,
Barbara Walters, and McGee on
The Today Show in 1973 McGee began his broadcast news career at
KGFF in
Shawnee, Oklahoma, in 1946 then moved to WKY-TV, now
KFOR-TV, in
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, under the stage name Mack Rogers. In 1955, the owners of WKY purchased
WSFA-TV in
Montgomery, Alabama, and sent McGee there as news director. WSFA was an affiliate of
NBC. As the
civil rights movement gained national coverage, McGee's work came to the notice of NBC, which offered him a position with the network, based in
New York City. He went on to become "one of television's most prominent newsmen". McGee was a floor correspondent for the
national conventions of both political parties in
1960,
1964, and
1968, one member of the so-called "Four Horsemen" that included NBC newsmen
John Chancellor,
Edwin Newman, and
Sander Vanocur. In 1960, he moderated the
second debate between presidential candidates
John F. Kennedy and
Richard Nixon on October 7 in
Washington, D.C. At that time, the debates were considered by the news media to have swung the election in favor of Kennedy among voters who watched them on television. McGee had a great talent for descriptive language, often giving viewers a vivid word picture of the day's events. When
NBC News colleague
Chet Huntley broke the news of the
assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, McGee appeared in the studio with Huntley and
Bill Ryan. Correspondent
Robert MacNeil reported by telephone from
Dallas, but the flash studio in New York was not equipped to put telephone calls on the air. This was eventually accomplished, but for the first hour, MacNeil spoke to McGee over the telephone, and McGee then repeated MacNeil's report to the viewing audience. During MacNeil's report that the president had died, his comments were finally heard over the air, but McGee, unaware of the change, repeated them anyway. The veteran journalist remained on duty for 45 hours with little rest, reporting without a script. McGee was also on the air in 1968 when word came of the
assassination of Robert F. Kennedy following the California
primary, and he calmly anchored the network's breaking news coverage. The half-hour program generally gave more attention to one or more topics than a regular newscast, sometimes employing a full documentary format. In 1969, NBC began a traditional Saturday evening newscast, and in 1970, a Sunday version, both of which replaced
The Report. McGee, however, often anchored those weekend newscasts. For several months in 1970, McGee also anchored the New York City
WNBC-TV local 6 p.m. newscast. In 1970, after Huntley's retirement ended
The Huntley-Brinkley Report, McGee became one of a platoon of three anchors on the newly renamed
NBC Nightly News, along with Chancellor and
David Brinkley. McGee moved
Today into a more serious news presentation, ==Personal life==