TV Journalist
Bob Schieffer
Notes from Evan Smith
"He’s been facing the nation, in one form or another, for some 38 years: as Saturday anchor and interim weekday anchor of The CBS Evening News, as the network’s chief Washington correspondent, and, most famously, as moderator of the Sunday morning public affairs show Face the Nation, where he grills lawmakers, newsmakers, and anyone else with a story to tell or electability to sell. He’s one of the very few people alive or dead to have covered, at various times, the big four institutions in our nation’s capitol: the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House, and Congress. And so it’s fitting that his alma mater, Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, named its school of journalism for him. But if you ask Bob Schieffer about it, or about anything connected to one of the most accomplished careers in the modern era of the media, he’ll modestly deflect the attention. That’s just his way. He’s a regular guy through and through, seemingly without affect or ego, and that’s one of the reasons, if not *the* reason, that he’s so beloved by doers and viewers alike. Born in Austin, Schieffer served in the U.S. Air Force, as a captain and information officer, after graduating from TCU. His first employer, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, sent him to Vietnam to profile soldiers from his home town. He also covered the Kennedy assassination for the paper, famously and memorably, before shifting from print to broadcast in the late sixties. And there he has been, on camera and in our living rooms, ever since, maintaining his credentials as working press at a time when so many of his peers have succumbed to celebrity. In an industry full of larger-than-life Texans like Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, and Jim Lehrer, Schieffer stands every bit as tall—and at age 75, he can still teach the young, blow-dried whippersnappers getting paid the big bucks a thing or two about what it really means to be a reporter." - Evan Smith, Texas Monthly Talks, Broadcast 4.19.07
