Shaw, Bernard

Impact on the world

Shaw anchored CNN’s Washington desk from the network’s June 1980 debut and, within a year, led its coverage of the 1981 assassination attempt on President Reagan with a caution — withholding a false report of press secretary James Brady’s death that other networks aired — that helped establish CNN’s credibility as a serious news operation. He became, in 1988, the first African American journalist to moderate a U.S. presidential debate, drawing national attention for a blunt death-penalty question to candidate Michael Dukakis, and he reported live from a Baghdad hotel room alongside Arnett and Holliman during the opening night of the 1991 Gulf War, a broadcast credited with establishing round-the-clock cable news as a permanent fixture of American media. Shaw also covered the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and the 2000 presidential election recount before retiring in 2001, and was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame in 1999.

Life & background

Born May 22, 1940, in Chicago to a railroad employee and a housekeeper, Shaw served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1959 to 1963, sought career advice from Walter Cronkite during his service, and earned a B.A. in history from the University of Illinois Chicago in 1966. He began as a Chicago radio reporter in 1964, worked for CBS News in Washington from 1971 to 1977 and ABC News as a Latin America correspondent from 1977 to 1980, then joined the fledgling CNN at its 1980 launch, remaining its lead anchor for two decades; he died of pneumonia in Washington, D.C., on September 7, 2022, at age 82.

Sources

1. CNN; NBC News; NPR