Robert MacNeil, formerly the anchor of the evening news program now known as "PBS NewsHour," has died at 93.
MacNeil died of natural causes at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, his daughter, Alison MacNeil, told NPR. "PBS NewsHour" shared the news of MacNeil's death on social media on Friday.
"A lifelong lover of language, literature and the arts, MacNeil’s trade was using words. Combined with his reporter’s knack for being where the action was, he harnessed that passion to cover some of the biggest stories of his time, while his refusal to sensationalize the news sprung from respect for viewers," PBS NewsHour posted on X.
The Montreal, Canada-born journalist "was on the ground in Dallas when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. He interviewed Martin Luther King Jr., Ayatollah Khomeini, and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. But he had his biggest breakthrough with the 1973 gavel-to-gavel primetime coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings," the statement said.