John Chancellor
John William Chancellor (July 14, 1927 – July 12, 1996) was an American journalist who spent most of his career with NBC News. He is considered a pioneer in television news.[2] Chancellor served as anchor of the NBC Nightly News from 1970 to 1982 and continued to do editorials and commentaries for NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw until 1993.
This article is about the American journalist. For the British colonial official, see John Chancellor (colonial administrator). For the Venezuelan footballer, see Jhon Chancellor.
John Chancellor
July 12, 1996 (aged 68)
Journalist
1952–1993
Today (1961–1962)
NBC Nightly News
Anchor (1970–1982)
Editor/Commentator (1982–1993)
Connie Chancellor[1]
Barbara Upshaw (second wife)
3
Later years, post-Nightly News[edit]
Chancellor anchored the Nightly News through April 2, 1982, when he was succeeded by a co-anchor team of Tom Brokaw and Roger Mudd. Chancellor remained on the program, providing editorial commentaries until his retirement from NBC on July 9, 1993. During this time of his commentaries, he defined himself as a paragrapher in 1993, just before his retirement.[6]
In 1992, Chancellor was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.
Chancellor was the narrator of Baseball, a documentary by Ken Burns.[7] He also wrote a book, Peril and Promise: A Commentary on America, which was published in 1990.
The John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism[8] was established in 1995 and administered by the Annenberg Public Policy Center until 2004. It is now awarded by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Death[edit]
After his retirement, Chancellor moved to Princeton, New Jersey, where he died of stomach cancer July 12, 1996, two days before his 69th birthday.
The author Anne Rivers Siddons gave her first book, a 1975 collection of nonfiction essays, the title John Chancellor Makes Me Cry.[14]