Daniel Schorr

Longtime journalist Daniel Schorr dead at age 93 BRETT ZONGKER
Associated Press Daniel Schorr, journalist whose tough reporting got
him on Nixon's enemies list, dead at 93 WASHINGTON -- Veteran
reporter and commentator Daniel Schorr, whose hard-hitting reporting for CBS
got him on President Richard Nixon's notorious "enemies list" in the 1970s,
has died. He was 93. Schorr died Friday at a Washington hospital after a
brief illness, said Anna Christopher, a spokeswoman for National Public
Radio, where Schorr continued to work as a senior news analyst and
commentator. Schorr's career of more than six decades spanned the spectrum
of journalism -- beginning in print, then moving to television where he
spent 23 years with CBS News and ending with NPR. He also wrote several
books, including his memoir, "Staying Tuned: A Life in Journalism. Schorr
reported from Moscow; Havana; Bonn, Germany; and many other cities as a
foreign correspondent. While at CBS, he brought Americans the first-ever
exclusive television interview with a Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, in
1957. During the Nixon years, Schorr not only covered the news as CBS' chief
Watergate correspondent, but he also became part of the story. Hoping to
beat the competition, he rushed to the air with Nixon's famous "enemies
list" and began reading the list of 20 to viewers before previewing it. As
he got to No. 17, he discovered his name. I remember that my first thought
was that I must go on reading without any pause, or gasp or look of wild
surmise," he wrote in his book "Clearing the Air. I do not know how well I
carried off my effort to appear oblivious to the discovery of my name on an
ominous-looking list, but I count this one of the most trying experiences in
my television career. Schorr's stories pointing out weaknesses of the
administration's programs so angered Nixon that he ordered an FBI
investigation of the reporter -- saying he was being considered for a top
federal job. That investigation was later mentioned in one of the three
articles of impeachment -- "abuse of a federal agency" -- adopted by the
House Judiciary Committee against Nixon. He said he figured he became such a
thorn in Nixon's side because his newspaper background gave him a bluntness
rare on television and an antagonism to the "stage-craft, image-making and
slogan-selling" that Nixon favored. Schorr became part of the story once
again in 1976, when he arranged for the publication of an advance copy of a
suppressed House Intelligence Committee report on illegal CIA and FBI
findings. At the time, Schorr called it "an inescapable decision of
journalistic conscience" to see that the report ended up in print. To his
surprise, reaction from his own colleagues in the media was negative,
because Schorr had handed the report over in exchange for a donation to a
group that aids journalists in First Amendment issues. The idea of "selling
any document is intolerable for a newsman whether it's for personal profit
or for charity," Peter Lisagor, chief of the Chicago Daily News' Washington
bureau, said at the time. Many reporters also found Schorr's silence
troubling when another CBS correspondent, Lesley Stahl, was wrongly accused
of leaking the report. Schorr was suspended by the network and the House
opened an investigation of him, though it later dropped the case. He
resigned from CBS soon after that. Well into his 90s, he was still giving
commentaries on NPR. Pondering the November 2009 shootings at Fort Hood,
Texas, he cited the online contacts between the suspect, Maj. Nidal Hasan,
and a radical cleric. He asked, "does the Internet merit some of the
responsibility for helping the violence-prone to fester there in communion
with the machine? Born in New York City to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents,
Schorr began his career in journalism while he was still in high school.
When he wasn't working on the student newspaper, he spent his free time as a
stringer for the Bronx Home News and the Jewish Daily Bulletin. During
college, Schorr also worked part-time for several metropolitan dailies.
Schorr first caught the eye of famed CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow during his
vivid reports on devastating flooding in the Netherlands in 1953. Murrow
persuaded him to join the network, where he started out covering Capitol
Hill and the State Department beats. After CBS, Schorr taught journalism at
the University of California at Berkeley, and then in 1979 he joined Ted
Turner's newly created CNN as its senior correspondent in Washington. Soon
after leaving the cable station in 1985 over differences with Turner, Schorr
found a home at National Public Radio as a senior news analyst. He
contributed regularly to "All Things Considered," and other NPR programs.
Schorr is survived by his wife, Lisbeth, his son, Jonathan Schorr, daughter,
Lisa Kaplan, and one grandchild. Memorial plans have not been set. Eds:
Corrects spelling of Lesley Stahl's first name, rather than 'Leslie'; Adds
names of Schorr's surviving family members, no funeral plans set.