In addition to working for CBS and NBC, he has appeared on PBS’s MacNeil / Lehrer NewsHour and the History Channel.
When he joined Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer’s show in 1987, Mudd told The Associated Press: “I think they view news and information and fact and opinion with a reverence and respect that is truly admirable.”
He wrote a memoir, ‘The Place To Be’, which appeared in early 2008, describing the challenges and conflicting egos he encountered in Washington, where he covered the CBS Congress for 15 years.
In an interview in April 2008 on the NewsHour, he said he “absolutely loved” watching the 100 senators and 435 representatives of the country, “everyone wants to talk, good access, politics morning, afternoon and night, unlike the White House, where everything is zipped up and held tight. ”
Mudd received a George Foster Peabody Award for his special “CBS Reports: Teddy” in November 1979, which aired a few days before Kennedy officially announced his bid to challenge then-President Carter for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination.
In the report, Mudd asked the Massachusetts senator a simple question: “Why do you want to be president?”
Kennedy could not give a focused answer or specify what he personally wanted to do.
‘Well, I had to make the announcement to get started, the reasons I would run is because I have great faith in this country. … We are currently dealing with complex issues and problems in this country, but at other times we have faced similar challenges. … And I would basically feel that it is essential for this country to move forward, that it cannot stand still, because otherwise it is moving backwards. ‘
That was enough to encourage New York Times columnist Tom Wicker to give Kennedy the ‘Safire Award for Nattering Nabob of the Year’. Carter won the nomination for a second term, but only Ronald Reagan in the general election.
As Mudd told the viewers: ‘On the stump, Kennedy can be dominant, imposing and masterful, but from the stump, in personal interviews, he can become quiet, elliptical and sometimes seem like he does not want to get to know America. . him. ”
Mudd spent some time in the CBS Evening News anchor and replaced Walter Cronkite as he anchored Saturday night news from 1966 to 1973.
But he lost Dan Rather in the competition to succeed Cronkite as the news anchor at CBS when the latter retired in 1981. Cronkite, for one, was rather supportive because he did not think Mudd had enough foreign experience.
It was then that Mudd jumped on NBC as his lead correspondent in Washington. In addition, he spent a year with Tom Brokaw anchoring NBC’s “Nightly News” before Brokaw went on to play solo in 1983, and spent some time with “Meet the Press”.
But when he left NBC, he said management viewed news as a ‘promotional commodity’ rather than a public service. There have been rumors about his departure since he sharply criticized NBC News for canceling the “1986” news program, which he co-anchored with Connie Chung.
‘Roger Mudd was one of the most gifted journalists of my life. A keen political reporter and guardian of the highest standards. “Roger’s commitment to fundamental journalistic practices remains an indication for future generations,” Brokaw said.
Over five years on “NewsHour”, Mudd served as senior correspondent, essayist and occasional anchor. He has hosted a number of reports on American history and education, including “Learning in America: Schools That Work” and “The Wizard: Thomas Alva Edison.”
Mudd left the “NewsHour” in 1992 to teach journalism at Princeton University, describing the offer to teach at the Ivy League school as simply too attractive to turn down. He was also a host and correspondent for The History Channel from 1995 to 2004.
Among his other awards over the years, Mudd participated in a Peabody for the 1970 CBS documentary “The Selling of the Pentagon,” which looked at the efforts of the PR for the military. Mudd was the narrator of the program, which, according to Peabody’s judges, was ‘electronic journalism at its best’.
Early in his career at CBS, Mudd teamed up with Robert Trout to anchor coverage of the 1964 Democratic convention after CBS – starring Walter Cronkite – followed NBC’s Chet Huntley and David Brinkley in the Republican judging panel. The memorably nominated Mudd-Trout team did not win NBC’s duo, and Cronkite was the anchor again in the election night in November.
In 1990, he received the Joan Shorenstein Barone Award for Leading Washington Reporting.
Before joining CBS News, he worked at the WTOP radio station in Washington. Prior to that, he was news director at WRNL Radio in Richmond, Virginia, a reporter for the Richmond News Leader and a research assistant at the House Committee on Tax-Exempt Foundation. He was also an English and history teacher and football coach at Darlington School in Rome, Georgia.
In 1977, Mudd received an honorary doctorate from Washington and Lee University, his alma mater. In 2006, he donated his 1500 volume of 20th-century Southern writers to the university. He earned a master’s degree in American history from the University of North Carolina in 1951.
Mudd, who was born in Washington, was a distant relative of Dr. Samuel Mudd, the doctor arrested for treating an injured John Wilkes Booth shortly after Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. The doctor, who was eventually pardoned, said he was not aware of the murder when he helped Booth.
According to CBS News, Mudd and his late wife, the former EJ Spears, are survived by their four children, as well as 14 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.