Robert
Chandler has prospered as a journalist, television news executive
and producer, publicist and consultant for 45
years. His career highlights include twenty-two years at CBS
News, 13 of them as a vice-president, the last five
as senior vice-president.
60 MINUTES rose into television's Top 10 programs and became
Number One during the four years Chandler was in
charge of the show (1977-1981.) Don Hewitt, the executive
producer, and correspondents Mike Wallace, Morley Safer,
Dan Rather, Harry Reasoner and Ed Bradley all reported to
Chandler who approved all story proposals and final-edited
all stories prior to broadcast. Chandler also brought Andy Rooney
to 60 MINUTES. In all, he was responsible for
budgets in excess of $40-million and some 300 people.
As director of Information Services at CBS News (1963-1965),
Chandler reported to Richard S. Salant and Fred
W. Friendly, successive presidents of CBS News. In 1966, Chandler
executive-produced The National Drivers Test.
From 1967-1972, he was the director of the CBS News Election Unit
and executive in charge of all coverage of the
1976 Presidential campaign. Included was the 'live' coverage of
the national political conventions, the Presidential
Debates and the Carter Inauguration.
It was Chandler who negotiated the partnership between the New
York Times and CBS News creating the New York
Times-CBS News Poll (1976). Prior to early retirement from CBS as
Senior Vice-President, Administration (1985),
Chandler was responsible for personnel and policy matters, legal
liaison, business affairs, archives, and marketing
services.
Chandler served as managing editor of 1986, the NBC News
weekly magazine series starring Roger Mudd and Connie
Chung, and, 1989-1990, was creator-executive producer of Learning
in America: Schools That Work, a two-hour documentary
for MacNeil/Lehrer Productions. He was creative consultant,
1992-1993, for Spies, 26 half-hour documentaries broadcast
on A&E Network. Since 1993, Chandler has been a consultant
for such multinationals as IBM and Fujisankei International
Communications.
Chandler's career began as a reporter-editor-critic for
Variety, covering television in its infancy. As director
of television publicity at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1961-1963), he
created the TV publicity department at the time
MGM entered television production.
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