Roger Mudd
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During the heydey of CBS News in the 1970's, Mudd was the weekend anchor, while popular weekday Anchor Walter Cronkite headed the most watched television news organization. Mudd, was also congressional and national affairs correspondent for the CBS Evening News, Mudd was a candidate in 1981 to succeed Walter Cronkite as anchor of the CBS Evening News. Despite substantial support Mudd had within the ranks of CBS News, the corporate decisionmakers gave the position to Dan Rather after Rather threatened to leave the network and sign a contract with ABC News.
Ironically, 23 years later after Rather's tenure led to disastrous ratings for CBS and Rather's eventual unceremonious ouster, bloggers online called for the return of Roger Mudd.
Mudd chose to leave CBS News, and accepted an offer to co-anchor NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, which he did from 1982 until 1983. 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 between 1992 and 1996. Mudd was 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."
Mudd 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 journalist career in Richmond, Virginia as a reporter for the Richmond News Leader and for radio station WRNL.
Mudd is the recipient of George Foster Peabody Award, the Joan Shorenstein Award for Distinguished Washington Reporting and five Emmy Awards.
Mudd is an indirect, distant relative of Dr. Samuel Mudd, the doctor who was implicated with inadvertently aiding John Wilkes Booth shortly after he assassinated U.S president Lincoln. Many accounts have muddled the facts, assuming incorrectly that he is a direct descendant.Samuel A. Mudd, "Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd and His Descendants". Saginaw MI: Bastion Brothers and Co., 1989. 57 pages.
References
External links
- [Mudd received honorary degree]
- Collins, Reid. ["Mudd in the CBS Eye"], Accuracy in Media, March 14, 2005.
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