed the news as “a commodity to promote” rather than a public service. His departure had been rumored since he sharply criticized NBC News for canceling the “1986” news magazine show, which he co-anchored with Connie Chung.
“Roger Mudd was one of the most gifted journalists of my life. A wise political journalist and guardian of the highest standards. Roger’s dedication to fundamental journalistic practices remains a hallmark for future generations, ”said Brokaw.
In five years on “NewsHour”, Mudd has been a senior correspondent, essayist and occasional presenter. He has hosted a number of reports on American history and education, including “Learning in America: Schools That Work” and “The Wizard: Thomas Alva Edison”.
Mudd left “NewsHour” in 1992 to teach journalism at Princeton University, describing the offer to teach at the Ivy League School as just too appealing to refuse. He was also host and correspondent for The History Channel from 1995 to 2004.
Among his other accolades over the years, Mudd shared a Peabody for the 1970 CBS documentary “The Pentagon Sale,” which examined the military’s public relations efforts. Mudd was the narrator of the program, which Peabody Justices called “electronic journalism at its best.”
Early in his CBS career, Mudd was partnered with Robert Trout to anchor the 1964 Democratic convention coverage after CBS – using Walter Cronkite as an anchor – followed NBC’s Chet Huntley and David Brinkley in ratings at the republican convention. The memorably named Mudd-Trout team didn’t win over the NBC duo, and Cronkite was back as anchor on election night in November.
In 1990 he received the Joan Shorenstein Barone Award for distinguished reporting in Washington.
Prior to joining CBS News, Mudd worked at WTOP radio station in Washington. Previously, he was news director at WRNL Radio in Richmond, Virginia, reporter for the Richmond News Leader and research assistant to the House Committee on the Tax-Exempt Foundation. He was also an English and history teacher and football coach at Darlington School in Rome, Georgia.
In 1977, Mudd received an honorary doctorate from the University of Washington and Lee, his alma mater. He donated his 1,500-volume collection of twentieth-century Southern writers to the university in 2006. He received an MA in American History from the University of North Carolina in 1951.
Mudd, who was born in Washington, was a distant relative of Dr Samuel Mudd, the doctor who was arrested for treating injured John Wilkes Booth shortly after Booth murdered President Abraham Lincoln. The doctor, who was eventually pardoned, said he was unaware of the murder when he helped Booth.
According to CBS News, Mudd and his late wife, former EJ Spears, are survived by their four children, as well as 14 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
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