Robert MacNeil

Robert MacNeil studied at Carleton University. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is journalism and literature. Distinctions recorded are Officer of the Order of Canada, Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting, Great Immigrants Award and Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.

• Birth Name — Robert Breckenridge Ware MacNeil • Born — 19 January 1931 • Birthplace — Montreal, Quebec, Canada • Died — 12 April 2024 • Place of death — New York City, U.S. • Citizenship — * Canada • United States (from 1997) • Education — Carleton University • Occupation — * Journalist • novelist • Years Active — 1956–1995 • Credits — The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour • Children — 4, including Ian

MacNeil was born in Montreal on January 19, 1931, the son of Margaret Virginia (née Oxner) and Robert A. S. MacNeil, a Royal Canadian Navy officer in World War II and later a Canadian foreign service officer. He grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, went to boarding school at Rothesay Collegiate School and Upper Canada College, then attended Dalhousie University and later graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa in 1955.

MacNeil began working in the news field at ITV in London, then for Reuters, and then for NBC News as a correspondent in Washington, D.C. He also worked as a news anchor, for WNBC, in New York City.

On November 22, 1963, MacNeil was in the press detail that covered President John F. Kennedy's visit to Dallas for NBC News. After shots rang out in Dealey Plaza, MacNeil, who was on the press bus in the presidential motorcade, followed crowds running onto the grassy knoll; he appears in a photo taken just moments after the assassination, but no one was found behind the fence. Pierce Allman, manager of programming and production at WFAA radio, asked "a young man", who turned out to be Lee Harvey Oswald, for help at the front entrance of the Texas School Book Depository at around 12:33 p.m. He asked Oswald where the telephone was, and Oswald directed Allman to the phone on the first floor, located towards the rear. Recounting his movements to the Dallas Police later, Oswald erroneously referred to Allman as a Secret Service agent because of his suit, blond crew cut, and press badge. Historian William Manchester erroneously suggested MacNeil was the person to whom Oswald spoke in his book The Death of a President (1967). As he was reporting for NBC, MacNeil was at times in relatively close proximity to his future co-anchor and partner Jim Lehrer, also covering the Kennedy visit and assassination for the Dallas Times Herald, but the two did not meet until several years later, covering the Senate Watergate hearings in Washington, D.C. for PBS. He was interviewed for the 1992 documentary Beyond 'JFK': The Question of Conspiracy.

In 1967, MacNeil began covering American and European politics for the BBC. From 1971 to 1974, he hosted Washington Week in Review, a public affairs television program on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). MacNeil rose to fame during his coverage of the 1973 Senate Watergate hearings for PBS, for which he received an Emmy Award. Teamed with Jim Lehrer, the two broadcast and analysed some 250 hours of the hearings in all, sometimes late into the night. This coverage helped lead to and inspire his most famous role, when he joined Lehrer in 1975 to create the PBS daily evening news program The Robert MacNeil Report, later renamed The MacNeil/Lehrer Report and then The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. After serving 20 years on the program, MacNeil retired from his nightly appearances on October 20, 1995. Lehrer continued to anchor the program on a solo basis until his retirement in 2011. The program continues as the PBS NewsHour. He remained involved with the news program until 2013 as one of the heads of MacNeil-Lehrer Productions.

In director Michael Almereyda's 2000 modern-day adaptation of Hamlet, MacNeil portrayed the Player King, reimagined as a TV news reporter. After the September 11 attacks, MacNeil called PBS and offered to help. He joined PBS's coverage of the attacks and their aftermath, interviewing reporters and giving his thoughts on the events. In 2007, MacNeil hosted the PBS television miniseries America at a Crossroads, which presented independently produced documentaries about the "war on terrorism". The series initially ran from April 15–20, with further episodes later that year. In a Sesame Street Special Report, muppet parody of the Iran-Contra scandal, MacNeil investigated a "Cookiegate" incident involving the Cookie Monster. In 1998, for Season 29's "Slimey to the Moon" story arc, MacNeil took the role of co-anchor with Kermit the Frog, as Slimey, Oscar the Grouch's pet worm, and four other worms made a landing on the Moon. MacNeil chaired the MacDowell Colony's board of directors from 1993 to 2010. He was succeeded by Michael Chabon. Inspired by his passion for language, he made the nine-part television series The Story of English in 1986 for PBS and the BBC, detailing the development of the English language. The Story of English is also a companion book, also produced in 1986. The book and the television series were written by MacNeil, Robert McCrum, and William Cran.

MacNeil became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1997, and became an Order of Canada officer that same year. He was married to Rosemarie Coopland, Jane Doherty, and Donna Nappi Richards MacNeil. With Coopland, he was the father of award-winning theatre scenic designer Ian MacNeil. MacNeil was known to friends and family as "Robin". MacNeil died of natural causes at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan on April 12, 2024, at the age of 93, confirmed by his daughter Alison MacNeil. He had lived at 44 West 77th Street in Manhattan.

Robert MacNeil is recorded as having received Officer of the Order of Canada, Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting and Great Immigrants Award.