How Well Do You Know These Famous News Anchors?

Tim Russert started on “Meet the Press” in 1991 and stayed until his passing in 2008. His passion for politics and skillful interview technique made "Meet the Press" a proving ground for the who’s-who of Washington. During the last 354 weeks of Russert’s run as moderator, he topped the Sunday morning show ratings 353 times.

One-half of PBS’ long-running “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,” Jim Lehrer built his career on eschewing any razzle-dazzle and sticking with a just-the-facts approach to the news. His dedication to appearing non-partisan meant he had refused to vote since 1964. This made him the perfect candidate to moderate presidential debates, which he did 12 times.

Thought to be the inspiration for fierce sitcom journalist Murphy Brown, Linda Ellerbee honed her wry, razor-sharp wit anchoring “NBC News Overnight” before producing Nickelodeon's “Nick News With Linda Ellerbee” for an astounding 25 years. Ellerbee’s sign-off phrase, “And so it goes,” came from another wry humorist — author Kurt Vonnegut.

Ted Koppel’s “Dateline” was one of the few shows (if not the only show) to feature Black leaders such as Bishop Desmond Tutu on-screen during South Africa’s apartheid. Imprisoned freedom fighter (and eventual president) Nelson Mandela noted this from his cell and rewarded Koppel with his first post-release interview. Koppel’s first question to Mandela, a former boxer, was about a recent Mike Tyson fight.

Barbara Walters co-anchored "ABC Evening News" with Harry Reasoner for a few years in the ‘70s, but it wasn’t until Katie Couric sat at the helm of "CBS Evening News" in 2006 that a woman anchored a network news program on her own. Couric endeared herself to audiences during her 15-year run on the “Today” show before her historic anchor run.

With not much news happening stateside in November 1989, Tom Brokaw moved his broadcast of "NBC Nightly News" to Berlin, Germany, to cover the city’s growing unrest. The timing proved impeccable. He was able to interview the East German information minister, who inadvertently allowed immediate unrestricted travel during a press conference, and he reported on the fall of the Berlin Wall from the Brandenburg Gate.

One of Anderson Cooper’s great-great-great-grandfathers was Cornelius Vanderbilt, a late-19th-century railroad tycoon who at one point had more money than the United States treasury. Cooper didn’t know that level of wealth — by the time of his birth, most of the family wealth had been frittered away — but his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, made a name for herself in fashion design.

Barbara Walters’ 1999 interview with Monica Lewinsky, the former White House intern at the center of President Bill Clinton’s impeachment scandal, earned “20/20” over 48 million viewers. Advertisers anticipated the news program would do record numbers and paid five times the regular rate for 30-second spots.

In the early days of the Cold War, Senator Joseph McCarthy abused his power in the name of rooting out theoretical communists in America. Criticizing the witch-hunt was liable to get one branded a communist, which made Edward R. Murrow’s hour-long exposé of McCarthy's methods all the more noteworthy.

A prominent pollster named Oliver Quayle conducted a survey to figure out the public’s trust in various politicians running for office that year. As a lark, he included CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite. “Uncle Walter” won hands down. CBS was quick to brand Cronkite with the title “Most Trusted Man in America” as often as they could.