Bob Schieffer is mainly known for his work on the
CBS Evening News, where he was the anchorman who replaced Dan Rather in 2005. His place as the newsanchor wasn't as long as Rather's, and he retired in January 2009.
Bob Schieffer, who is also known as the host of Face the Nation since 1991, has been with
CBS for over 23 years as the anchor of the Saturday
CBS Evening News. He has won numerous awards, such as six Emmys and National Press Foundation's "Broadcaster of the Year" in 2002.
Bob was born on February 25, 1937 in Austin, Texas. He graduated the Texas Christian University and then joined the U.S. Military air force; Schieffer was later honorably discharged and started his journalism career as a reporter in Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He then briefly joined Dallas's WBAP, but left to join
CBS in 1969, where he reported from the Pentagon and worked as the anchor for Sunday broadcasts. Bob was also responsible for
CBS's White House correspondence from 1974 to 1979. His biggest breakthrough during his first decade in television was making the news - he drove Lee Oswald Harvey's mother to a police office following the JFK assassination and, while doing so, writing down her statements.
Schieffer was made Chief Washington correspondent in 1982; nine years later, he started anchoring another show, Face the Nation. When Dan Rather retired
CBS Evening News in 2005, Schieffer took his spot as the replacement weekday anchor, but Katie Couric later got his spot in late 2006. While he was only a temporary anchor, there was a prominent increase of viewers during the year of his service as an anchor at
CBS Evening News. When he finished anchoring Saturday's Evening News in 1996, he still remained the anchor of Face the Nation and
CBS's chief correspondent from Washington.
Bob Schieffer is still a prominent national politics journalist and a highly influential persona in the U.S. media. He is also a critically acclaimed author, and has written two memoirs about his media career. His first book, "Face the Nation: My Favorite Stories from the First 50 Years of the Award-Winning News Broadcast", focuses on his experiences at Face the Nation, the show which had circa 5,000 newsmakers appearing on its 2,000 broadcasts since 1954. In the book Schieffer recalls his experience working with people like Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather and others. The second memoir, "This Just In: What I Couldn't Tell You on TV", which in turn describes Schieffer's most important stories of the past forty years in journalism and was called "an informal history of America over the past 40 years" by Publishers Weekly.
Schieffer does have a pretty interesting family life. He is the older brother of Tom Schieffer, a lawyer who began his career in 1979. Besides being a business acquaintance to George W. Bush, Tom Schieffer also served the Ambassador to Australia and Ambassador to Japan from 2001-2005 to 2005-2009 respectively.
Bob Schieffer is married to Patricia Penrose since 1967 and has two daughters; they currently reside in Washington, DC.
