News

Richard Leibner, the prominent talent agent who transformed the TV news business by guiding the careers of such renowned broadcast journalists as Dan Rather, Diane Sawyer, Mike Wallace, Andy Rooney and Norah O’Donnell, has died. He was 85.

Leibner died Tuesday at his home in New York, UTA vice chairman Jay Sures announced. The agent started out in the 1960s at New York-based N.S. Bienstock, which was acquired in 2014 by UTA.

Leibner also signed and represented the likes of Morley Safer, Ed Bradley, Bob Simon, Steve Kroft, Bill Whitaker, Chuck Scarborough, Paula Zahn, Brian Stelter, Daniel Schorr and Fareed Zakaria before he retired in December 2021 after 58 years in the business.

“Decades ago, he made it his personal mission to see that big name news stars should be treated and compensated like traditional movie and television stars,” Sures told staffers in a memo obtained by The Hollywood Reporter.

Born in Brooklyn,...

Bernard Shaw, who was CNN’s lead anchor for 20 years and distinguished the network’s coverage of such landmark events as the Gulf War, died Wednesday, the Warner Bros. Discovery-backed outlet disclosed. He was 82, and had contracted pneumonia that was not related to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Bernie was a CNN original and was our Washington Anchor when we launched on June 1st, 1980. He was our lead anchor for the next twenty years from anchoring coverage of presidential elections to his iconic coverage of the First Gulf War live from Baghdad in 1991,” said Chris Licht, CNN’s chairman and CEO, in a statement. “Even after he left CNN, Bernie remained a close member of our CNN family providing our viewers with context about historic events as recently as last year. The condolences of all of us at CNN go out to his wife Linda and his children.”

Shaw already had...

Maurice “Reese” Schonfeld, who helped found CNN with Ted Turner and created the early breakout show Crossfire but later had a well publicized falling out with the controversial billionaire, died Tuesday from complications of Alzheimer’s disease at his home in Manhattan. He was 88.

His death was announced by CNN, widow Pat O’Gorman and daughter Juliette Reverand. O’Gorman told the cable news network: “He loved CNN. He was very proud of it. It was a good time for him.”

Born in Newark, NJ, Schonfeld began his own business in 1975 providing news footage to local TV stations, and in 1979 joined Atlanta businessman Turner to launch a nationwide news endeavor to be called CNN, combining his TV experience with Turner’s deep pockets.

According to CNN, Schonfeld was responsible for hiring many of the new network’s news anchors who would quickly become the channel’s first generation of well-known journalists: Bernard Shaw,...

Bill Small, the former Washington bureau chief for CBS News and president of NBC News, died Sunday in a New York hospital after a brief illness unrelated to the coronavirus, the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced. He was 93.

Small led CBS' news operations in the nation's capital from 1962-74. He recruited Eric Sevareid, Marvin Kalb, Daniel Schorr, Harry Reasoner and Dan Rather from within the division and gave many producers and reporters their first commercial network news positions; those included Bob Schieffer, Ed Bradley, Bernard Shaw, Bill Moyers, Bernard Kalb and Tom Bettag.

Meanwhile, Diane ...

Daniel Schorr, whose distinguished and often controversial broadcast journalism career spanned six decades, died Friday at a Washington hospital. He was 93.

Schorr began as one of Edward R. Murrow's recruits at CBS, earned Emmys in three straight years for reporting on the Watergate scandal during the 1970s and achieved the distinction of being included on President Nixon's "Enemies List." He counted his inclusion by Nixon as his greatest achievement.

Schorr joined CNN in 1979, becoming the nucleus of the fledgling cable outfit's foray into round-the-clock news and its quest for legitimacy. He left in 1985 and had since been serving as a news analyst at NPR, contributing regularly to "All Things Considered" and other programs.

Schorr likened his TV coverage to that of a hard-nosed newspaper investigative journalist, who researched an area extensively and then queried his interviewee with authority, unlike the usual style of sticking a microphone in front of...