Pioneer of Undercover Investigations, CBS News Producer Jay McMullen, Dies

By Chris Ariens 

Long before there was “To Catch a Predator” or “What Would You Do?” there was Jay McMullen, a pioneering investigative reporter for CBS News who was among the first to employ hidden cameras and go undercover to produce award-winning documentaries. McMullen died Saturday at Greenwich Woods Hospice in Connecticut. He was 90.

McMullen spent all but two of his 37-year career at CBS, where he worked with the likes of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. McMullen produced stories including “Biography of a Bookie Joint,” network television’s first full-length report on police corruption and one of the first to use hidden cameras in journalism.

McMullen would later become the reporter, producer and sometimes director of “CBS Reports” hour-long broadcasts and his reports would also be seen on “The CBS Evening news with Walter Cronkite.”

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He was born in Minneapolis and raised in Cleveland. A year after earning his degree at Columbia University in 1948, McMullen joined CBS News. He is survived by his wife of 58 years Diane, two daughters and three grandchildren.

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