The history of the PBS NewsHour can be traced back to the Watergate hearings.
Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer covered the 1973 hearings for PBS. In 1975 MacNeil began anchoring The Robert MacNeil Report which soon evolved into the 30-minute MacNeil/Lehrer Report.
Watergate helped create the PBS NewsHour
… and Desert Storm gave us CNN… Thanks a bunch, Rummy and Cheney, you war criminals… and the War on Poor People gave us Fox News… Thanks a bunch, Rupert and Roger, you venal assholes.
CNN started out as a genuine news channel before it was sold and converted to entertainment rubbish.
Real journalism is difficult to practice, and hated by the people it investigates. We’re still seeing the backlash against the critical 1970s coverage of Watergate and Viet Nam.