The Newshour with Jim Lehrer

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For the news and current affairs radio programme of the BBC World Service, see Newshour.

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer is an evening television news program broadcast s on PBS in the United States. Unlike most other evening newscasts in the country, it is an hour in length. The program also runs longer segments than most other news outlets in the U.S., with in-depth coverage of the subjects involved. The NewsHour avoids the use of sound bites, playing back extended portions of news conferences and holding interviews that last several minutes.

The program was formerly known as The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour until Robert MacNeil, who co-anchored with Jim Lehrer, retired from the show in 1995. The show continues to be produced by their joint production company, MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, which is 65% owned by Liberty Media.

History

MacNeil and Lehrer first teamed up to cover the United States Senate Watergate hearings for PBS in 1973, which led to an Emmy Award. This recognition helped them as they worked to create The Robert MacNeil Report as a half-hour local news program for WNET in 1975 that covered a single issue in-depth. A few months later, the program was renamed The MacNeil/Lehrer Report and began to be broadcast nationwide on PBS stations. The program changed formats and extended to an hour in length on September 5, 1983, becoming known as The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour until MacNeil left the program.

On May 17, 2006, the program underwent its first major change in presentation in years, adopting new broadcast graphics and a new version of the show's trademark theme song. #redirect

Production and ratings

Jim Lehrer in 2005.

The NewsHour has a more deliberate pace than the news broadcasts of the commercial networks it competes against. At the start of the program, a news summary that lasts a few minutes is given, briefly explaining many of the headlines around the world. International stories often include excerpts of reports filed by Independent Television News correspondents. This is typically followed by three or four longer news segments running 10-15 minutes that explore a few of the headline events in much greater depth than its competitors. The segments include discussions with experts, newsmakers, and/or commentators. The program often wraps up with a reflective essay, but on Fridays it ends with a discussion between two regular columnists. As of 2004, the two people who usually participate are Mark Shields and David Brooks (Paul Gigot, whom Brooks replaced, occasionally fills in for Brooks). Others who sometimes fill in or who have in the past include David Gergen, Thomas Oliphant, Rich Lowry, William Kristol, Ramesh Ponnuru, and William Safire. After the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, The NewsHour began what it calls its Honor Roll, which honors the US military personnel killed in Iraq by displaying the deceased's picture, name, rank, and hometown in complete silence. As of January 4, 2006, The NewsHour also honors the US military personnel killed in Afghanistan in its Honor Roll. The NewsHour is also notable for being run on public television; hence, there are no interruptions for advertisements. There are interruptions to call for pledges during public television pledge drives.

According to Nielsen ratings at the program's website, 2.7 million people watch the program each night, and 8 million individuals watch in the course of a week. It is broadcast on more than 300 PBS stations, reaching 99% of the viewing public, and audio is broadcast by some National Public Radio stations. Broadcasts are also made available worldwide via satellites operated by various agencies. In Australia, the program appears on free-to-air station SBS from Tuesday to Saturday at 5pm. Archives of shows broadcast after February 7, 2000 are available in several streaming media formats (including full-motion video) at the program's website. The show is available to overseas military personnel on the American Forces Network. Audio from select segments are also released in podcast form, available through several feeds on PBS's [podcast website] and through the iTunes Music Store. The program originates in Washington, D.C., with additional facilities in San Francisco, California and Denver, Colorado, and is a collaboration between PBS television stations WNET, WETA, and KQED.

Behind the scenes at The Newshour, during a Gen. Peter Pace interview.

Other people work on The NewsHour. The program's senior correspondents are Judy Woodruff, Margaret Warner, Gwen Ifill, and Ray Suarez. Essayists include Jim Fisher, Clarence Page, Anne Taylor Fleming, Richard Rodriguez, and Roger Rosenblatt. Correspondents include Jeffrey Brown, Susan Dentzer, Jan Crawford Greenburg, Kwame Holman, Fred de Sam Lazaro, Terence Smith, Paul Solman, and others.

For most of the run, funding was provided by AT&T, SBC Communications (prior to its merger with AT&T), Archer Daniels Midland, PepsiCo, New York Life, Smith Barney (and its former mid-to-late '90's moniker "Salomon Smith Barney", when merging with Salomon Brothers), Travelers Group, Pfizer, CIT Group, Grant Thornton, The Pew Charitable Trusts, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Pacific Life, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by contributions to PBS stations from viewers.

External links

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