CBS News

==History==
In 1929, the [[CBS|Columbia Broadcasting System]] began making regular radio news broadcasts—five-minute summaries taken from reports from the United Press, one of the three wire services that supplied newspapers with national and international news. In December 1930 CBS chief [[William S. Paley]] hired journalist [[Paul White (journalist)|Paul W. White]] away from United Press as CBS's news editor. Paley put the radio network's news operation at the same level as entertainment, and authorized White to interrupt programming if events warranted. Along with other networks, CBS chafed at the [[breaking news]] embargo imposed upon radio by the wire services, which prevented them from using bulletins until they first appeared in print. CBS disregarded an embargo when it broke the story of the [[Lindbergh kidnapping]] in 1932, using live on-the-air reporting. Radio networks scooped print outlets with news of the [[1932 United States presidential election|1932 presidential election]].<ref name="Dunning">[[John Dunning (radio historian)|Dunning, John]], ''On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio''. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1998 {{ISBN|978-0-19-507678-3}} hardcover; revised edition of ''Tune In Yesterday'' (1976)</ref>{{Rp|485–486|date=May 2014}}

In March 1933, White was named vice president and general manager in charge of news at CBS.<ref name="News on the Air DJ">{{cite web|url=http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?490158 |title=News on the Air dustjacket |publisher=[[NYPL Digital Gallery]] |access-date=2014-05-25}}</ref> As the first head of CBS News, he began to build an organization that soon established a legendary reputation.<ref name="Dunning"/>{{Rp|486|date=June 2014}}

In 1935, White hired [[Edward R. Murrow]], and sent him to London in 1937 to run CBS Radio's European operation.<ref name="Dunning"/>{{Rp|486|date=May 2014}} White led a staff that would come to include Richard C. Hottelet, [[Charles Collingwood (journalist)|Charles Collingwood]], [[William L. Shirer]], [[Eric Sevareid]],<ref name="Rather Keynote">{{cite web |date=September 20, 1997 |title=Dan Rather Accepting the Paul White Award |publisher=Radio-Television News Directors Association |url=http://bad.url <!-- http://www.rtnda.org/resources/speeches/rather3.shtml -- site registered on Wikipedia's blacklist. --> |access-date=2007-08-06 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070806181331/http://www.rtnda.org/resources/speeches/rather3.shtml |archive-date=2007-08-06 }}, [[Radio Television Digital News Association]] Conference & Exhibition, September 20, 1997. Retrieved 2014-05-25.</ref> [[Bill Downs]], [[John Charles Daly]], [[Joseph C. Harsch]]<ref name="Dunning"/>{{Rp|501|date=May 2014}} [[Cecil Brown (journalist)|Cecil Brown]], [[Elmer Davis]], [[Quincy Howe]], [[H. V. Kaltenborn]], [[Robert Trout]],<ref name="NYT obit">"Paul White Dies; Radio Newsman". ''[[The New York Times]]'', July 10, 1955.</ref> and [[Lewis Shollenberger]].<ref>{{cite news|author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->|title=Lewis W. Shollenberger Dies|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1994/03/18/lewis-w-shollenberger-dies/fe1b7a37-5cc5-485b-8a53-5a18953b32e6/|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=March 18, 1994|access-date=April 26, 2017|archive-date=December 16, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181216000348/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1994/03/18/lewis-w-shollenberger-dies/fe1b7a37-5cc5-485b-8a53-5a18953b32e6/|url-status=live}}</ref>

"CBS was getting its ducks in a row for the biggest news story in history, World War II", wrote radio historian John Dunning.<ref name="Dunning"/>{{Rp|487|date=May 2014}}

In 1940, [[William S. Paley]] recruited [[Edmund A. Chester]] from his position as Bureau Chief for Latin America at the [[Associated Press]] to coordinate the development of the international shortwave radio Network of the Americas (''Cadena de las Américas'') in 1942.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/16/archives/edmund-chester-75-exdirectoratcbs.html |title=''The New York Times'' - "Obituary: "Edmund Chester, 75, Ex-Directorate C.B.S.", October 16, 1973 p. 46 on nytimes.com |work=The New York Times |date=October 16, 1973 |access-date=January 15, 2023 |archive-date=January 13, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230113182039/https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/16/archives/edmund-chester-75-exdirectoratcbs.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="books.google.com">[https://books.google.com/books?id=W4IgALTXtH4C&dq=Edmund+A.+Chester&pg=PT163 ''In All His Glory: the Life And Times of William S. Paley''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230408031106/https://books.google.com/books?id=W4IgALTXtH4C&dq=Edmund+A.+Chester&pg=PT163 |date=April 8, 2023 }}. Salley Bedell Smith. Random House. New York, 2002  p. 18 {{ISBN|978-0-307-78671-5}} William S. Paley, CBS, Edmund A. Chester on books.google</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ql_sDwAAQBAJ&dq=CBS+Pan+American+Orchestra+Alfredo+Antonini&pg=PT74 |title=''Beyond the Black and White TV: Asian and Latin American Spectacle in Cold War America''. Han, Benjamin M. Rutgers University Press, 2022 La Cadena de las Americas, Edmund Chester, William S. Paley, Cold War diplomacy on Google Books |isbn=9781978803855 |access-date=March 14, 2023 |archive-date=April 5, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405142739/https://books.google.com/books?id=ql_sDwAAQBAJ&dq=CBS+Pan+American+Orchestra+Alfredo+Antonini&pg=PT74 |url-status=live |last1=Han |first1=Benjamin M. |date=June 19, 2020 |publisher=Rutgers University Press }}</ref> Broadcasting in concert with the assistance of the [[United States Department of State|Department of State]], the [[Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs|Office for Inter-American Affairs]] chaired by [[Nelson Rockefeller]] and [[Voice of America]] as part of President Roosevelt's support for [[Pan-Americanism]], this CBS radio network provided vital news and cultural programming throughout South America and Central America during the World War II era.<ref name="presidency.ucsb.edu">Roosevelt, Franklin D., [http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=16152#axzz1kZmKEFYg  "Executive Order 8840 Establishing the Office of Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180628072555/http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=16152#axzz1kZmKEFYg |date=June 28, 2018 }}, July 30, 1941. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, [[University of California, Santa Barbara]]</ref><ref>''Time'' - Radio: La Cadena, June 1, 1942 [http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,790530-1,00.html William S. Paley, La Cadena de las Americas on Content.time.com] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230117171126/https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,790530-1,00.html |date=January 17, 2023 }}</ref>  Through its operations in twenty nations, it fostered benevolent diplomatic relations between the United States and other nations in the region while providing an alternative to Nazi propaganda.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=Qx00pQIkclMC&q=Edmund%20Chester&pg=PA166 ''Dissonant Divas In Chicana Music: The Limits of La Onda''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200109230902/https://books.google.com/books?id=Qx00pQIkclMC&pg=PA166&dq=Eva+Garza&hl=en#v=onepage&q=Edmund%20Chester|date=January 9, 2020}} Deborah R. Vargas. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2012 {{ISBN|978-0-8166-7316-2}} p. 152–153  Edmund Chester and "La Cadena De Las Americas" on google.books.com</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ql_sDwAAQBAJ&dq=CBS+Pan+American+Orchestra+Alfredo+Antonini&pg=PT74 |title=''Beyond the Black and White TV: Asian and Latin American Spectacle in Cold War America''. Han, Benjamin M. Rutgers University Press, 2022 La Cadena de las Americas, Edmund Chester, William S. Paley La cadena de Las Americas on Google Books |isbn=9781978803855 |access-date=March 14, 2023 |archive-date=April 5, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405142739/https://books.google.com/books?id=ql_sDwAAQBAJ&dq=CBS+Pan+American+Orchestra+Alfredo+Antonini&pg=PT74 |url-status=live |last1=Han |first1=Benjamin M. |date=June 19, 2020 |publisher=Rutgers University Press }}</ref><ref name="presidency.ucsb.edu"/>

===Television===
Upon becoming commercial station WCBW (channel 2, now [[WCBS-TV]]) in 1941, the pioneer CBS television station in New York City broadcast two daily news programs, at 2:30&nbsp;p.m. and 7:30&nbsp;p.m. weekdays, anchored by Richard Hubbell (journalist). Most of the newscasts featured Hubbell reading a script with only occasional cutaways to a map or still photograph. When [[Attack on Pearl Harbor|Pearl Harbor was bombed]] on December 7, 1941, WCBW (which was usually off the air on Sunday to give the engineers a day off), took to the air at 8:45&nbsp;p.m. with an extensive special report. The national emergency even broke down the unspoken wall between CBS radio and television. WCBW executives convinced radio announcers and experts such as George Fielding Elliot and Linton Wells to come down to the Grand Central studios during the evening and give information and commentary on the attack. The WCBW special report that night lasted less than 90 minutes. But that special broadcast pushed the limits of live television in 1941 and opened up new possibilities for future broadcasts. As CBS wrote in a special report to the [[Federal Communications Commission]] (FCC), the unscheduled live news broadcast on December 7 "was unquestionably the most stimulating challenge and marked the greatest advance of any single problem faced up to that time."

Additional newscasts were scheduled in the early days of the war. In May 1942, WCBW (like almost all television stations) sharply cut back its live program schedule and the newscasts were canceled, since the station temporarily suspended studio operations, resorting exclusively to the occasional broadcast of films. This was primarily because much of the staff had either joined the service or were redeployed to war related technical research, and to prolong the life of the early, unstable cameras which were now impossible to repair due to the wartime lack of parts.
[[File:Douglas Edwards With the News CBS 1952.JPG|thumb|200px|Douglas Edwards on the CBS news set in 1952.]]
In May 1944, as the war began to turn in favor of the Allies, WCBW reopened the studios and the newscasts returned, briefly anchored by [[Ned Calmer]], and then by Everett Holles.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://newsinfo.iu.edu/pub/libs/images/usr/7533_h.jpg|title=Everett Holles 1944 WCBW Newscast|access-date=6 January 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130906063204/http://newsinfo.iu.edu/pub/libs/images/usr/7533_h.jpg|archive-date=6 September 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref> After the war, expanded news programs appeared on the WCBW schedule – whose call letters were changed to WCBS-TV in 1946 – first anchored by Milo Boulton, and later by [[Douglas Edwards]]. On May 3, 1948, Edwards began anchoring ''CBS Television News'', a regular 15-minute nightly newscast on the CBS television network, including WCBS-TV. It aired every weeknight at 7:30&nbsp;p.m., and was the first regularly scheduled, network television news program featuring an anchor (the nightly [[Lowell Thomas]] NBC radio network newscast was simulcast on television locally on NBC's WNBT—now [[WNBC]]—for a time in the early 1940s and the previously mentioned Richard Hubbell, Ned Calmer, Everett Holles and Milo Boulton on WCBW in the early and mid-1940s, but these were local television broadcasts seen only in New York City). [[NBC]]'s offering at the time, ''NBC Television Newsreel'' (which premiered in February 1948), was simply film footage with voice narration.

In 1948, CBS Radio's seasoned journalist Edmund Chester emerged as the television network's new Director of News Special Events and Sports.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/16/archives/edmund-chester-75-exdirectoratcbs.html |title=''The New York Times'' - "Obituary: "Edmund Chester, 75, Ex-Directorate C.B.S.", October 16, 1973 p. 46 on nytimes.com |work=The New York Times |date=October 16, 1973 |access-date=January 15, 2023 |archive-date=January 13, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230113182039/https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/16/archives/edmund-chester-75-exdirectoratcbs.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-jWTHk3s4c8C&q=Edmund++Chester+ |title=''As It Happened: A Memoir'' William S. Paley. Doubleday, New York. 1979 p. 375 Edmund Chester - Director of CBS News on books.google |isbn=9780385146395 |access-date=March 14, 2023 |archive-date=April 5, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405174041/https://books.google.com/books?id=-jWTHk3s4c8C&q=Edmund++Chester+ |url-status=live |last1=Paley |first1=William Samuel |year=1979 |publisher=Doubleday }}</ref> Soon thereafter in 1949, he collaborated with one of CBS' original [[Murrow Boys]] named [[Larry LeSueur]] to produce the innovative news series ''United Nations In Action''. Underwritten by the Ford Motor Company as a public service, these broadcasts endeavored to provide live coverage of the proceedings of the [[United Nations General Assembly]] from its interim headquarters in Lake Success, New York.<ref>''The New York Times'', November 4, 1949, pg. 50</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/television-broadcast-of-a-new-series-reporting-the-sessions-news-photo/647173796?adppopup=true |title=''United Nations in Action'': Photograph of Edmund Chester, Larry LaSueur, Lyman Bryson at the interim headquarters of the UN General Assembly Lake Success, NY, March 8,1949 ongettyimages.com |date=March 2, 2017 |access-date=January 15, 2023 |archive-date=January 13, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230113182015/https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/television-broadcast-of-a-new-series-reporting-the-sessions-news-photo/647173796?adppopup=true |url-status=live }}</ref> They proved to be highly successful and were honored with the prestigious [[George Foster Peabody Award]] for Television News in 1949.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://peabodyawards.com/award-profile/united-nations-in-action/ |title="United Nations In Action" Peabody Award (1949) on peabodyawards.com |access-date=January 15, 2023 |archive-date=January 13, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230113190229/https://peabodyawards.com/award-profile/united-nations-in-action/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
        
In 1950, the name of the nightly newscast was changed to ''Douglas Edwards with the News'', and the following year, it became the first news program to be broadcast on both coasts, thanks to a new coaxial cable connection, prompting Edwards to use the greeting "Good evening everyone, coast to coast." The broadcast was renamed the ''[[CBS Evening News]]'' when [[Walter Cronkite]] replaced Edwards in 1962.<ref>"The Origins of Television News in America" by Mike Conway. Chapter: "The Birth of CBS-TV News: Columbia's Ambitious Experiment at the Advent of U.S. Commercial Television". (Peter Lang Publishing, New York NY).</ref> Edwards remained with CBS News with various daytime television newscasts and radio news broadcasts until his retirement on April 1, 1988.

From the 1990s until 2014, CBS News operated its own production unit CBS News Productions, to produce alternative programming for cable networks,<ref>{{Cite web |last=O'Connell |first=Mikey |date=2014-01-24 |title=CBS News Closes Productions Shingle, Most Staff Staying On |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/cbs-news-closes-productions-shingle-673796/ |access-date=2023-09-28 |website=The Hollywood Reporter |language=en-US}}</ref> and CBS EyeToo Productions (later CBS Eye Productions), a company that produced documentaries and nonfiction programs.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2008-11-12 |title=The Ticker: CBS, Bloomberg, NBC… |url=https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/the-ticker-cbs-bloomberg-nbc/22786/ |access-date=2023-09-28 |website=www.adweek.com |language=en-US}}</ref>

CBS News ran cable channel [[CBS Eye on People]] from 1997 to 2000 and Spanish-language channel [[CBS Telenoticias]] from 1996 to 1998.

In 2021, CBS News had set up its own production unit See It Now Studios, to be headed up by [[Susan Zirinsky]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Johnson |first=Ted |date=2021-09-08 |title=CBS News Launches New Production Entity See It Now Studios Headed By Susan Zirinsky |url=https://deadline.com/2021/09/cbs-news-susan-zirinsky-production-company-susan-zirinsky-1234828901/ |access-date=2022-06-22 |website=Deadline |language=en-US |archive-date=June 22, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220622054529/https://deadline.com/2021/09/cbs-news-susan-zirinsky-production-company-susan-zirinsky-1234828901/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 2022, CBS News hired former Donald Trump administration official [[Mick Mulvaney]] as a paid on-air contributor.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |last=Barr |first=Jeremy |date=2022-03-30 |title=Turmoil at CBS News over Trump aide Mick Mulvaney's punditry gig |language=en-US |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/03/30/cbs-mulvaney-backlash/ |access-date=2022-03-31 |issn=0190-8286 |archive-date=March 31, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220331073651/https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/03/30/cbs-mulvaney-backlash/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Mulvaney's hiring stirred controversy within the company due to his history of promoting Trump's false claims and attacking the press.<ref name=":1" /> CBS News co-president [[Neeraj Khemlani]] told CBS morning show staff: "If you look at some of the people that we've been hiring on a contributor basis, being able to make sure that we are getting access to both sides of the aisle is a priority because we know the Republicans are going to take over, most likely, in the midterms".<ref name=":1" />