Newman specialized in reporting breaking news. In 1963, he made the first announcement on NBC Radio of President John F. Kennedy's death. He anchored the television coverage of the 1967 Six-Day Arab-Israeli War, the 1968 assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy and the 1973 Vietnam ceasefire. In 1981, immediately after the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, he was chosen to anchor NBC's television coverage until full news teams were mustered.