Roger Mudd, a longtime TV news presence who read the news for CBS, NBC, and PBS, has died at his home in McLean, Virginia. He was 93.
The cause of death was kidney failure, his son Matthew confirmed to The New York Times.
Especially famous for a 1979 interview with Senator Ted Kennedy, Mudd memorably spoke to the Massachusetts lawmaker days before he intended to announce his run for the 1980 Democratic ticket. “Why do you want to be president?,” Mudd asked simply.
“Well, I’m, uh, were I to make the announcement to run, the reasons that I would run is because I have a great belief in this country ... We’re facing complex issues and problems in this nation at this time but we have faced similar challenges at other times ... And I would basically feel that it’s imperative for this country to move forward, that it can’t stand still, for otherwise it moves backward," Kennedy said stammeringly.
Kennedy’s poll numbers sank as a result and he did not earn the nomination. It instead went to former President Jimmy Carter. Mudd, meanwhile, who won a Peabody Award for the interview.
Mudd began his career in the 1950s as a reporter for the Washington radio and television station WTOP. In 1961, he was hired by CBS to cover Congress.
In the 1980s, Mudd jumped to NBC when he did not get Walter Cronkite's position on “CBS Evening News.” (CBS named Dan Rather instead.)
At NBC, Mudd worked as chief Washington correspondent and joined Tom Brokaw on the “Nightly News”.
Soon after, Mudd switched to PBS, where he reported for “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” from 1987 to 1992. He also taught at Princeton University and at his alma mater, Washington and Lee University, and hosted documentaries on The History Channel from 1995 until he retired in 2005.
In 2008, Mudd published his memoir, The Place to Be: Washington, CBS, and the Glory Days of Television News.
In 2010, Mr. Mudd donated $4 million to Washington and Lee, establishing the Roger Mudd Center for the Study of Professional Ethics and to endow a Roger Mudd professorship in ethics.
