NPR newsman and former CBS and CNN correspondent Daniel Schorr died this morning at the age of 93. While Schorr was most recently a senior news analyst for NPR, he spent 23 years at CBS News from 1953-1976, where he was a protege of Edward R. Murrow.
At CBS Schorr covered the launch of the USSR’s Sputnik satellite, and conducted the first ever U.S. television interview with a Soviet leader. He resigned from CBS in 1976 after he was suspended by the network for publishing a congressional committee’s report on U.S. intelligence activity. The release of that report led to a congressional investigation.
In 1979, Ted Turner asked Schorr to help him launch a new cable news network, CNN. He served as a senior news correspondent for CNN, based out of Washington D.C., before joining NPR in 1985.
Schorr received a Peabody award and three Emmy awards during his career. he also published two books, including Clearing the Air, which recounted his years at CBS News.
He was not afraid to criticize his former employers in interviews with the media.
“In many of the (reports) I did for CBS and CNN, you got to read the teleprompter, got to get the right shade of Max Factor to put on,” he said. “You got to go out and stand on a street corner to say it, because saying it in the studio doesn’t look exciting enough.”