Bob Schieffer, longtime CBS newsman and anchor of “Face the Nation,” announced that he will retire come summer, concluding a long career covering politics.
Over his 50 years in the field, Schieffer has become a beloved figure in journalism, admired not only for his on-air skills but also for his courtesy and humility in a business rife with vanity.
“It’s been a great adventure,” he said. “You know, I’m one of the luckiest people in the world. Because as a little boy, as a young reporter, I always wanted to be a journalist. And I got to do that. And not many people get to do that. I couldn’t have asked for a better life or something that was more fun and more fulfilling.”
His departure opens up a plum high-profile Sunday-morning slot as host of “Face the Nation.” Among possibilities mentioned in early speculation are CBS’s Major Garrett and Norah O’Donnell, CNN’s Jake Tapper and ABC’s Jonathan Karl.
Schieffer made the announcement during the annual Schieffer Symposium at Texas Christian University, his alma mater, because, he said, he wanted to end his career where it began. He graduated from TCU in 1959. The journalism school and college in which it is it located now share his name.
“I wanted this to be the place, and I wanted you all to be the first to know: This summer I am going to retire,” he told the audience.
Schieffer, 78, has covered every major political beat in Washington, D.C., including Congress, the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House. He has interviewed every U.S. president since Richard Nixon, as well as most who ran for the position.
Schieffer’s career began in 1957, when he accepted a job with a local Fort Worth radio station, KXOL, for $1 an hour. He later went to work as a police reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram where, in November 1963, he answered a phone call from a woman wanting a ride to Dallas. She thought her son, Lee Harvey Oswald, might have assassinated John F. Kennedy and she had heard over the radio that he had been arrested. The moment put him inside a worldwide news storm.
Two years later, Schieffer became the first reporter from a Texas metropolitan newspaper to report from Vietnam.
CBS hasn’t said who might replace Schieffer. CBS News president David Rhodes said in a memo only that “this is Bob’s night and I hope we can all celebrate with him the remarkable achievement which is his career here at CBS.”
