Daniel Schorr, Veteran Journalist, Is Dead at 93
Daniel Schorr, the veteran journalist who took on giants and started his career with JTA, has died.
Schorr, 93, died Friday in Washington, according to a statement from NPR, where he still worked as a commentator.
Schorr started working as a journalist at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency from 1934 to 1941. He first worked for its daily newspaper, the Jewish Daily Bulletin, as a reporter and then after its demise for JTA as a cable rewrite man, writing news stories based on cables from around the world.
After JTA, he worked for a while for a Dutch news agency, served in the army, and then returned to the Dutch agency, always pressing for a New York Times job.
After finally being turned down in 1953 – because, he said, the paper feared having too many Jewish bylines – he landed a job with CBS and opened its Moscow bureau, where he worked until Soviet authorities told him not to return from a vacation, in 1957.
His aggressive coverage of government earned him enemies. He even made President Nixon’s famed “enemies list” for his coverage of the Watergate wiretapping and burglary scandal, which earned him three Emmys.
He parted with CBS in 1976 over its refusal to air his scoop about a congressional report on CIA malfeasance.
He worked for CNN for from its inception in 1979 until he fell out with management in 1985 over his refusal to accommodate former politicians as commentators equal to journalists. Since then he worked for NPR.
According to the New York Times, he is survived by his wife, Lisbeth, a daughter, Lisa, and a son, Jonathan.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
