HISTORY

FOUNDERS

JIM LEHRER
Executive Editor and Anchor
Born in Wichita, Kansas, in 1934, Jim Lehrer received an A.A. degree from Victoria College and a B.J. in 1956 from the University of Missouri before joining the Marine Corps. From 1959 to 1966, he was a reporter for the Dallas Morning News and then the Dallas Times-Herald. He was also a political columnist at the Times-Herald for several years and in 1968 became that paper’s city editor.

Lehrer’s newspaper career led him to public television, first in Dallas as KERA-TV’s executive director of public affairs, on-air host, and editor of a nightly news program. He subsequently moved to Washington, D.C., to serve as the public affairs coordinator for PBS, and was also a member of PBS’s Journalism Advisory Board and a fellow at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Lehrer went on to join the National Public Affairs Center for Television (NPACT) as a correspondent.

It was Lehrer’s work with NPACT that led to his initial association with Robert MacNeil and, ultimately, to their long-term partnership. In 1973, they teamed up to provide NPACT’s continuous live coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings, broadcast on PBS. Following that Emmy-winning collaboration, Lehrer was the solo anchor for PBS coverage of the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment inquiry of Richard Nixon.

In October 1975, the half-hour Robert MacNeil Report, with Jim Lehrer as the Washington correspondent, premiered on Thirteen/WNET New York. Over the next seven years, The MacNeil/Lehrer Report (as it was renamed in 1976) won more than 30 awards for journalistic excellence. In September 1983, Lehrer and MacNeil launched their most ambitious undertaking, The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. The 1995-96 season marked the 20th year of their journalistic odyssey, as well as MacNeil’s departure and Lehrer’s stewardship of the program in its next incarnation, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

In 2009, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer was relaunched as the PBS NEWSHOUR, with the addition of a second anchor for each broadcast, a digital correspondent, and the full merger of the on-air and online news operations.

Lehrer has been honored with numerous awards for journalism, including the 1999 National Humanities Medal, presented by President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. Also in 1999, Lehrer was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame with MacNeil and into The Silver Circle of the Washington, D.C., Chapter of The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He has won two Emmys, the Fred Friendly First Amendment Award, the George Foster Peabody Broadcast Award, the William Allen White Foundation Award for Journalistic Merit and the University of Missouri School of Journalism’s Medal of Honor. In 1991, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In September 2010, Lehrer accepted, along with Robert MacNeil, the prestigious Chairman’s Award at the News and Documentary Emmys on behalf of the PBS NewsHour. The award is presented to an organization that has made a significant and distinguished contribution to the craft of broadcast journalism or documentary filmmaking.

In the last six presidential elections, Lehrer has served as a moderator for eleven of the nationally televised debates among the candidates. In 1988, he moderated one presidential debate; in 1992, he moderated two presidential debates; in 1996, he was selected to be the sole moderator of all three debates — two presidential and one vice presidential. In 2000, in an unprecedented show of respect and confidence, he was again selected as the sole moderator of the three presidential debates, which were conducted in different formats – podium, round-table and town hall. In 2004, he was selected to be moderator of the first presidential debate in Coral Gables, Florida. In 2008, he was selected to be moderator of the first presidential debate in Oxford, Mississippi.

Lehrer is the author of 20 novels, two memoirs and three plays. His latest novel, Super, is a story of celebrity and murder aboard the Santa Fe’s railroad’s famous Super Chief, known as “The Train of the Stars” during Hollywood’s heyday. Super was published by Random House in April 2010.

In addition to the NewsHour, Jim Lehrer has hosted a number of projects for MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, including the 2001 Emmy Award-nominated Debating Our Destiny: Forty Years of Presidential Debates, in which Lehrer interviewed former presidential and vice presidential candidates about their debate experiences.

Jim Lehrer and his wife, Kate, have been married since 1960. They have three daughters – Amanda, Lucy and Jamie – and six grandchildren. Kate, also a writer, is the author of three novels, Best Intentions (1987), When They Took Away the Man in the Moon (1993), and Out of Eden (1996).

ROBERT MACNEIL
Series Reporter, Writer, and Host
Until his retirement in October 1995, Robert MacNeil was executive editor and co-anchor of the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, a 20-year nightly partnership with Jim Lehrer on PBS.

MacNeil’s 40-year journalism career began with five years at Reuters News Agency in London. He moved to television in 1960 as an NBC News London-based correspondent, covering such major events as the fighting in the Belgian Congo, the Civil War in Algeria, the construction of the Berlin Wall, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1963, he was transferred to NBC’s Washington bureau to report on the unfolding civil rights story and to help cover the White House. MacNeil was the NBC News correspondent covering President Kennedy on the day he was assassinated in Dallas.

In 1965, MacNeil became the co-anchor of the first half-hour weekend news broadcast, the Scherer-MacNeil Report on NBC. He also anchored local newscasts and NBC News documentaries, including “Whose Right to Bear Arms.” In 1967 he returned to London to cover American and European politics as a reporter for the British Broadcasting Corp.’s Panorama program.

MacNeil left the BBC in 1971 to be a senior correspondent for PBS, where he first teamed up with Jim Lehrer to co-anchor public television’s Emmy Award-winning coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings. Their common disenchantment with the style and substance of network news programs resulted in the Robert MacNeil Report with Jim Lehrer. Launched in October 1975, the nightly half-hour series, soon renamed the MacNeil/Lehrer Report, devoted its entire program each night to a single issue. After eight years, the Report became the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, the nation’s first full hour of evening news. This innovative approach to the news won many awards, including the 1991 International Television Society’s Broadcaster of the Year Award, two Emmys in 1992, two 1993 American Journalism Review’s Best in the Business Awards, and the 1994 Radio and Television Correspondents Association Award for Congressional Reporting. In February 1999, with Jim Lehrer, MacNeil was inducted into the Television Academy’s Hall of Fame.

MacNeil has won many personal awards, including two Peabodys, a Dupont-Columbia Award, the University of Missouri Medal and the Overseas Press Club Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has honorary degrees from many American and Canadian universities. In January 1998, he was made an Officer in the Order of Canada. In September 2010, MacNeil accepted, along with Jim Lehrer, the prestigious Chairman’s Award at the News and Documentary Emmys on behalf of the PBS NewsHour. The award is presented to an organization that has made a significant and distinguished contribution to the craft of broadcast journalism or documentary filmmaking.

MacNeil is the author of several books. The People Machine (1968) studied the relationship between television and politics. He has written three memoirs, The Right Place at the Right Time (1982), Wordstruck (1989) and Looking For My Country, Finding Myself in America (2003). He has written three best-selling novels, Burden of Desire (1992), The Voyage (1995), and Breaking News (1998). He was co-author of The Story of English, companion volume to the BBC-PBS television series which he hosted, and its sequel, Do You Speak American? (2005), a three-hour PBS series on American English today.

Born in Montrea, Canada in 1931 and brought up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, MacNeil attended Dalhousie University in Halifax and graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa in 1955. During his years at college, MacNeil was an actor for CBC Radio in Halifax, an announcer at CJCH, Halifax, later at CFRA, Ottawa, and CBO/CBOT, Ottawa. He was an aspiring playwright before going into journalism. He became an American citizen in 1997.

He was chairman of the board of the MacDowell Colony, a historical retreat for artists, writers and musicians in Peterborough, N.H. for many years as well as a trustee of the Freedom Forum Newseum, the world’s first museum of journalism. He is co-chairman of the Council of Conservators of the New York Public Library.

MacNeil has four children and lives with his wife Donna in Manhattan and Nova Scotia. Since his retirement from daily journalism, he has devoted most of his time to writing and television projects for MLP.

SUSAN MILLS

Senior Director of Programming
Susan Mills joined The NewsHour in 1983. She directs new MLP programming initiatives on cable, network television, and other media outlets. Recent productions launched by Mills include Do You Speak American?, Nancy Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, Debating Our Destiny, Generation Next: Speak Up. Be Heard and Generation Next 2.0, Lady Bird Johnson, and Betty Ford: The Real Deal.

Mills joined MLP in 1983, serving as foreign affairs producer specializing in Latin America and the Philippines. She covered breaking news, including the Falklands War, the rise of the Sandinistas in Managua, drug-running in Bolivia, the war in El Salvador and the fall of Ferdinand Marcos in Manila. She later served as managing producer for the NewsHour in New York City overseeing videotape reports and graphics for the program.

Mills started her career at CBS News, where she produced In the News and 30 Minutes, the innovative, award-winning programs for children.

Mills’ reporting and programming work have been recognized by four Emmy awards, ten Emmy nominations, a George Foster Peabody Award, an Alfred I. DuPont Award, Ohio State University’s Journalism Award, and the Gavel Award from the American Bar Association. Mills is a graduate of Wells College, where she has served on the Board of Trustees. She resides in McLean, Virginia.
Contact: SMills@NewsHour.org

ANNETTE MILLER
Director of Research & Information Services
Annette Miller oversees the research department for the NewsHour’s correspondents, reporters, and producers. The department also maintains a video archive of NewsHour programs and segments, as well as footage of interviews conducted by NewsHour personnel and “footage” from MacNeil/Lehrer’s 30 years of production.

Miller has worked at MacNeil/Lehrer since its inception. She was a reporter and Washington news editor before starting the department she now heads. She is a graduate of New York University and received a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with her daughter.
Contact: AMiller@NewsHour.org

DAN WERNER
Executive Producer
Dan Werner leads two high-priority MLP endeavors: the By the People civic engagement project, now in its twelfth successful year, and the.News, a non-commercial venture being developed to provide a daily, multimedia news feed to middle and high school students nationwide. Prior to becoming Executive Producer, Dan served as President of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions for nine years. He also established the Online NewsHour.

Formerly the associate executive producer of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and its predecessor, The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, Werner is one of PBS’s leading news and public affairs special-events producers.

He served as executive producer of the November 2000 PBS special broadcast, “Time to Choose: A PBS/NPR Voter’s Guide.” He has also organized the innovative local-national civic engagement project, By the People, and served as executive producer of the 1996 and 2003 National Issues Convention. Werner served as producer of public television’s gavel-to-gavel coverage of the 1992 Democratic and Republican National Conventions and helped coordinate PBS’s convention coverage in 1996.

Werner graduated with honors in politics from New York University. He earned Juris Doctor and Masters in Journalism degrees from Columbia University. Werner is married with two children and lives with his wife in Bethesda, Maryland.
Contact: DWerner@NewsHour.org

ROB FLYNN
Director of Corporate Fundraising
Rob Flynn directs advertising, marketing, and communications for the PBS NewsHour and other projects of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions.

Prior to joining MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, Flynn served as the managing director of marketing and communications at The Golf Channel in Orlando, Florida, and as the senior director of public affairs at The National Cable Television Association in Washington, D.C.

Prior to his tenure at the NCTA, Flynn held various positions at major New York City advertising agencies.

Flynn graduated from Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut, and lives with his wife, Sally, and their three children in Fairfax, Virginia.
Contact: RFlynn@NewsHour.org

LESTER CRYSTAL
Consultant, Foundation Fundraising
Lester Crystal is Consultant to MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, with primary responsibility for foundation fundraising. Crystal joined the NewsHour as its executive producer in 1983, and was instrumental in preparing the program for its debut as the nation’s first hour-long newscast. He served as the executive producer for 22 years, and served as president of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions from 2005 to 2010.

Formerly president of NBC News and executive producer of the NBC Nightly News, Crystal came to MacNeil/Lehrer Productions after 20 years with NBC News. Crystal participated in the press corps that covered President Nixon’s historic 1972 visit to China and served as the news division’s executive vice president. As NBC’s vice president for affiliate news, Crystal oversaw the sizable expansion of news feeds from the network to affiliated stations. In 1976 and 1980, he was executive producer of NBC’s election night and convention coverage, and he supervised all political and special news programming from 1980 to 1982.

Born in Duluth, Minnesota, Crystal earned a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and began his broadcasting career in Duluth as a news writer for KDAL radio and television.
Contact: LCrystal@NewsHour.org

FRANMARIE KENNEDY
Development and Marketing
Franmarie Kennedy develops and markets MLP services. She has worked in all aspects of education policy, communications, marketing, and fundraising as a consultant to non-profit organizations, foundations, and corporations and as an executive in both government and academic institutions.

Kennedy served on two White House staffs formulating education policy and held executive positions at the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute for Literacy. She has held management positions at Georgetown University and American University.

Since 1995, Dr. Kennedy has produced several documentaries for television. Over the past five years, she has concentrated on television projects involving the integration of technology into curriculum and distance learning projects involving teacher training and skills development.

Kennedy holds a Ph.D. in education administration from American University. She lives in Washington, D.C.
Contact: FKennedy@NewsHour.org