ROBERT MACNEIL

FILE - In this Aug. 6, 2001, file photo, veteran journalist Roger Mudd tapes a segment for the History Channel at CBS studios in New York. Mudd, the longtime political correspondent and anchor for NBC and CBS who once stumped Sen. Edward Kennedy by simply asking why he wanted to be president, died Tuesday, March 9, 2021. CBS News says Mudd died Tuesday of complications of kidney failure at his home in McLean, Virginia. Besides work at CBS and NBC, he did stints on PBS’s “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” and the History Channel. It was then that Mudd jumped to NBC as its chief Washington correspondent.

Robert MacNeil, right, and Jim Lehrer were first teamed to cover the Watergate hearings for PBS in 1973. But the unintended boost he gave to PBS public affairs programming endured. News anchor Judy Woodruff on the set of the “PBS NewsHour.” (PBS)“They were very serious people,” said Richard Wald, a former news executive for NBC and ABC. “It is more difficult for the ‘PBS NewsHour’ to run political discussions — which our original report helped to invent — and keep the the argument civilized and coherent,” he said. And that’s the way PBS viewers like it.

After MacNeil bowed out in 1995, it became "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." Dan Rather said "few approached their work with more equanimity and integrity than Jim Lehrer." Jim Lehrer, co-host and later host of the nightly PBS "NewsHour" that for decades offered a thoughtful take on current events, has died, PBS said Thursday. This undated image released by PBS shows Jim Lehrer of "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." As Lehrer turned 75 in spring 2009, PBS announced that the show would be retitled as "PBS NewsHour" later in the year, with Lehrer pairing up on anchor duties with other show regulars.