Schieffer, Bob 1937-

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SCHIEFFER, Bob 1937-

(Bob Lloyd Schieffer)

PERSONAL: Born February 25, 1937, in Austin, TX; son of John (a building contractor) and Gladys (Payne) Schieffer; married Patricia Penrose (a toy store owner), April 15, 1967; children: Susan, Sharon. Education: Texas Christian University, B.A., 1959. Religion: Protestant.

ADDRESSES: Office—CBS News Weekend/Sunday News, 524 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019-2901; Face the Nation, CBS News, 2020 M St. NW, Washington, DC 20036.

CAREER: Broadcast journalist. KXOL Radio, Fort Worth, TX, news reporter, 1957–59; Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Fort Worth, reporter, 1962–66; WBAP-TV (now KXAS-TV), Fort Worth, news anchor, 1966–68; Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), Washington, DC, correspondent, 1969–, Pentagon correspondent, 1970–74, White House correspondent, 1974–79, chief Washington correspondent, 1982–, CBS Evening News, anchor, 1976–96, Face the Nation, anchor and moderator, 1991–. Military service: U.S. Air Force, 1959–62; became captain.

MEMBER: Sigma Delta Chi.

AWARDS, HONORS: Emmy Awards, including (with others) 1971, for CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite; Overseas Press Club awards; Texas Associated Broadcasters awards; Sigma Delta Chi awards; inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame, 2002; Paul White Award, Radio-Television News Directors Association, 2003, for lifetime achievement; IRTS Foundation award, 2004.

WRITINGS:

(With Gary Paul Gates) The Acting President, Dutton (New York, NY), 1989.

This Just In: What I Couldn't Tell You on TV, G. P. Putnam's Sons (New York, NY), 2003.

Face the Nation: My Favorite Stories from the First 50 Years of the Award-winning News Broadcast, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2004.

ADAPTATIONS: This Just In: What I Couldn't Tell You on TV was adapted for audio (unabridged), read by Schieffer, Recorded Books, 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: Bob Schieffer has been a familiar face on CBS television since 1976, when he began his twenty-year stint as anchor of the Saturday edition of CBS Evening News. He has covered every presidential campaign and both Democratic and Republican national conventions since 1972. As anchor of Face the Nation, Schieffer has received a number of awards honoring his work in the broadcasting industry.

Schieffer was born in Austin, Texas, and grew up in Forth Worth. In a time before television had come to his city, Schieffer began in print journalism. While in the U.S. Air Force, he was an information officer and oversaw base publications, and when he was discharged, Schieffer took a position with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He was one of the reporters who covered the assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963, and two years later, he was assigned to cover Vietnam for a five-month period during which he interviewed, and wrote profiles of, soldiers from the Fort Worth area. His work was well received, and he was offered a job as evening anchor for WBAP-TV. Schieffer started with the CBS news bureau in 1969, and he covered all four of the major Washington beats, including the White House, Pentagon, Capitol Hill, and the State Department.

Schieffer cowrote The Acting President, about the Reagan years, and he recalls his more than forty years as a television journalist in his memoir, This Just In: What I Couldn't Tell You on TV. His anecdotes reveal the characters of the most powerful politicians and media people in the country, including Schieffer's close friend and fellow Texan, Dan Rather. Schieffer writes about the big news stories, including the Kennedy assassination, and describes how, after receiving a call from a desperate woman while in the city room of his newspaper, he rode with the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald to the Dallas police station, conducting an interview with her as they drove. Schieffer believes that it was Kennedy's assassination that changed the way people sought out the news, as the country sat in stunned silence watching events unfold on national television.

Schieffer writes of his first national assignment, covering the integration of the University of Mississippi in Oxford. In the ensuing conflict involving federal marshals and opponents to the end of segregation, two people were killed, one a reporter. It was an assignment that carried with it a number of lessons on the darker side of human nature and the power of the federal government.

USA Today's Raymond L. Fischer noted that Schieffer "concludes with 'End Piece' (i.e., the last story) and a compelling section on 'chapter worknotes, sources, afterthoughts, and observations.' Although brief, these surely contain some of his best work. Schieffer, who became a reporter because he always wanted to see things for himself and make his own judgments about them, has written a book that is witty, entertaining, and enlightening, but never acrimonious."

Bill Wheatley wrote in Nieman Reports that "one doesn't come away from the jobs Schieffer has had without some keen insights into how the world works (or doesn't) and without a cache of interesting and revealing tales. In this book, it is those tales and those insights that Schieffer blends into an engaging biographical narrative."

In Face the Nation: My Favorite Stories from the First 50 Years of the Award-winning News Broadcast, Schieffer recounts his years as host for the popular Sunday morning television program, "Face the Nation." Booklist contributor Vanessa Bush called the book "a fascinating look at how the nation and the show have evolved over 50 years."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Theatre, Film, and Television, Gale (Detroit, MI), 2000.

Schieffer, Bob, This Just In: What I Couldn't Tell you on TV, G.P. Putnam's Sons (New York, NY), 2003.

Schieffer, Bob, Face the Nation: My Favorite Stories from the First 50 Years of the Award-winning News Broadcast, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2004.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, December 1, 2002, Vanessa Bush, review of This Just In: What I Couldn't Tell You on TV, p. 627; September 1, 2004, Vanessa Bush, review of Face the Nation, p. 3.

Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2003, review of This Just In, p. 47.

Library Journal, January, 2003, Katherine E. Merrill, review of This Just In, p. 128; November 1, 2004, Joel W. Tscherne, review of Face the Nation: My Favorite Stories from the First 50 Years of the Award-winning News Broadcast, p. 98.

New York Times Book Review, February 2, 2003, Irvin Molotsky, review of This Just In, p. 20.

Nieman Reports, summer, 2003, Bill Wheatley, review of This Just In, p. 115.

Publishers Weekly, December 9, 2002, review of This Just In, p. 75; August 16, 2004, review of Face the Nation, p. 50.

USA Today, July, 2003, Raymond L. Fischer, review of This Just In, p. 81.