Morley Safer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 | This article is about a person who has recently died. Some information, such as the circumstances of the person's death and surrounding events, may change as more facts become known. Initial news reports may be unreliable. The last updates to this article may not reflect the most current information. |
| Morley Safer | |
|---|---|
Safer at the LBJ Presidential Library, 2010
| |
| Born | November 8, 1931 Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Died | May 19, 2016 (aged 84) Manhattan, New York |
| Nationality | Canadian, American[1] |
| Alma mater | University of Western Ontario |
| Occupation | Broadcast journalist, reporter and commentator |
| Years active | 1955–2016[2] |
| Spouse(s) | Jane Fearer (m. 1968–2016) |
| Children | 1 |
Morley Safer (November 8, 1931 – May 19, 2016) was a Canadian American broadcast journalist, reporter and correspondent forCBS News. He was best known for his long tenure on the newsmagazine 60 Minutes, the cast of which he joined in December 1970, during the third season of the series. He was the longest-serving reporter on 60 Minutes, and over his 50-year tenure for CBS won 12 Emmy Awards. He retired in May 2016, days before his death at 84.[3]
Early life[edit]
Safer was born to an Austrian-Jewish family in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Anna (née Cohn) and Max Safer, an upholsterer.[4] After reading works by Ernest Hemingway, he had decided in his youth that he likewise wanted to be a foreign correspondent.[5] He attended Harbord Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Ontario,[6] and briefly attended University of Western Ontario, before he dropped out to become a newspaper reporter.[5][7]
Career[edit]
Safer began his journalism career as a reporter for various newspapers in Canada (Woodstock Sentinel-Review, London Free Press, and Toronto Telegram) and England in 1955 (Reuters and Oxford Mail). Later, he joined the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) as a correspondent and producer.[8] One of his first jobs with CBC was to produce "CBC News Magazine" in 1956, where his first on-screen appearance as a journalist was covering the Suez Crisis in Egypt.[5] Still with CBC, in 1961 he worked from London where he was assigned to cover major stories in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, including the Algerian War of independence from France.[5] Also in 1961, he was the only Western correspondent in East Berlin at the time the Communists began building the Berlin Wall.[5]
In 1964, Safer joined CBS News as a London-based correspondent. In 1965, he opened the CBS News bureau in Saigon. That year he followed a group of United States Marinesto the village of Cam Ne, for what was described as a "search and destroy" mission. When the Marines arrived, they gave orders in English to the inhabitants to evacuate the village. When the homes were cleared, the Marines burned their thatched roofs with flamethrowers and Zippo lighters. Safer's report on this event was broadcast on CBS News on August 5, 1965, and was among the first reports to paint a bleak picture of the Vietnam War. U.S. President Lyndon Johnson reacted to this report angrily, calling CBS's president and accusing Safer and his colleagues of having "shat on the American flag." Certain that Safer was a communist, Johnson also ordered a security check; upon being told that Safer "wasn't a communist, just a Canadian", he responded: "Well, I knew he wasn't an American."[9]
"Morley was one of the most important journalists in any medium, ever. He broke ground in war reporting and made a name that will forever be synonymous with 60 Minutes. He was also a gentleman, a scholar, a great raconteur - all of those things and much more to generations of colleagues, his legion of friends, and his family, to whom all of us at CBS offer our sincerest condolences over the loss of one of CBS' and journalism's greatest treasures."[5]
CBS Chairman and CEO
In 1967, Safer was named the London bureau chief, a post he held for three years. Safer was also a CBS reporter during the Nigerian Civil War.[10] In 1970, he left London to replace Harry Reasoner on 60 Minutes, after Reasoner left to anchor the ABC Evening News (although Reasoner would return to 60 Minutes in 1978, alongside Safer). Safer would go on to set the record for the show's longest-serving correspondent, retiring in 2016 after 46 years.[5]
Safer authored the bestselling book, Flashbacks: On Returning to Vietnam. It describes his 1989 return to Vietnam and features his interviews with known and less-well-known Vietnamese people, most of them veterans of the war.[11] His trip was the basis of a 60 Minutes show in 1989, which Safer said got a reaction of annoyance from some veterans, and a positive reaction from others.[12]
Personal life[edit]
He married Jane Fearer, an anthropology student, in 1968 in London, where he was serving as bureau chief for CBS News.[13][14] Their daughter, Sarah Alice Anne Safer, is a 1992 graduate of Brown University[15] and a freelance journalist.
Safer maintained dual Canadian/American citizenship.[16]
Safer died in his Manhattan home on May 19, 2016, just eight days after announcing his retirement from 60 Minutes following 46 seasons with the show.[17] Four days prior to his death, CBS aired a special 60 Minutes episode covering Safer's 61-year journalism career.[2]
Awards[edit]
- 12-time Emmy Award winner[3][17]
- 3-time Overseas Press Award winner[17][18]
- 3-time George Foster Peabody Award winner[17]
- 2-time Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award winner[5]
- Winner of the Paul White Award from the Radio-Television News Directors Association (1966)[19]
- Recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (2003)[20]
- Received the 2003 George Polk Memorial Career Achievement Award from Long Island University[17]
- Received the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards' first prize for domestic television for his insightful report about a controversial school, "School for the Homeless"[17]
- Named a Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 1995[17]
- Received Brown University's Welles Hangen Award for Superior Achievement in Journalism (1993)[15]
- Recipient of The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence[21]
No comments:
Post a Comment