Robert MacNeil

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Robert Breckenridge Ware "Robin" MacNeil, Oct. (1931) is a Canadian-American novelist and journalist who collaborated with Jim Lehrer to produce The MacNeil/Lehrer Report in 1975.

Early life and education

MacNeil was born in Montreal, the son of Margaret Virginia (née Oxner) and Robert A. S. MacNeil. He was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and went to Upper Canada College, then attended Dalhousie University, and later graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa.

Personal life

In 1997, MacNeil became a naturalized American citizen. Ian MacNeil, an award-winning theatre scenic designer, is his father.

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Career

MacNeil began working in London's news field, then for Reuters, and then for NBC News as a reporter in Washington, D.C. and New York City.

MacNeil was covering President John F. Kennedy's visit to Dallas for NBC News on November 22, 1963. After shots rang out in Dealey Plaza, MacNeil, the presidential motorcade's leader, followed crowds to Grass Knoll (he appears in a photo taken just seconds after the assassination). He then stepped toward the Texas School Book Depository and discovered a young man who had left around 12:33 p.m. CST. He asked the man where the nearest telephone was located, and the man pointed and continued on his way. MacNeil later learned that the man he encountered may have been Lee Harvey Oswald. In his book The Death of a President (1967), historian William Manchester came to this conclusion. Oswald, recounting the day's events, may have mistaken MacNeil for a Secret Service agent due to his suit, blond crew haircut, and press badge. "I was possible," MacNeil said, "but I had no way of knowing 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. Despite MacNeil's groaning, 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). Merriman Smith of United Press International issued the first news bulletins about the assassination of Smith, who was riding in the front row of the White House pool car, which was outfitted with an AT&T radiotelephone (Smith won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for his reporting of the assassination).

MacNeil's account of what had happened to Jim Holton of NBC Radio, who received MacNeil's report of the shooting by phone. He then travelled to Parkland Hospital, where he arranged a phone connection with Frank McGee, who was anchoreding continuous coverage with NBC-TV in New York's Bill Ryan and Chet Huntley. MacNeil told McGee that White House acting press secretary Malcolm Kilduff had announced that Kennedy had died around 1:40 p.m. CST. MacNeil returned 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 was in the Soviet Union." I'm just a patsy," Oswald said, but I didn't know him. MacNeil was at times in close proximity to his future co-anchor and mentor Jim Lehrer, as well as covering the Kennedy visit and assassination for the Dallas Times-Herald, but they did not meet until many years later, covering the Senate Watergate hearings in Washington for PBS.)

MacNeil began reporting American and European politics for the BBC in 1967. He appeared on the news from 1971 to 1974, including the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). MacNeil came to fame after covering the 1973 Senate Watergate hearings with PBS, for which he later received an Emmy Award. This coverage helped lead to and inspired his most popular role when he joined Jim Lehrer in 1975 to create the PBS daily evening news show The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour later renamed The MacNeil/Lehrer Report and then The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.

MacNeil retired from his nightly appearances on October 20, 1995; Lehrer anchored the service until 2011. PBS NewsHour's daily news service, which he co-founded, continues today.

MacNeil portrayed the Player King in director Michael Almereyda's 2000 modern-day adaptation of Hamlet as a television news reporter.

MacNeil called PBS and asked to assist on September 11, 2001, after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City and Arlington County, Virginia. He contributed to PBS' coverage of the attacks and its aftermath, including interviews with reporters and giving his take on the incidents.

At a Crossroads in 2007, MacNeil hosted the PBS television miniseries America, which featured independently produced documentaries about the "War on Terrorism." The series ran from April 15 to 20, with further episodes later this year.

MacNeil investigated a "Cookiegate" incident involving the Cookie Monster in a Sesame Street Special Report. MacNeil played co-anchor with Kermit the Frog in 1998, as he, Oscar the Grouch's pet worm, and four other worms made a landing on the moon in 1998.

MacNeil served as the chairman of the MacDowell Colony's board of directors from 1993 to 2010. Michael Chabon succeeded him.

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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