Robert Breckenridge Ware MacNeil (January 19, 1931 – April 12, 2024), often known as Robin MacNeil, was a Canadian-American journalist, writer and television news anchor. He partnered with Jim Lehrer to create the landmark public television news program The Robert MacNeil Report in 1975. He grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, went to boarding school at Rothesay Collegiate School and Upper Canada College, then attended Dalhousie University and later graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa in 1955. He also worked as a news anchor, for WNBC, in New York City. After shots rang out in Dealey Plaza, MacNeil, who was on the press bus in the presidential motorcade, followed crowds running onto the grassy knoll; he appears in a photo taken just moments after the assassination, but no one was found behind the fence. Recounting his movements to the Dallas Police later, Oswald erroneously referred to Allman as a Secret Service agent because of his suit, blond crew cut, and press badge. Historian William Manchester erroneously suggested MacNeil was the person to whom Oswald spoke in his book The Death of a President (1967). As he was reporting for NBC, MacNeil was at times in relatively close proximity to his future co-anchor and partner Jim Lehrer, also covering the Kennedy visit and assassination for the Dallas Times Herald, but the two did not meet until several years later, covering the Senate Watergate hearings in Washington, D.C. for PBS. He was interviewed for the 1992 documentary Beyond 'JFK': The Question of Conspiracy.
News anchor
In 1967, MacNeil began covering American and European politics for the BBC. From 1971 to 1974, he hosted Washington Week in Review, a public affairs television program on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
MacNeil rose to fame during his coverage of the 1973 Senate Watergate hearings for PBS, for which he received an Emmy Award. Teamed with Jim Lehrer, the two broadcast and analysed some 250 hours of the hearings in all, sometimes late into the night. After serving 20 years on the program, MacNeil retired from his nightly appearances on October 20, 1995. Lehrer continued to anchor the program on a solo basis until his retirement in 2011. The program continues as the PBS NewsHour.
After the September 11 attacks, MacNeil called PBS and offered to help.
In a Sesame Street Special Report, muppet parody of the Iran-Contra scandal, MacNeil investigated a "Cookiegate" incident involving the Cookie Monster. In 1998, for Season 29's "Slimey to the Moon" story arc, MacNeil took the role of co-anchor with Kermit the Frog, as Slimey, Oscar the Grouch's pet worm, and four other worms made a landing on the Moon.
MacNeil chaired the MacDowell Colony's board of directors from 1993 to 2010. He was succeeded by Michael Chabon.
Inspired by his passion for language, he made the nine-part television series The Story of English in 1986 for PBS and the BBC, detailing the development of the English language.
Personal life
MacNeil became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1997, and became an Order of Canada officer that same year. He was married to Rosemarie Coopland, Jane Doherty, and Donna Nappi Richards MacNeil. With Coopland, he was the father of award-winning theatre scenic designer Ian MacNeil.
MacNeil was known to friends and family as "Robin". He had lived at 44 West 77th Street in Manhattan.
Awards and honors
- 1979: LHD honorary degree from Bates College
- 1997: Officer of the Order of Canada, one of Canada's highest civilian honors, for being "one of the most respected journalists of our time"
- 1990: Paul White Award, Radio Television Digital News Association
- 1991: Made a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- 1999: Television Hall of Fame
Books
MacNeil also wrote books, many of which are about his career as a journalist. After his retirement from NewsHour, he also dabbled in writing novels.