Robert Knight Mccormick

Robert Knight McCormick was born in Danville, Kentucky on August 9, 1911. After World War I, they settled in Washington D.C., which he considered home. He graduated from Eastern High School and attended George Washington University until the Great Depression in 1930 forced him to leave. In 1930, he began working at the Washington Daily News as a copy boy, eventually becoming a reporter, sports editor, city editor, make-up editor, and writer of the "9 to 5" column for government employees. During this time, he was greatly influenced by Ernie Pyle and other notable journalists. He had dinner with Ernie Pyle the night before Pyle was killed.
McCormick covered the Bonus Riots of 1932, where President Hoover called out General MacArthur and the troops to drive out the last of the Bonus Marchers camped on the Anacostia Flats. He endured severe doses of tear gas and a large saber welt across his backside. He then watched the development of the entire New Deal, covering many significant stories of that period. He proudly broke the first story of the famed "Guru letters" involving Henry Wallace and the artist and mystic Nicolai Roerich. He uncovered a multimillion-dollar misuse of funds in the construction of the Agricultural Research Center at Beltsville, Maryland, leading to disciplinary action against a division chief in the Agriculture Department.
In 1936, McCormick left the News to become the Washington correspondent for Collier's, succeeding George Creel and ultimately becoming one of the magazine's more prolific writers. His first wartime interview was with Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations. He also wrote a secret analysis of the latest weapons, which appeared in print two weeks after Pearl Harbor and almost obliged the White House to recall the magazine from the newsstands. This analysis was reprinted worldwide. He was given the secret files of the War Department to write a definitive article on the merits of the Garland rifle, settling a public controversy and leading to the rifle's adoption. He wrote Collier's "Wing Talk" column on aviation for the last two years with the magazine and dealt extensively with other aviation subjects, including the first comprehensive article on high-octane fuel and its impact on the air fleet.
McCormick left Collier's in early 1942 to work for NBC. He did a radio series on strategic bombing, accurately predicting how it would be used in Europe to cripple Hitler's war production. In 1943, he went to Pearl Harbor and then to Guam to head NBC's Central Pacific Bureau. McCormick was named head of the network's Washington, D.C., television news bureau in 1949, and as such he was one of the pioneers of television news broadcasting. In 1949, when Camel News Caravan (which became the Huntley-Brinkley Report) started on TV, McCormick became the Washington commentator and chief of the Washington TV News Bureau. This included a large staff of cameramen, sound men, writers, and producers, as well as a weekly half-hour White House-supported television show called "Battle Report" and a daily syndicated newsreel sold to many stations not directly connected with the TV network. He pioneered many standard television news operations and set records for speed in processing, editing, and airing news film. He also contributed to the series "Victory at Sea."
McCormick received a European assignment in 1950. He set up bureaus in Europe, spending two years in Paris before transferring to Frankfurt and later Bonn as Chief of the Germany Bureau. He covered the Adenauer election campaign in 1953 and the defection of Otto John, West Germany's top intelligence officer, to the East. He was the European coordinator for TV news film, visiting most European cities to work out news-film contracts. He did a six-week series at the start of the flood of refugees from behind the Iron Curtain in 1953, establishing contacts with East German and satellite underground organizations to secure many revealing stories about life behind the Iron Curtain. He was shot at during Communist riots in West Berlin and provided eyewitness coverage of Communist celebrations in East Berlin. He organized and directed the coverage of the Big Four Foreign Ministers meeting in Berlin in 1953 and the same meeting in Geneva the following year. He managed NBC's extensive coverage of the summit talks in Geneva, where NBC outperformed the competition on radio and TV. 
Returning to Washington in late summer 1955, McCormick primarily served as NBC's State Department correspondent. He did a few shows for "Kaleidoscope," including a broadcast on November 16, 1958 that won the Sherwood Award and changed government policies toward Native Americans. His show "American Stranger" highlighted the lack of adequate treatment by the government, leading to his adoption by the Blackfoot Indian Tribe as Chief Three Suns. He was one of twelve reporters to cover the first hydrogen bomb test on Bikini Atoll. In 1968, he was elected President of the Radio and Television Correspondents Association, representing broadcasting reporters covering Congress.
Upon his retirement from NBC in 1976, McCormick was eulogized by several Senators. It should be noted that he accomplished all this while struggling with alcoholism and entered rehabilitation treatment after his retirement. After achieving sobriety, he wrote a book called "Facing Alcoholism" (Oak Tree Publications, 231 pages) recounting his battle with the disease for others suffering from alcoholism.
McCormick's firsts included being the first correspondent allowed into Angola to cover the revolt against Portuguese rule. He covered the first coast-to-coast radio feed with the signing of the Japanese Peace Treaty and the first televised Presidential Convention in 1948. He was the only reporter who was also a Native American Chief.
It was generally accepted that McCormick could dig out a story with two phone calls while other reporters had to work the phones for hours.
McCormick died on September 4, 1985 several days after lung cancer surgery at the age of 74.
Category:People from Danville, Kentucky
Category:1911 births
Category:George Washington University alumni
Category:American people