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      in Theater

      Following Theater Graduates Who Were Left Without a Stage

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      The Times’s theater reporter tracked drama students who emerged from a well-regarded North Carolina conservatory into a world with performance on pause.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.I’m the theater reporter at The New York Times. But for more than a year, there was very little theater.So what have I been doing? Well, at least in part, I’ve been writing about the people whose lives, and livelihoods, have been upended by the pandemic-prompted shutdown.That means actors, of course, and fans, too. But I’ve also been intrigued, almost since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, by what the widespread layoffs and absence of productions would mean for aspiring theater artists,. That’s what led me to report the article that appeared in Sunday’s paper about a group of drama students who graduated last year from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.Over time, I was able to talk to 22 of the 23 drama students in the class of 2020, and they reminded me of so much that I love about journalism, and about artists — they were open and generous and self-aware, and sometimes uncertain about how to think about what this strange and unexpected time would mean for them. And it seems like the article has resonated with readers, for which I am grateful.I started pitching the story to The Times’s culture editors last summer. Then, in January, prompted by the annual what-do-we-want-to-do-this-year meetings, I moved it to the top of my wish list.But how to proceed? I started by reaching out to a number of leading drama programs in New York and around the country, and by talking with educators and students about what was happening with the class of 2020. I was just trying to get my head around what a story might look like.As I gathered reporting, my editors and I resumed a debate we have over and over: breadth versus depth. Was the best way to proceed to write in a sweeping fashion about the most interesting graduates from a variety of programs, or to go deep on a single program that could stand in for the larger universe?Once we decided to focus on one class, it was time to select a school. This is the kind of multiple-choice question for which there is no single right answer. We wanted a well-regarded program, but maybe not one of the schools right in our backyard, and we wanted a group of students with a variety of back stories and a range of pandemic experiences.The University of North Carolina School of the Arts appealed because it met those criteria, and I just had a gut feeling, after talking with the program’s dean, its communications director and a few of the students, that I would find the level of candor that might make a story succeed.As has been true for much of my work over the last year, the reporting was largely by phone — the students have scattered, with one in England, one in Australia and the others all over the United States and often on the move. But I did get to meet some of them.In May, I took my first reporting flight since the pandemic began, to Winston-Salem, to tour the campus and attend the 2021 commencement, which members of the class of 2020 were invited to attend, and two did. (One bonus: I got to see what a Fighting Pickle, the school’s mascot, looks like.)I visited with three members of the class. David Ospina, who is now working as a real estate photographer, met me for cold brew coffee on a very hot North Carolina morning; Lance Smith showed me around his mom’s apartment, where he’s been making music and self-taping auditions during the pandemic; and Sam Sherman joined Mr. Smith and me at a picnic table on campus to debrief the morning after commencement. And over dinner with the dean and several faculty members, I learned more about the school’s programs and how it had weathered the pandemic.It’s been great to start reporting in person again. It just leads to better conversations and richer material, and I’m so grateful to all the students for their thoughtfulness. As I sat with Mr. Smith and Mr. Sherman, one memory prompted another — the student production of “Pass Over” they worked on, the alumni panels they attended, the books they’re reading and the survival jobs they’re taking and the dreams they’re trying to hold on to. “I’m starving to be in a room with people, playing with each other, having fun and goofing off and seeing what works and maybe having a breakthrough one day,” Mr. Sherman said. Mr. Smith agreed. “I miss being in it,” he added. “I miss doing it.” More

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      in Music

      Rolling Stone Hires Daily Beast Editor as Its Top Editor

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      Noah Shachtman, an experienced online journalist with a newsy sensibility, will lead the pop music bible founded in 1967.Rolling Stone has chosen Noah Shachtman, the top editor of the news site The Daily Beast, as its next editor in chief, the magazine announced on Thursday, calling on him to continue the transformation of the 54-year-old pop music bible into a digital-first publication.Mr. Shachtman, 50, said in an interview that he plans to bring along The Daily Beast’s newsy approach and web metabolism when he starts his new job in September.“It’s got to be faster, louder, harder,” he said. “We’ve got to be out getting scoops, taking people backstage, showing them parts of the world they don’t get to see every day.”Mr. Shachtman will succeed Jason Fine, who stepped down in February after five and a half years as the top editor to take a job overseeing Rolling Stone’s podcasts, documentaries and other media ventures.The selection of Mr. Shachtman was driven by Gus Wenner, Rolling Stone’s president and chief operating officer and a son of Jann S. Wenner, who co-founded the magazine as a 21-year-old college dropout from a San Francisco apartment.The elder Mr. Wenner sold a majority stake in Rolling Stone to Penske Media, the publishing company led by the auto-racing scion Jay Penske, in 2017. Two years later, Penske Media bought the remaining stake from BandLab Technologies, a music technology company based in Singapore.“I love that his strength is in an area where we need to get stronger,” Gus Wenner, 30, said of Mr. Shachtman. “But he’s certainly got the skill set on long-form pieces, and that’s going to continue to be super important, too.”“Five years from now, I want Rolling Stone to be at the forefront of content creation across any platform: films, podcasts, the website, the magazine,” Mr. Wenner added. He cited, among other things, the Rolling Stone channel on the gaming platform Twitch.Before becoming the top editor of The Daily Beast in 2018, Mr. Shachtman covered technology and the defense industry as a freelance journalist and an early blogger. He later founded and edited the Wired blog “Danger Room,” a winner of a National Magazine Award in 2012.He brought to The Daily Beast a hard-hitting style reminiscent of New York’s tabloids. In recent years, the site, which the editor Tina Brown and the media entrepreneur Barry Diller started in 2008, kept a close watch on the Trump administration, the Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking case and conservative media outlets.Tracy Connor, The Daily Beast’s executive editor, will serve as interim editor in chief after Mr. Shachtman’s departure next month, the chief executive, Heather Dietrick, announced in a staff memo. Ms. Dietrick added of Mr. Shachtman: “Under his guidance, we made a bigger impact and reached more people in diverse formats than ever before. He was at our helm but also in the trenches every day.”Mr. Shachtman said that Rolling Stone would continue to cover pop music, digital culture and the entertainment industry, and that its outlook would often be skeptical. Some critics have contended that the magazine has sometimes veered away from journalism into fandom.“Rolling Stone’s at its best when it’s both celebrating great art and taking down bad actors,” Mr. Shachtman said, adding that he has little interest in cozying up to celebrities.In a statement, Mr. Penske said of Mr. Shachtman: “His experience, journalistic integrity and thought leadership make him the ideal choice to take this iconic brand into the next phase of growth and innovation.”Mr. Shachtman in Brooklyn with Rolling Stone’s chief executive, Gus Wenner, who said the magazine had become profitable again.Guerin Blask for The New York TimesA money-losing enterprise as recently as three years ago, Rolling Stone is now profitable, Mr. Wenner said. The monthly print edition, with a circulation of roughly 500,000, according to the Alliance for Audited Media, is profitable by itself, he added.In 2018, the magazine returned to its old large-size format, 10 inches by 12 inches, after a decade on newsstands in the more common 8-by-11 size. Rolling Stone started charging for online access last year. It attracts around 30 million unique visitors each month, Mr. Wenner said.Mr. Shachtman and Mr. Wenner are white men at a magazine known for publishing in-depth articles on white male rock gods like John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend and Mick Jagger when the baby boom generation was ascendant.“We’re in a different era now,” Mr. Shachtman said. “No one appreciates the legacy of Rolling Stone more than me. But legacy is very different from future.”Mr. Wenner said he had considered “a very diverse and wide range of candidates” for the job of leading the magazine.“Diversity continues to be one of our biggest priorities, and it’s something Noah and I and Jay discussed at great length,” he added. “Continuing to bring in incredible leaders within the staff from all backgrounds will be a top mandate and priority of Noah’s.”Although he is a longtime journalist, Mr. Shachtman knows his way around a chord progression. From college into his 30s, he played bass in a series of ska, reggae and dub bands, including the 3rd Degree and Skinnerbox NYC. Along the way he played New York’s CBGB, Washington’s 9:30 Club and other storied venues.“He was good at appreciating the groove and holding things together,” said Jon Natchez, a saxophonist in the rock group the War on Drugs, who played alongside Mr. Shachtman in a ska band called Stubborn All-Stars.Mr. Shachtman, who lives in Brooklyn, said he had kept tabs on the latest in youth culture through his two sons, noting the social gaming platform Roblox as an example.“Getting into the spaces that are too weird, too confusing and too dangerous for parents to be in — that’s where Rolling Stone’s got to be,” he said. More

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      in Television

      For Times Reporters Appearing on TV, Extra Prep Time Helps

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      Appearing on TV news shows lets Times reporters take their work to a wider audience. But the opportunities must be handled with care.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.“What do you think?”The host looks to you. Hundreds of thousands — even millions — of television viewers await your answer. What do you say?Annie Karni, a White House correspondent for The New York Times who is a regular guest on MSNBC, said she has been asked some version of that question often during her TV news show appearances over the past few years.“You’re there to talk about your reporting, even if the host is pushing you to offer an opinion,” she said.Ms. Karni is one of approximately 20 Times reporters who make regular appearances on television networks like CNN, CBS and MSNBC. Although most appearances are unpaid unless a journalist has signed a contract with a network, Ms. Karni and others see substantial pluses in the appearances.“Sources in Washington watch, and maybe someone starts to recognize you more and is more likely to return your call on your next story,” she said.“It’s also another way to bring the work of The Times to people watching a program who might otherwise not have seen it,” said Zolan Kanno-Youngs, a White House correspondent for The Times and a CNN contributor.Reporters are generally asked to appear on a show a few hours in advance, Ms. Karni said. They are given topics of discussion, along with any relevant articles to read, though producers do not supply precise questions.Before an appearance, Ms. Karni said she sometimes makes extra calls to her sources to get additional context.Katie Benner, who covers the Justice Department for The Times and recently signed on as a contributor at MSNBC, said she makes an extra effort to consider how to contextualize any topic she discusses for an audience that may be unfamiliar with it.“If there’s a major shooting and the Justice Department has deemed it a possible hate crime, the public should probably know what constitutes a hate crime,” she said. “Are they on the rise? Are we seeing a trend? If someone else addresses that, great. If not, I want to make sure it’s said.”Ms. Karni said the best way for reporters to learn how to present their work for a television audience is simply to do it repeatedly, but first-time guests aren’t completely on their own. The Times’s communications department offers media training for its reporters, which can include mock interviews. One thing that Ms. Karni said surprised her when she began appearing on TV was the streamlining and repetition necessary when summarizing reporting.“You want to come up with one or two things you want the audience to know and really emphasize those,” she said. “Even if it’s not the exact answer to the question you’re asked, it’s better than trying to think on your feet.”Even though a reporter may be on camera for only five minutes, the time required for TV appearances is hardly brief, Ms. Karni said. In addition to getting to and from the studio (during normal times, that is), reporters must catch up on all the news of the day, not just their specific stories. That can be the most difficult part, Ms. Karni said: the ability to pivot and to be prepared to speak on any pressing topic after a 15-minute cram session on the car ride over.But journalists have been appearing remotely since March 2020, which enables them to commit more like 10 minutes of their time rather than two hours. And reporters can make late-night appearances on shows like “Nightline” without worrying about catching a late car ride home.“It’s been a totally new world since the pandemic,” Ms. Karni said. “I bought a ring light for my bedroom, do my own makeup, and the whole thing is much quicker.”Ms. Benner agreed but said she missed one big perk: the hair and makeup team.“I normally don’t really wear any makeup, but they make you look amazing,” she said. “They’re also the funniest people and always make me laugh.”Mr. Kanno-Youngs, however, has become a little self-conscious about dialing in from his apartment. His dog stares at him from the couch, just waiting to bark; people tramp by in the hallway outside his door; and he ends up eyeing artwork in his background, wondering if it’s slanted.“That makes me nervous,” he said. “It’s like: ‘Geez, is this painting crooked in my background? Is Room Rater going to completely expose me because I didn’t wipe the kitchen counter?’”Aesthetics aside, Ms. Benner pointed out one critical rule to her appearances. “If, because of your schedule, you have to choose between reporting and being on TV, you should always choose reporting,” she said.But while Times journalists can spend months — or even years — reporting a single story, an appearance on a news show is, by comparison, over in a heartbeat.“There’s always a moment right after the host finishes and they go to the next guest,” Ms. Karni said. “You’re like, ‘Oh, wait, I have one more thing I want to say — come back!’” More

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      in Television

      AT&T's WarnerMedia Group to Merge With Discovery

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      AT&T’s WarnerMedia group is merging with the reality programmer Discovery. What does that mean for your favorite shows?It’s as if Logan Roy, the fictional patriarch of the Waystar Royco media empire on HBO’s popular series “Succession,” masterminded the deal himself: AT&T has thrown in the towel on its media business and decided to spin it off into a new company that will merge with Discovery Inc. More

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      in Television

      Bill McCreary Dies at 87; Blazed Trail for Black Journalists on TV

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      He was hired at what became the Fox flagship station in New York in 1967, when there were few Black faces on the air, and became an Emmy-winning anchor.Bill McCreary, an Emmy Award-winning reporter who was one of the first Black television journalists in New York, and whose perspective helped fill a noticeable gap in local public affairs reporting, died on April 4 in Brooklyn. He was 87.The cause was a neurological disease he had for many years, said O’Kellon McCreary, his wife of 62 years and only immediate survivor.His death, which had not been made public earlier by his family, was announced this week by WNYW, the flagship station of the Fox television network. He was hired in 1967 when the station, Channel 5, was owned by Metromedia and known as WNEW, and he remained a familiar on-air presence until he retired in 2000.As a co-anchor, Mr. McCreary helped build the station’s 10 O’Clock News into a ratings powerhouse. He became the managing editor and anchor of the weekly program “Black News” in 1970 and of “The McCreary Report” in 1978, when he was also named a vice president of Fox 5 News.As the civil rights movement exploded on television screens, a demand also grew for Black journalists to be seen and heard. Mr. McCreary, Bob Teague on WNBC, and Gil Noble and Melba Tolliver of WABC were among the few seen on local newscasts in New York at the time.“There was no such thing as ethnic television, because none of us were on TV,” Mr. McCreary told The Daily News of New York in 1997. “So it happens that along came the inner-city thing, places like Bed-Stuy and Harlem, and the news directors suddenly realized, ‘Hey, we don’t have any connections in these Black communities.’ There were less than a handful of us on television back then.”William McKinley McCreary was born on Aug. 8, 1933, in Blackville, S.C., to Simon and Ollie McCreary. He moved to the Lower East Side of Manhattan as an infant with his mother, who became a teacher’s assistant.A graduate of Seward Park High School and Baruch College in Manhattan, he served in the Army from 1953 to 1955. His first broadcasting jobs were in radio, as an announcer at WWRL in Queens and a general-assignment reporter and news director at WLIB in Manhattan.He began reporting for WNEW on March 13, 1967, the first day of the station’s nightly newscast.He won a local Emmy for “Black News” and shared an Emmy for anchoring with John Roland on the 10 O’Clock News — a program preceded every night (as it still is) by the somber signature intonation “It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?”Mr. McCreary and Dr. Gerald Deas of Kings County Hospital and SUNY Downstate Medical Center shared a commendation from the Food and Drug Administration for alerting the public, on “The McCreary Report” in the 1970s, to the dangers of consuming Argo brand starch. In 1987, Mr. McCreary was given the N.A.A.C.P.’s Black Heritage Award.Among the figures he interviewed over the course of his career were Rosa Parks, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela.“Unlike a lot of TV journalists today, Bill gave you the news, not his opinions,” his former colleague Judy Licht said by email. “Straight and to the point, you never knew where he stood on any issue.”He was also a mentor to a generation of Black journalists. Cheryl Wills, an award-winning reporter for the news channel NY1 who met Mr. McCreary when she was a production assistant at Fox 5, said: “Black newscasters were frowned upon for telling the truth about discrimination and other societal ills in urban America. Bill McCreary told the unvarnished truth, and that’s what set him apart. He told it with tremendous dignity and integrity.” More

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      in Television

      Bob Abernethy, Longtime Host of PBS Show on Religion, Dies at 93

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      He conceived and produced “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly” and was its face for 20 years, after four decades as an NBC News correspondent.Bob Abernethy, who capped a four-decade career as an NBC News correspondent by injecting religion, one of the most under-covered subjects on television, into national programming with a weekly series that ran for 20 years on PBS, died on May 2 in Brunswick, Maine. He was 93.His death, at a heath care facility, was confirmed by his daughter Jane Montgomery Abernethy. The cause was Alzheimer’s dementia.The grandson of a Baptist minister in Washington whose congregation included President Warren G. Harding and Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, Mr. Abernethy had retired from NBC in 1994 after covering the collapse of the Soviet Union, the nascent space program and Congress.He was not ready to stop working, though. Armed with his deep faith, intellectual curiosity and a theology degree he had earned from Yale Divinity School during a one-year leave of absence in 1984, he persuaded WNET, the PBS station in New York, to produce “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly,” a half-hour nonsectarian series that Mr. Abernethy hosted and presided over as executive editor beginning in 1997.Within 10 years of its launch, the show — which Mr. Abernethy had described as “a news program, no preaching” — was airing on 250 public stations nationwide, winning some 200 industry awards. He and his collaborators went on to broadcast regularly until 2017, when he was 89.With the journalist William Bole, Mr. Abernethy edited “The Life of Meaning: Reflections on Faith, Doubt, and Repairing the World,” (2007), an anthology of interview transcripts from the PBS program.“Nothing I have done has been as personally satisfying as founding and working on” the program, he wrote in the introduction to the book, adding, “The main reason for that is the many opportunities the show provides for sitting down with the likes of Archbishop Desmond Tutu — extraordinary men and women who speak as naturally about their faith and doubt and spiritual practices as they do about the weather.”Mr. Abernethy in an undated photo. He persuaded PBS to produce “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly,” becoming its host and executive producer.David HollowayOther guests included the Dalai Lama, President Jimmy Carter, the Rev. Billy Graham and Jonathan Sacks, at the time the chief rabbi of the United Kingdom.The series covered a wide range of topics, including atheism, abortion, assisted suicide, sexual abuse by clergy and organ transplants.“Finding this line between sensitivity to the spiritual dimensions of a story on the one hand and objective, traditional skepticism is a constant struggle and a very appropriate one, but I think we’ve got it right,” Mr. Abernethy told The Washington Post in 2000. “This is a matter of good reporting. Unless you get the spiritual element of the story, you’re missing something very important. It’s like interviewing Babe Ruth and not asking about hitting.”When “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly” was approaching the end of its run, Jerome Socolovsky, the editor in chief of Religion News Service, was rueful, telling the news service Current in 2016, “The media landscape will miss this crucial provider of video stories about religion that didn’t favor one or the other but gave viewers a full perspective on religious news developments.”Robert Gordon Abernethy was born on Nov. 5, 1927, in Geneva to Robert and Lois May (Jones) Abernethy. His father worked for the Y.M.C.A.’s international newspaper. After Bob was born, the couple returned to the United States. His father began to teach religion at the Hill School in Pottstown, Pa., but died of complications of appendicitis in 1930.Bob and his mother moved in with his paternal grandparents in Washington, where his grandfather was senior minister of Calvary Baptist Church. She taught piano at the National Cathedral School.After graduating from the Hill School, he enrolled in Princeton University but interrupted his studies to serve with the American occupying Army in postwar Japan, where he hosted a program for Armed Forces Radio. Returning to college, he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from what is now the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.Coming from a family of pastors, he felt “a certain amount of pressure on me to become a minister, too,” he told the website Resources for Christianity in 2013, “but I never heard a call.”Mr. Abernethy married Jean Montgomery in 1951; she died in 1980. In addition to their daughter, Jane, he is survived by his second wife, Marie (Grove) Abernethy, whom he married in 1984; their daughter, Elizabeth C. Abernethy; and four children from Ms. Abernethy’s first marriage. He had homes in Brunswick as well as in Washington and Jaffrey, N.H.Mr. Abernethy was a member of the United Church of Christ. His wife is a member of the Russian Orthodox Church.He joined NBC News after receiving his master’s from Princeton in 1952. Early on he wrote and hosted “Update,” a program for young people, and was later a Washington interviewer for the “Today” show. He anchored the evening news for KNBC in Los Angeles among other assignments.One posting was to Moscow, after he had completed his leave from NBC News to study theology in 1984. Before he left, he recalled: “I ran into a guy I had known who asked me, ‘What’s new?’ I said, ‘I took a year’s leave from NBC and went to divinity school. I got married and we had a baby. What’s new with you?’”He never stopped working. At his death, he was hoping to document the lives of homeless people through video interviews, for a future broadcast. More

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      in Theater

      A Theater Photographer Senses a Broadway Bloom

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      For Sara Krulwich, who has shot productions for The New York Times for more than two decades, a series of recent assignments hinted at an industry revival.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.On the first evening in April, Sara Krulwich, a New York Times photographer, visited the Kraine Theater in the East Village, where Mike Daisey, an actor and monologuist, was rehearsing a show for which the seating capacity would be limited to 22. The restriction, Mr. Daisey said, reminded him of his earliest days as a performer, when he was thrilled if even a handful of people were in the audience.For about 20 minutes, Ms. Krulwich photographed Mr. Daisey, adjusting her shutter, she later said, to ensure that “the theater lights and my camera were going to talk to each other in a kindly way.”The next day, Ms. Krulwich photographed part of a performance at the Daryl Roth Theater at Union Square. And on Saturday, she shot a 36-minute performance at the historic St. James Theater in Midtown. Those assignments added up to her busiest stretch of theater work in more than a year.Theatrical productions, dormant since last spring, are resuming in New York City, the first tentative steps toward what actors, directors and others hope will be a strong comeback by the fall. And many in the theater world may see Ms. Krulwich’s presence as a reassuring sign.For more than two decades, she has been a Broadway and Off Broadway fixture, photographing about 100 shows a year, a body of work that led to her receiving a Tony Honor in 2018.After a yearlong absence, Ms. Krulwich began photographing performances and rehearsals, feeling her way back into familiar tasks and reflecting on early traces of a theatrical revival, which, she said, mirrored the stirrings of spring.“The blooms are beginning,” she said by phone. “Even if we’re not seeing the full flowering just yet.”Ms. Krulwich joined The Times as a staff photographer in 1979, working for the Metro, National and Sports desks before becoming the paper’s first culture photographer in 1994.At that time, she said, it was common for news organizations to run theater photographs handed out by producers that tended to present reality in the light most favorable to them. Ms. Krulwich, however, wanted to cover theater with the same journalistic approach that the paper employed while reporting on other events.Ms. Krulwich said that her approach was direct, telling producers that theater was looked upon as news inside The Times and should be documented that way. Eventually, she obtained access to almost every production in the city.Over the years, Ms. Krulwich has captured moments that have become a part of theater lore. She photographed developmental work on the Broadway production of Tony Kushner’s masterwork, “Angels in America.” In 1996, she took what is believed to be the last picture of Jonathan Larson, the writer and composer of “Rent,” hours before his death the night before the show’s first Off Broadway preview.Her Tony, in 2018, made her the first journalist recognized for excellence in the theater, an honor given to people, organizations and institutions that have contributed to the industry but are not eligible to win in other Tony categories.Returning to work inside venues she’s accustomed to, Ms. Krulwich said she took delight in seeing people she has known for many years and looked forward to a time when everyone connected to productions will, once again, be able to make a living.“It’s a small group of people,” she said. “Almost an extended family.”The day after photographing Mr. Daisey, Ms. Krulwich wore an N-95 mask and climbed a ladder at the Daryl Roth while shooting about 20 minutes of a performance of “Blindness,” an audio adaptation of the dystopian novel of the same name by the Portuguese writer José Saramago.And then, the following day, at the St. James, she photographed the dancer Savion Glover and the actor Nathan Lane at the 36-minute event they performed in front of a masked audience of 150.It was, noted Michael Paulson, a Times theater reporter, the first time in 387 days that there was activity inside a Broadway house.Ms. Krulwich said the performance was not the same as one that would have taken place before the coronavirus pandemic, but she added that she felt at home back inside the St. James and appreciated the hints of what is to come.“I must say, it felt familiar to me,” she said. “It’s just a little bit. It’s a tiptoe. It’s the doors opening a crack.” More

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      in Television

      Roger Mudd, Anchorman Who Stumped a Kennedy, Is Dead at 93

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRoger Mudd, Anchorman Who Stumped a Kennedy, Is Dead at 93A staple of CBS, NBC and PBS, he was best known for his interview with Senator Edward M. Kennedy in 1979, when he asked a simple question: “Why do you want to be president?”Roger Mudd and Tom Brokaw, in the background, after they were named co-anchors of NBC’s “Nightly News.” The pairing, in 1982, was an attempt to reincarnate the Chet Huntley-David Brinkley chemistry of the 1960s. It failed after 17 months.Credit…Fred R. Conrad/The New York TimesMarch 9, 2021, 5:09 p.m. ETRoger Mudd, the anchorman who delivered the news and narrated documentaries with an urbane edge for three decades on CBS, NBC and PBS and conducted a 1979 interview that undermined the presidential hopes of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, died on Tuesday at his home in McLean, Va. He was 93. The cause was kidney failure, his son Matthew said.To anyone who regarded anchors as mere celebrities who read the news, Mr. Mudd was an exception: an experienced reporter who covered Congress and politics and delivered award-winning reports in a smooth mid-Atlantic baritone with erudition, authority and touches of sardonic humor.He worked for CBS from 1961 to 1980 as a Washington correspondent and weekend anchor and was being groomed to succeed Walter Cronkite on the “CBS Evening News.” When the network named Dan Rather instead, a surprised and disappointed Mr. Mudd resigned.The CBS News Election Night team in 1974: from left, Mr. Mudd, Lesley Stahl, Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather and Mike Wallace. Credit…CBS, via Getty ImagesHe then joined NBC as chief Washington correspondent and in 1982 became co-anchor with Tom Brokaw on the “Nightly News,” an attempt to reincarnate the Chet Huntley-David Brinkley chemistry of the 1960s. It failed after 17 months, and NBC made Mr. Brokaw the sole anchor. Mr. Mudd resumed political reporting and documentary work for several years before switching networks again, moving to PBS.At PBS he reported for “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” from 1987 to 1992. He then taught at Princeton and at his alma mater, Washington and Lee University in Virginia, and hosted documentaries on the History Channel from 1995 until his retirement in 2005.Mr. Mudd is perhaps best remembered for the CBS interview with Senator Kennedy on Nov. 4, 1979, days before the senator began his campaign to wrest the Democratic presidential nomination from the incumbent, Jimmy Carter. Mr. Kennedy, heir to the political legacies of his assassinated brothers, had a 2-to-1 lead in the polls when he faced Mr. Mudd and a prime-time national audience.“Why do you want to be president?” Mr. Mudd began.Mr. Kennedy hesitated, apparently caught off guard.“Well, I’m — were I to — to make the, the announcement and to run, the reasons that I would run is because I have a great belief in this country,” he stammered.Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts as he was being interviewed by Mr. Mudd on CBS in February 1980. Mr. Kennedy’s halting performance severely damaged his campaign to wrest the Democratic presidential nomination from Jimmy Carter.Credit…CBS NewsIt got worse. He twitched and squirmed, conveying self-doubt and flawed preparation, and stumbled through questions for an hour. His campaign, burdened by many problems, including his conduct in the drowning death of a former campaign aide to Senator Robert F. Kennedy on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts in 1969, was wounded before it began and never recovered.Mr. Mudd, who won a Peabody Award for the interview, also narrated “The Selling of the Pentagon,” a 1971 documentary that exposed a $190 million public relations campaign by the Defense Department that included junkets for industrialists and television propaganda. Roger Harrison Mudd was born in Washington on Feb. 9, 1928, to John and Irma (Harrison) Mudd. His father was a mapmaker for the U.S. Geological Survey, his mother a nurse. An ancestor was Samuel A. Mudd, a doctor who went to prison for treating John Wilkes Booth for the broken leg he suffered jumping to the stage of Ford’s Theater after shooting Abraham Lincoln in 1865.After graduating from Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, Mr. Mudd joined the Army in 1945. He earned a bachelor’s degree at Washington and Lee in 1950 and a master’s degree in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1953. He began in journalism in 1953 as a reporter for The News Leader of Richmond, Va., and soon became news director of the newspaper’s radio station, WRNL.Mr. Mudd, left, and the NBC correspondent Marvin Kalb in October 1984 interviewing Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York, the Democratic candidate for vice president at the time. Credit…Joel Landau/Associated PressMr. Mudd married Emma Jeanne Spears in 1957; she died in 2011. In addition to his son Matthew, he is survived by two other sons, Daniel and Jonathan; a daughter, Maria Ruth; 14 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.In 1956, Mr. Mudd became a reporter for the Washington radio and television station WTOP, and in 1961 he was hired by CBS to cover Congress. He went on to impress audiences and critics in 1964 with marathon coverage of a 60-day Senate filibuster that delayed civil rights legislation. That led to an assignment to co-anchor, with the veteran journalist Robert Trout, the network’s coverage of the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City.Mr. Mudd was a natural on camera: tall and tanned, energetic but relaxed, with a long face that conveyed a rugged imperturbability. As his stature rose at CBS, he became the anchor on weekends and as a fill-in when Mr. Cronkite was on vacation or special assignment. He also covered Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign, and was on the scene when the senator was assassinated in Los Angeles.Mr. Mudd won Emmys for covering the shooting of Gov. George Wallace of Alabama in 1972 and the resignation of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew in 1973, and two more for CBS specials on the Watergate scandal. He was named CBS national affairs correspondent in 1977, and became the heir apparent as Mr. Cronkite’s 1981 retirement approached.Mr. Mudd in 2001 taping a segment for the History Channel, where he produced documentaries about America’s founders, biblical disasters and other subjects.Credit…Marty Lederhandler/Associated PressBut Mr. Rather, the White House and “60 Minutes” correspondent, had sought Mr. Cronkite’s job and threatened to jump to ABC if he did not get it. After CBS chose Mr. Rather, Mr. Mudd went to NBC, where he was expected to succeed John Chancellor as anchor. Instead, the network named Mr. Mudd and Mr. Brokaw co-anchors, one based in Washington and the other in New York, but that arrangement did not last.Mr. Mudd went on to be an anchor on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in 1984 and ’85 before his move to PBS as a political correspondent and essayist for “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.” His documentaries on the History Channel included accounts of America’s founders, biblical disasters and the sinking of the Andrea Doria.Mr. Mudd’s well-received 2008 memoir, “The Place to Be: Washington, CBS and the Glory Days of Television News,” recalled an era of war, assassinations and scandals and news coverage by Eric Sevareid, Harry Reasoner, Marvin Kalb, Daniel Schorr, Ed Bradley and others who shared his spotlight.In 2010, Mr. Mudd donated $4 million to Washington and Lee University to establish the Roger Mudd Center for the Study of Professional Ethics and to endow a Roger Mudd professorship in ethics.Alex Traub contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More