MacNeil began working in the news field at
ITV in London, then for
Reuters, and then for
NBC News He also worked as a news anchor, for
WNBC, in New York City. After shots rang out in
Dealey Plaza, MacNeil, who was on the press bus in the presidential motorcade, followed crowds running onto the
grassy knoll; he appears in a photo taken just moments after the assassination, but no one was found behind the fence. Recounting his movements to the Dallas Police later, Oswald erroneously referred to Allman as a
Secret Service agent because of his suit, blond
crew cut, and press badge. Historian
William Manchester erroneously suggested MacNeil was the person to whom Oswald spoke in his book
The Death of a President (1967). As he was reporting for NBC, MacNeil was at times in relatively close proximity to his future co-anchor and partner
Jim Lehrer, also covering the Kennedy visit and assassination for the
Dallas Times Herald, but the two did not meet until several years later, covering the Senate
Watergate hearings in Washington, D.C. for
PBS. He was interviewed for the 1992 documentary ''Beyond 'JFK': The Question of Conspiracy''.
News anchor In 1967, MacNeil began covering American and European politics for the
BBC. From 1971 to 1974, he hosted
Washington Week in Review, a
public affairs television program on the
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). MacNeil rose to fame during his coverage of the 1973 Senate
Watergate hearings for PBS, for which he received an
Emmy Award. Teamed with Jim Lehrer, the two broadcast and analysed some 250 hours of the hearings in all, sometimes late into the night. After serving 20 years on the program, MacNeil retired from his nightly appearances on October 20, 1995. Lehrer continued to anchor the program on a solo basis until his retirement in 2011. The program continues as the
PBS NewsHour. After the
September 11 attacks, MacNeil called PBS and offered to help. In a
Sesame Street Special Report,
muppet parody of the
Iran-Contra scandal, MacNeil investigated a "Cookiegate" incident involving the
Cookie Monster. In 1998, for Season 29's "Slimey to the Moon" story arc, MacNeil took the role of co-anchor with
Kermit the Frog, as Slimey, Oscar the Grouch's pet worm, and four other worms made a landing on the Moon. MacNeil chaired the
MacDowell Colony's board of directors from 1993 to 2010. He was succeeded by
Michael Chabon. Inspired by his passion for language, he made the nine-part television series
The Story of English in 1986 for PBS and the BBC, detailing the development of the English language. ==Personal life==