Lester Crystal, Guiding Force Behind ‘NewsHour,’ Dies at 85

“The new kid on the block, I suddenly became the Washington-based co-anchor along with Robin MacNeil in New York,” Ms. Woodruff recalled. “Even with Robin’s enormous talent, I don’t think there was any way we could have kept the program going in Jim’s absence without Les Crystal’s direction.”

In 1984, as the hourlong version of “MacNeil/Lehrer” reached its one-year anniversary, Mr. Crystal viewed the experiment as showing signs of success.

“Many people tune in to us for the second half-hour,” he said in a 1984 interview with The Christian Science Monitor, acknowledging that those viewers were using his broadcast to supplement the half-hour network news. “But those who watch us from the start have begun to understand that they will be getting all the major news. The most significant difference is that we take major stories and spend as much time on them as is called for — sometimes as much as 20 minutes.”

In 1994, when the O.J. Simpson murder investigation consumed the commercial networks’ newscasts for weeks on end, “NewsHour” didn’t take the bait, sticking with its issues-oriented segments and generally mentioning the Simpson case only briefly.

“This is a program that deals with crime as a problem, not as a staple,” Mr. Crystal told Howard Rosenberg, television critic for The Los Angeles Times.

Mr. Rosenberg had some fun with the noncoverage.

“Memo to Judge Lance Ito, who has ordered potential Simpson jurors to avoid all media,” he wrote. “‘NewsHour’ is safe, as close to being Simpson-free as TV news gets.”

Mr. Crystal married Toby Lee Wilson in 1958. In addition to his son Bradley, he is survived by his wife; two other children, Alan and Elizabeth Crystal; and three grandchildren.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/business/media/lester-crystal-dead.html