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Roger Mudd
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Roger Mudd (born February 9, 1928) is an Emmy Award-winning U.S. television journalist and broadcaster, most recently as the primary anchor for The History Channel. Previously, Mudd was weekend and weekday substitute anchor of CBS Evening News, co-anchor of the weekday NBC Nightly News, and hosted NBC's Meet the Press, and NBC's American Almanac television newsmagazine. Mudd is the recipient of the Peabody Award, the Joan Shorenstein Award for Distinguished Washington Reporting, and five Emmy Awards.
was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Irma Iris (née Harrison) and Kostka Mudd.
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Encyclopedia
Roger Mudd (born February 9, 1928) is an Emmy Award-winning U.S. television journalist and broadcaster, most recently as the primary anchor for The History Channel. Previously, Mudd was weekend and weekday substitute anchor of CBS Evening News, co-anchor of the weekday NBC Nightly News, and hosted NBC's Meet the Press, and NBC's American Almanac television newsmagazine. Mudd is the recipient of the Peabody Award, the Joan Shorenstein Award for Distinguished Washington Reporting, and five Emmy Awards.
Early life & career
Mudd was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Irma Iris (née Harrison) and Kostka Mudd. He received a B.A. degree from Washington and Lee University in 1950 and a Master's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1951. He began his journalism career in Richmond, Virginia as a reporter for the The Richmond News Leader and for radio station WRNL. He moved to Washington, DC in the late 50's to become a reporter with WTOP News, the news division of the radio and television stations owned by Post-Newsweek. Although WTOP News was a local news department, it covered many national stories. CBS News was located on the third floor of WTOP's studios at 40th and Brandywine in NW Washington. Mudd quickly came to the attention of CBS News and moved "downstairs" to join the Washington bureau in 1961.
CBS News
For most of his career at CBS, Mudd was a Congressional correspondent. He also was anchor of the Saturday edition of the Evening News and frequently substituted on the weeknight broadcasts when anchor Walter Cronkite was on vacation or working on special assignments. Mudd also covered numerous political campaigns. He was paired with co-anchor Robert Trout in the 1964 political convention anchor booth, temporarily displacing Walter Cronkite, in an unsuccessful attempt to match the popular NBC Huntley-Brinkley anchor team. He covered the 1968 Presidential campaign of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and was in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles when Kennedy was shot on June 5, 1968.
Mudd hosted the seminal documentary The Selling of the Pentagon in 1971. He was a candidate to succeed Walter Cronkite as anchor of the CBS Evening News. Despite substantial support for Mudd within the ranks of CBS News, network management gave the position to Dan Rather after the longtime White House and 60 Minutes correspondent threatened to leave the network and sign a contract with ABC News.
Over two decades later, after Rather's eventual unceremonious ouster, some bloggers online called for Mudd's return.
Ted Kennedy interview
Mudd is perhaps best remembered for an interview he conducted with Senator Edward M. Kennedy for a November 4 1979 CBS special, Teddy, aired three days before Kennedy officially announced his candidacy for the 1980 Democratic Presidential nomination. Mudd asked Kennedy, "Senator, why do you want to be president?" and Kennedy's vague and rambling answer raised questions about his motivation in seeking the office, and marked the beginning of the sharp decline in Kennedy's impressive poll numbers. President Jimmy Carter defeated Kennedy 50% to 38% in the Democratic primary vote. Although the Kennedy family refused any further interviews with Mudd, the interview helped strengthen Mudd's reputation as a leading political reporter. Broadcaster and blogger Hugh Hewitt has used the term "Roger Mudd moment" to describe a self-inflicted disastrous encounter with the press by a presidential candidate.
Post-CBS years
NBC Nightly News and Meet the Press
Mudd chose to leave CBS News in 1980 and accepted an offer to co-anchor NBC Nightly News with John Chancellor and later Tom Brokaw, which he did from November 1980 until September 1983, when Brokaw took over as sole anchor. From 1984 to 1985, he was co-anchor of NBC's Meet the Press with Marvin Kalb. From 1987 to 1992, he was an essayist and political correspondent with the MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour on PBS. He was a visiting professor at Princeton University and Washington and Lee University from 1992 to 1996. Mudd was also a primary anchor for over ten years with The History Channel, where many of his programs are often repeated in reruns. He retired from full-time broadcasting in 2004, yet remains involved with documentaries for The History Channel.
March 24, 2008 was the publication date of Mudd's memoirs, The Place to Be: Washington, CBS, and the Glory Days of Television News.
Personal
Mudd has three sons and a daughter, including former Fannie Mae CEO Daniel. Roger Mudd is also directly related to Samuel Mudd, the doctor who was imprisoned for treating John Wilkes Booth's broken leg after assassinating Abraham Lincoln.
External links
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- Collins, Reid. , Accuracy in Media, March 14, 2005.
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