Mudd’s son Jonathan told CNN that his father died of complications related to kidney failure. He was 93 years old.
Mudd started his television career in the 1950s in Richmond, Virginia, but worked his way up to CBS News as a hard-hitting political reporter. His practical style was shown as the presenter of the 1971 groundbreaking documentary “The Selling of the Pentagon”, which revealed public relations operations at the United States Department of Defense to convince Americans to support military conflicts.
Mudd’s best-known moment was in an interview with then-presidential candidate Edward Kennedy, asking him in 1979: “Why do you want to be president?” Kennedy’s difficulty in answering the question is widely seen as a turning point in his failed campaign.
“He was a journalist of enormous integrity and character. He would not move if he believed he was right and would not compromise his ethical standards,” said CBS News president Susan Zirinsky, who worked with Mudd at the network’s Washington office in the beginning. of your career.
After CBS replaced Mudd in favor of Dan Rather as a permanent anchor for CBS Evening News, Mudd went to NBC to co-anchor that network’s evening show. But the arrangement only lasted a year until Tom Brokaw became the solo anchor.
Mudd became a co-moderator for “Meet the Press” and featured occasional specials.
He joined the PBS “MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour” team in 1987, then served as the main anchor of the cable History Channel. He helped found the Roger Mudd Center for Ethics at Washington & Lee University, his alma mater.
“Roger loved and collected books, read good old-fashioned newspapers, from start to finish, every morning of his life and watched the evening news as much as he could,” said his family in a written statement.