RIP Robert Pierpoint - CBS News

I was not familiar with this man in the journo biz, but his bio is pretty interesting.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/23/robert-pierpoint-dead-cbs-news-legend-dies_n_1027112.html

 

Re: RIP Robert Pierpont - CBS News

One of the last links to the glory days of CBS News and a University of Redlands graduate. When I was in high school in San Bernardino, we went to a journalism seminar at U of R, where they had various writers, reporters, etc from the area speak about different topics.

Bob Pierpoint was one of the speakers and from what I remember; this was nearly 30 years ago, he was an engaging, honest, fascinating individual.

RIP to a true journalist.

 

Re: RIP Robert Pierpont - CBS News

Very fine journalist, spent many years covering the White House. Would help if those puds at HuffyPost spelled his last name correctly.

 

Like Pierpoint, Warren Christopher also roamed the Colton Avenue halls in Maroon and Gray.

 

Sorry to see this. He and the other Murrow's Boys were the finest assemblage of journalists in broadcasting history, unlikely to ever be equaled or surpassed.

 

I've heard numerous stories about Pierpoint years ago as a kid. Very sad to to learn of his passing.

Another one of Murrow's Boys have been reunited in the press room upstairs in the big sky.

 

I read somewhere that Pierpoint got bumped back to #2 White Correspondent when CBS promoted Dan Rather into the number one job. He and Rather were never friendly. When Cronkite left and Rather took over as anchor Dan had a lot of power in personnel assignments so Pierpoint was shuffled off the Evening News to Sunday Morning.

 

CBS Evening News did a Pierpoint appreciation that ended with a story about the great war reporter's two loves: news and tennis. Those loves collided one day. As he was headed from the White House to play tennis, Pierpoint was given a news item by Nixon's press secretary. So he put on a shirt, tie, and suit coat and delivered the news -- with just his torso in the frame. Below his suit coat, Pierpoint wore his tennis shorts, striped white socks, and canvas tennis shoes. The full-body photo is part of the Pierpoint legend. His family said he'd be buried in that suit coat and tennis shorts.

 

Read that, too.

Executives thought Rather's Texas roots would help in covering the new Johnson Administration. Rather's work the day of the assassination made an impression.

Rather and LBJ had nothing in common, other than being Texans. The hoped for "Chili Talk" connection quickly got spicy.

 

The fact they thought a Sam Houston man and a Southwest Texas man would have any love for each other boggles the mind.