In addition to working at CBS and NBC, he worked on PBS “MacNeil / Lehrer NewsHour” and on the History Channel.
When he joined the Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer program in 1987, Mudd told the Associated Press: “I think they consider the news, information, facts and opinions with truly admirable reverence and respect.”
He wrote a memoir, “The Place To Be”, which was released in early 2008, and described the challenges and conflicts of egos he found working in Washington, where, among other things, he covered Congress for CBS for 15 years old.
In an April 2008 interview on “NewsHour”, he said he “loved” keeping an eye on the country’s 100 senators and 435 deputies, “all of them wanting to talk, great access, politics in the morning, afternoon and evening, in the White House, where everything is closed and well kept. ”
Mudd received the George Foster Peabody Award for his November 1979 special, “CBS Reports: Teddy,” which aired a few days before Kennedy officially announced his attempt to challenge then President Carter to the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination.
In the report, Mudd asked the Massachusetts senator a simple question: “Why do you want to be president?”
Kennedy was unable to give an accurate answer or specify what he wanted to do in person.
“Well, I will, uh, if I made the announcement to run, the reasons why I would run is because I have great faith in this country. … We are facing complex issues and problems in this nation right now, but we face similar challenges on other occasions. … And I would basically feel that it is imperative that this country moves forward, that it cannot stand still, otherwise, it retreats. “
It was enough for Tom Wicker, a columnist for the New York Times, to give Kennedy the “Safire Nabob of the Year Award”. Carter won the nomination for a second term, only to fall to Ronald Reagan in the general election.
As Mudd told viewers, “At Stump Kennedy he can be domineering, imposing and masterful, but outside the stump, in personal interviews, he can become affected, elliptical and at times seem like he really doesn’t want America to know about him.”
Mudd spent a good deal of time in the “CBS Evening News” anchor chair, replacing Walter Cronkite when he was away and anchoring Saturday night news broadcasts from 1966 to 1973.
But he lost to Dan Rather in the competition to succeed Cronkite as a news anchor for CBS when he retired in 1981. Cronkite, for example, had supported Rather because he thought Mudd didn’t have enough foreign experience.
It was then that Mudd jumped to NBC as his main correspondent in Washington. In addition, he co-anchored NBC’s “Nightly News” with Tom Brokaw for a year before Brokaw became a soloist in 1983, and for a while co-hosted “Meet the Press,” the Sunday morning talk show.
But when he left NBC, he said the administration saw the news as “a commodity that can be promoted”, rather than a public service. There have been rumors of his departure since he harshly criticized NBC News for canceling the “1986” magazine program, which he co-hosted with Connie Chung.
“Roger Mudd was one of the most talented journalists in my life. Artful political reporter and guardian of the highest standards. Roger’s dedication to fundamental journalistic practices remains a milestone for future generations, ”said Brokaw.
In five years at NewsHour, Mudd served as a senior correspondent, essayist and occasional anchor. He presented a series of reports on American history and education, including “Learning in America: Schools That Work” and “The Wizard: Thomas Alva Edison”.
Mudd left “NewsHour” in 1992 to teach journalism at Princeton University, describing the offer to teach at the Ivy League school as simply too attractive to be rejected. He was also a host and correspondent for The History Channel from 1995 to 2004.
Among his other awards over the years, Mudd shared a Peabody for the 1970 CBS documentary “The Selling of the Pentagon”, which analyzed the military’s public relations efforts. Mudd was the narrator of the show, which Peabody judges said was “the best electronic journalism”.
Early in his career at CBS, Mudd teamed up with Robert Trout to anchor coverage of the 1964 Democratic convention after CBS – using Walter Cronkite as an anchor – fell behind NBC’s Chet Huntley and David Brinkley in the ratings at the Republican convention. The memorably named team Mudd-Trout did not win over the NBC duo, and Cronkite was back as an anchor on election night in November.
In 1990, he received the Joan Shorenstein Barone award from the notorious Washington newspaper.
Before joining CBS News, Mudd worked at the WTOP radio station in Washington. Prior to that, he was news director at WRNL Radio in Richmond, Virginia, a reporter for the Richmond News Leader and a research assistant to the House Committee on the Tax-Free Foundation. He was also an English and history teacher and football coach at Darlington School in Rome, Georgia.
In 1977, Mudd received an honorary doctorate from Washington and Lee University, his alma mater. He donated his collection of 1,500 volumes of 20th century southern writers to the university in 2006. He obtained a master’s degree in American history from the University of North Carolina in 1951.
Mudd, who was born in Washington, was a distant relative of Dr. Samuel Mudd, the doctor who was arrested for treating an injured John Wilkes Booth shortly after Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. The doctor, who was eventually pardoned, said he did not know about the murder when he helped Booth.
According to CBS News, Mudd and his late wife, former EJ Spears, left their four children, as well as 14 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.