Anchor Jim Lehrer Moving Out of PBS NEWSHOUR
Jim Lehrer said Thursday that he will take another step toward ending his 36 years of anchoring or co-anchoring the daily public television news broadcast known now as the PBS NEWSHOUR.
He said, effective June 6, he will no longer be part of the regular daily anchor rotation team, but he will still appear on many Friday evenings to moderate the weekly analysis of Shields and Brooks; syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
[ Also Read: Jason Sudeikis to Host MTV Movie Awards ]Lehrer (pictured above) said he will also remain involved in the editorial direction of the PBS NEWSHOUR and the program’s producer, MacNeil/Lehrer Productions.
The decision is part of the program’s latest evolution, a process that began in December 2009 with the transition from “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” to the PBS NEWSHOUR.
[ Also Read: Alec Baldwin Back for TCM Showcase The Essentials ]That move created a multi-anchor team that featured Lehrer plus Senior Correspondents Gwen Ifill, Judy Woodruff, Jeffrey Brown, Ray Suarez and Margaret Warner. That team will continue hosting the broadcast on a rotating basis.
Lehrer said “I have been laboring in the glories of daily journalism for 52 years … 36 of them here at the Newshour and its earlier incarnations … and there comes a time to step aside from the daily process, and that time has arrived.”
The broadcast began in 1975 as The Robert MacNeil Report and went through several transitions to its current form.
