Daniel Schorr is an American television newsman whose aggressive investigative style of reporting made him, at various times in his career, the bane of the KGB, U.S. presidents from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Gerald Ford, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chiefs, television executives, and his fellow TV news­ men and women. In 1976, he himself became "the story" when he published a previously suppressed congressional report on CIA assassinations.

     Schorr was born and brought up in New York City and did his apprenticeship in print journalism on his high school and college newspapers. During his college years, he also worked on a number of small New York City papers, among them the New fork Journal­ American. Drafted in World War 11, he served in Army intelligence. Following the war, he became a stringer for a number of U.S. newspapers and the Dutch news agency ANETA. His radio reports on floods in the Netherlands brought him to the attention of Edward R. Murrow, who hired him for CBS News in 1953.

     In 1955, Schorr was assigned to open the first Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) bureau in Moscow since 1947. His refusal to cooperate with Soviet censors soon earned him their disapproval, and when he returned home for a brief period at the end of 1957, the Soviets refused to permit him to return. For the next few years, Schorr was a roving diplomatic correspondent. In 1959, he provoked the first in a long series of incidents that aroused the ire of various presidents. Schorr's report of the impending resignation of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles so irked President Eisenhower that he denied the report, only to have it confirmed by his press secretary a week later.

     During the Kennedy administration, the president asked CBS to transfer Schorr, then the station's correspondent in West Germany, because he felt that Schorr's interpretations of U.S. policy were pro-German. During the 1964 election, Schorr's report that the Republican presidential nominee Senator Barry Goldwater had formed an alliance with certain right­-wing German politicians and was thinking of spending some time at Adolf Hitler's famous Berchtesgaden retreat caused a furor. Schorr was ordered to make a "clarification."

     In 1966, Schorr returned to the United States without a formal assignment. He created his own beat, however, by investigating the promise and reality of the "Great Society" for the CBS Evening News. In this role, he turned in excellent reports on poverty. education, pollution, and health care. His interest in health care led to a provocative 1970 contribution to the documentary series, CBS Reports. That same year. The program "Don't Get Sick in America" appeared as a book from Aurora Publishers.

     Schorr's muckraking reporting during the Nixon administration earned him a prominent place on Nixon's so-called enemies list. In addition, Schorr's subsequent reporting on the Watergate scandal garnered him Emmys for Outstanding Achievement within a Regularly Scheduled News Program in 1972, 1973, and 1974.

     Following Nixon's resignation. Schorr was assigned to cover stories involving possible criminal CIA activities at home and abroad. He soon achieved a scoop based on a tip he received about an admission by President Ford regarding CIA assassination attempts. The comment had come in an off-the-record conversation with the editors of the New fork Times. Schorr's report forced the Rockefeller Commission investigating the CIA to broaden its inquiry and prompted an exclamation from former CIA chief Richard Helms, referring to him as "Killer Schorr."

     Commenting on his journalistic method, more akin to print journalism than conventional television journalism. Schorr has said, my typical way of operating is not to stick a camera and a microphone in somebody's face and let him say whatever self-serving thing he wants to say, but to spend a certain amount of time getting the basic information, as though I was going to write a newspaper story, I may end up putting a mike in somebody's face, but it is usually for the final and hopefully embarrassing question.

     Soon after making these remarks. Schorr found himself at the center of a huge controversy involving both journalistic ethics and constitutional issues. Schorr came into possession of the Pike Congressional Committee·s report on illegal CIA and Federal Bureau of Investigation activities. Congress, however, had voted not to make the report public. In hopes of being able to publish the report. Schorr contacted Clay Felker of the Village \-(Jice, who agreed to pay him for it and to publish it. To Schorr's surprise. Instead of supporting him, many of his colleagues and editorialists around the country excoriated him for selling the document. Making matters worse was Schorr's initial reaction, which was to shift suspicion from himself as the person who leaked the documents to his CBS colleague Lesley Stahl.

     Schorr managed  to turn opinion around when, after being subpoenaed to appear before a House Ethics Committee, he eloquently defended himself on the grounds that he would not reveal a source. While this put off the congressional bloodhounds, it certainly did not satisfy some of the wolves at CBS, among whom was Chairman William S. Paley, who wanted Schorr fired. Schorr and CBS news executives resisted until the story of the internal dissension over Schorr's conduct broke during an interview he did with Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes. As a result, Schorr resigned from CBS News in September 1976. A year later. he wrote about  it in  his autobiographical account Clearing the Air.

     Subsequently. Schorr toured on the lecture circuit. taught journalism courses, and wrote a syndicated newspaper column. In 1979, hoping to give his new Cable News Network (CNN) instant journalistic credibility, Ted Turner hired Schorr as a commentator.

     However, in 1985, CNN refused to renew his contract. Schorr commented at the time that he had been "forced out" because "they wanted to be rid of what they considered a loose cannon." Since 1985, Schorr has been a senior news analyst for National Public Radio. His reporting and commentary are heard on All Things Considered and Weekend Edition. In 200 I, he wrote a second volume of autobiography, Staying Tuned: A Life in Journalism.

     Schorr represents the traditions of investigative print journalism transferred to the world of TV reporting. His work, though it has sometimes overstepped boundaries, is in vivid contrast to the often imagined conscious attitudes of contemporary TV news.