WASHINGTON, DC — Jim Lehrer, longtime host and co-founder of “PBS NewsHour,” died Thursday at his home in Washington, D.C., according to Judy Woodruff, the program’s anchor and managing editor. He was 85 years old.
Lehner died “peacefully in his sleep,” according to PBS. He had suffered a heart attack in 1983 and, more recently, had undergone heart valve surgery in April 2008.
Lehrer was anchor of the “NewsHour” for 36 years before retiring in 2011. Lehrer, along with Robert MacNeil, founded the program in 1975, a product of their 1973 coverage of the Senate Watergate Hearings on PBS.
For Lehrer and MacNeil, his friend and longtime partner, broadcast journalism was a service, with public understanding of events and issues its primary goal. Lehrer was also a frequent moderator of presidential debates.
“We both believed the American people were not as stupid as some of the folks publishing and programming for them believed,” Lehrer wrote in his 1992 memoir, “A Bus of My Own.”
“We were convinced they cared about the significant matters of human events. … And we were certain they could and would hang in there more than 35 seconds for information about those subjects if given a chance.”
The half-hour “Robert MacNeil Report” began on PBS in 1975, with Lehrer as Washington correspondent. The two had already made names for themselves at the then-fledgling network through their work with the National Public Affairs Center for Television and its coverage of the Watergate hearings in 1973.
The nightly news broadcast, later retitled the “MacNeil-Lehrer Report,” became the nation’s first one-hour TV news broadcast in 1983 and was then known as the “MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour.” After MacNeil bowed out in 1995, it became “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.”
“I’m heartbroken at the loss of someone who was central to my professional life, a mentor to me and someone whose friendship I’ve cherished for decades,” Woodruff said in a statement.
Politics, international relations, economics, science, even developments in the arts were all given lengthy, detailed coverage in their show.
“When we expanded to the hour, it changed from being a supplement to an alternative,” Lehrer said in 1990. “Now we take the position that if you’re looking for a place to go every 24 hours and find out what’s happened and get some in-depth treatment, we’re the place.”
Lehrer moderated his first presidential debate in 1988 and was a frequent consensus choice for the task in subsequent presidential contests. He also anchored PBS coverage of inaugurations and conventions, dismissing criticism from other TV news organizations that the latter had become too scripted to yield much in the way of real news.
“I think when the major political parties of this country gather together their people and resources in one place to nominate their candidates, that’s important,” he told The Associated Press in 2000. “To me, it’s a non-argument. I don’t see why someone would argue that it wasn’t important.”
Naturally, Lehrer came in for some knocks for being so low-key in the big televised events. After a matchup between George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000, David Letterman cracked, “Last night was probably the first and only that time Jim Lehrer (was) the most exciting person in the room.”
But the real-life Lehrer — who had a tradition of buying a new tie for good luck before each debate — was more colorful than he might have seemed on PBS.
On the side, he was also a novelist and sometimes-playwright whose debut novel, “Viva Max!”, was made into a movie starring Peter Ustinov. He wrote a entire series of novels about the adventures of an Oklahoma politician known as The One-Eyed Mack.
As Lehrer turned 75 in spring 2009, PBS announced the show would be retitled as “PBS NewsHour” later in the year, with Lehrer pairing up on anchor duties with other show regulars.
He said he approved of the changes, telling The New York Times that having a pair of anchors would “shake things up a bit,” even as all sectors of the news business struggle to meet changing reader and viewer demands.
Lehrer was born in 1934 in Wichita, Kansas, the son of parents who ran a bus line. In addition to titling his memoir “A Bus of My Own,” he collected bus memorabilia — from station signs to a real 1946 Flxible Clipper bus.
After graduation from college in 1956, he served three years in the Marines — and later called the experience so valuable he thought all young people should take part in national service.
He went to work from 1959 to 1970 at The Dallas Morning News and the now-defunct Dallas Times-Herald. Lehrer jumped to television on a Dallas nightly newscast.
Lehrer wrote that it was ironic that the Watergate hearings helped establish the importance of public TV, since President Richard Nixon hated public broadcasting. He also recalled that the lengthy hearings gave him the chance to practice his new craft, and MacNeil — already a veteran — gave him valuable pointers on how to speak on camera clearly and conversationally.
He is survived by his wife, Kate; three daughters Jamie, Lucy, and Amanda; and six grandchildren.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.