It was a very different newscast at a time when others were providing headlines and two minute reports. The hour-long, commercial free MacNeil-Lehrer Report aired on PBS under that name from 1975-1995, taking in depth looks at stories in the news. It wasn't as highly rated as the network efforts, but it drew a loyal audience. 

Robert MacNeil, one half of that duo, has died. MacNeil was born in Montreal and grew up in Halifax with a somewhat questionable record at the CBC.

“The very first television interview I ever did, which was live in Canada, I forgot the names of both the people I was interviewing and had to say so to them.”

And he had another brush with a huge story back in 1963 when he was covering President Kennedy's visit to Dallas. He heard three shots ring out and rushed off the press bus to see what was going on.

"Sprinting toward the Texas School Book Depository, the building from which Lee Harvey Oswald was later found to have shot Kennedy, he came face to face with a “young guy in shirt sleeves” who suggested that Mr. MacNeil “ask inside” for a phone.

“I didn’t register his face because I was obsessed with finding a phone,” Mr. MacNeil told the Canadian Press in 2013. “Much later,” he added, “it occurred to me that I was going in just about the time Oswald had been going out.”

He won many awards during his career, including the Order of Canada. An eventful life to be sure and his legacy continues - the show is now called "Newshour" and it's still on PBS.

MacNeil was 93. 

Robert MacNeil, urbane anchor who founded ‘PBS NewsHour,’ dies at 93