Bernad Shaw
*Bernard Shaw was born on this date in 1940. He was a Black television journalist.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, he attended the University of Illinois at Chicago from 1963 to 1968. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps, including stints in Hawaii and at Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, NC, wherein in 1962, he was a "Message Center" specialist as a Corporal, E-4. He had a passionate interest in the print media, clipping articles from newspapers, often traveling at weekends to Washington, DC ("Big W"). He cultivated an acquaintance with Walter Cronkite and was interested in baseball.
Shaw began broadcasting as an anchor and reporter for WNUS in Chicago. He then worked as a reporter for the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company in Chicago, moving later to Washington as the White House correspondent. He worked as a correspondent in the Washington bureau of CBS News from 1971 to 1977. In 1977, he moved to ABC News as a Latin American correspondent and bureau chief before becoming the Capitol Hill Senior Correspondent. He left ABC in 1980 to move to CNN as its Principal Anchor.
Shaw is widely remembered for his question to Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Michael Dukakis at his second Presidential debate with George H. W. Bush during the 1988 election, which Shaw was moderating. Knowing that Dukakis opposed the death penalty, Shaw asked Dukakis if he would support an irrevocable death penalty for a man who hypothetically raped and murdered Dukakis's wife. Dukakis responded that he would not; some critics felt he framed his response too legalistically and logically and did not address it sufficiently personally. Other critics thought the question inflammatory and unwarranted at a presidential debate.
In 2001, at 60, Bernard Shaw decided to retire from CNN. He spent time with his wife, Linda, and two children. Shaw says he misses his colleagues, but he does not miss working. He appeared in Robert Wiener’s book Live from Baghdad and as a character in the 2002 HBO film of the same name, where Robert Wisdom portrayed him.
On January 4, 2006, CNN analyst Jack Cafferty relayed an anecdote about Shaw when discussing the role of the media in the Sago Mine disaster. Cafferty said on CNN's Situation Room that when conversing with Shaw about why he was the only anchor covering the 1981 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan not to report that James Brady was dead, Shaw said that he didn't go on air with the information because he didn't have confirmation with "anyone in the room." According to Cafferty, Shaw did not report the erroneous information when all the network anchors did.
On September 8, 2022, Bernard Shaw, who became a household name in the US with the launch of CNN, died. This was after a bout with pneumonia unrelated to COVID-19; he was 82.
