R.I.P.: Jim Lehr, TV News Anchor

Jim Lehrer, the somber and thoughtful television news anchor who helped build “PBS NewsHour” into an authoritative yet accessible voice of public broadcasting, died Thursday.

Jim Lehr

He was 85, reports The LA Times.

Lehrer, the show’s co-founder, died “peacefully in his sleep at home,” Judy Woodruff, anchor and managing editor of “PBS NewsHour,” announced in a statement. “I’m heartbroken at the loss of someone who was central to my professional life, a mentor to me and someone whose friendship I’ve cherished for decades.”

The broadcaster died at his home in Washington, according to PBS, but no cause of death was specified. Lehrer had retired in 2011 after anchoring the show for 36 years. He also appeared 12 times as a presidential debate moderator.

He and Robert MacNeil founded the PBS program in 1975, an outgrowth of their 1973 coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings on PBS. They viewed broadcast journalism as a public service — to provide a greater understanding of events and issues that shaped the nation’s social fabric and its citizens.

“The MacNeil-Lehrer Report,” became the nation’s first one-hour TV news broadcast in 1983. With an in-depth look at the issues, the retitled “PBS NewsHour” continues to stand apart from today’s opinion-fueled cable newscasts and the evening broadcasts on NBC, ABC and CBS, which largely air truncated stories in an attempt to cover the headlines of the day in a mere 22 minutes.

Politics, international relations, economics, science, even developments in the arts all received lengthy, detailed coverage.