News anchors are the most-watched people in America, and not just because they are always beaming live images of explosions, power failures, and celebrity breakups. It is the chemistry that exists between a news anchor and a newsroom. A good anchor can infuse life into any segment by making it interesting and fun to watch. News anchors have had a profound effect on our lives for many years now. Here is an account of the most influential news anchors of all time who’ve shaped television news as we know it today.

1 ; Walter Cronkite

Dec. at 92 (1916-2009)

Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962–1981). During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as “the most trusted man in America” after being so named in an opinion poll.He reported many events from 1937 to 1981, including bombings in World War II; the Nuremberg trials; combat in the Vietnam War; the Dawson’s Field hijackings; Watergate; the Iran Hostage Crisis; and the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, civil rights pioneer Martin Luther King Jr., and Beatles musician John Lennon. He was also known for his extensive coverage of the U.S. space program, from Project Mercury to the Moon landings to the Space Shuttle. He was the only non-NASA recipient of an Ambassador of Exploration award.Cronkite is well known for his departing catchphrase, “And that’s the way it is,” followed by the date of the broadcast.

2 ; Edward R. Murrow

Dec. at 57 (1908-1965)

Edward Roscoe Murrow (born Egbert Roscoe Murrow; April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965) was an American broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He first gained prominence during World War II with a series of live radio broadcasts from Europe for the news division of CBS. During the war he recruited and worked closely with a team of war correspondents who came to be known as the Murrow Boys. A pioneer of radio and television news broadcasting, Murrow produced a series of reports on his television program See It Now which helped lead to the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Fellow journalists Eric Sevareid, Ed Bliss, Bill Downs, Dan Rather, and Alexander Kendrick consider Murrow one of journalism’s greatest figures, noting his honesty and integrity in delivering the news.

3 ; David Brinkley
Dec. at 82 (1920-2003)

David McClure Brinkley (July 10, 1920 – June 11, 2003) was an American newscaster for NBC and ABC in a career lasting from 1943 to 1997. From 1956 through 1970, he co-anchored NBC’s top-rated nightly news program, The Huntley–Brinkley Report, with Chet Huntley and thereafter appeared as co-anchor or commentator on its successor, NBC Nightly News, through the 1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s, Brinkley was host of the popular Sunday This Week with David Brinkley program and a top commentator on election-night coverage for ABC News. Over the course of his career, Brinkley received ten Emmy Awards, three George Foster Peabody Awards, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.He wrote three books, including the 1988 bestseller Washington Goes to War, about how World War II transformed the nation’s capital. This social history was largely based on his own observations as a young reporter in the city.

4 ; Peter Jennings
Dec. at 67 (1938-2005)

Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings (July 29, 1938 – August 7, 2005) was a Canadian-American journalist who served as the sole anchor of ABC World News Tonight from 1983 until his death from lung cancer in 2005. He dropped out of high school, yet he transformed himself into one of American television’s most prominent journalists. Jennings started his career early, hosting a Canadian radio show at age 9. He began his professional career with CJOH-TV in Ottawa during its early years, anchoring the local newscasts and hosting the teen dance show Saturday Date on Saturdays. In 1965, ABC News tapped him to anchor its flagship evening news program. Critics and others in the television news business attacked his inexperience, making his job difficult. He became a foreign correspondent in 1968, reporting from the Middle East. Jennings returned as one of World News Tonight’s three anchormen in 1978, and he was promoted to sole anchorman in 1983. He was also known for his marathon coverage of breaking news stories, staying on the air for 15 hours or more to anchor the live broadcast of events such as the Gulf War in 1991, the Millennium celebrations in 2000, and the September 11 attacks in 2001. In addition to anchoring, he was the host of many ABC News special reports and moderated several American presidential debates. He was always fascinated with the United States and became an American citizen in 2003. Jennings was one of the “Big Three” news anchormen, along with Tom Brokaw of NBC and Dan Rather of CBS, who dominated American evening network news from the early 1980s until his death in 2005, which closely followed the retirements of Brokaw in 2004 and Rather in 2005.

5 ; Harry Reasoner
Dec. at 68 (1923-1991)

Harry Truman Reasoner (April 17, 1923 – August 6, 1991) was an American journalist for ABC and CBS News, known for his inventive use of language as a television commentator, and as a founder of the 60 Minutes program. Over the course of his career, Reasoner won three Emmy Awards and a George Foster Peabody Award in 1967

6 ; Tom Brokaw
Age: 82

Thomas John Brokaw (; born February 6, 1940) is an American television journalist and author, best known for being the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News for 22 years (1982–2004). He is the only person to have hosted all three major NBC News programs: The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, and, briefly, Meet the Press. He now serves as a Special Correspondent for NBC News and works on documentaries for other outlets.Along with competitors Peter Jennings at ABC News and Dan Rather at CBS News, Brokaw was one of the “Big Three” news anchors in the U.S. during the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. The three hosted their networks’ flagship nightly news programs for over 20 years, and all three started and retired (or died, in Jennings’s case) within a year of each other.Brokaw has also written several books on American history and society in the 20th century. He is the author of The Greatest Generation (1998) and other books and the recipient of numerous awards and honors.

7 ; Hugh Downs
Age: 101

Hugh Malcolm Downs (born February 14, 1921) was a retired American broadcaster, television host, news anchor, TV producer, author, game show host, and music composer. He was perhaps best known for his roles as co-host of the NBC News program Today from 1962–71, host of the Concentration game show from 1958–69, and anchor of the ABC News magazine 20/20 from 1978–99. He also served as announcer/sidekick for Tonight Starring Jack Paar, host of the PBS talk show Over Easy, and co-host of the syndicated talk show Not for Women Only.

8 ; John Chancellor
Dec. at 68 (1927-1996)

John William Chancellor (July 14, 1927 – July 12, 1996) was an American journalist who spent most of his career with NBC News. He served as anchor of the NBC Nightly News from 1970 to 1982 and continued to do editorials and commentaries for NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw until 1993.

9 ; Ted Koppel
Age: 82

Edward James Martin Koppel (born February 8, 1940) is a British-born American broadcast journalist, best known as the anchor for Nightline, from the program’s inception in 1980 until 2005. Before Nightline, he spent twenty years as a broadcast journalist and news anchor for ABC. After becoming host of Nightline, he was regarded as one of the most “outstanding” of the serious-minded interviewers on American television. Five years after its 1980 debut the show had a nightly audience of some seven and a half million viewers.After leaving Nightline, Koppel worked as managing editor for the Discovery Channel, a news analyst for NPR and BBC World News America and a contributor to Rock Center with Brian Williams. Koppel is currently a special contributor to CBS News Sunday Morning. His career as foreign and diplomatic correspondent earned him numerous awards, including nine Overseas Press Club awards and twenty-five Emmy Awards.

10 ; Tim Russert

Timothy John Russert (May 7, 1950 – June 13, 2008) was an American television journalist and lawyer who appeared for more than 16 years as the longest-serving moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press. He was a senior vice president at NBC News, Washington bureau chief and also hosted an eponymous CNBC/MSNBC weekend interview program.

11 ; Chet Huntley
Dec. at 62 (1911-1974)

Chester Robert “Chet” Huntley (December 10, 1911 – March 20, 1974) was an American television newscaster, best known for co-anchoring NBC’s evening news program, The Huntley-Brinkley Report, for 14 years beginning in 1956.

12 ; Eric Sevareid
Dec. at 79 (1912-1992)

Arnold Eric Sevareid (November 26, 1912 – July 9, 1992) was an American author and CBS news journalist from 1939 to 1977. He was one of a group of elite war correspondents who were hired by CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow and nicknamed “Murrow’s Boys”. Sevareid was the first to report the Fall of Paris when the city was captured by the Germans during World War II. Traveling into Burma during the war, his aircraft was shot down, and he was rescued from behind enemy lines by a search and rescue team that had been established for that purpose. He was the last journalist to interview Adlai Stevenson II before his death. He followed in Murrow’s footsteps as a commentator on the CBS Evening News for 12 years, for which he was recognized with Emmy and Peabody Awards.

13 ; Dan Rather
Age: 90

Dan Irvin Rather Jr. (; born October 31, 1931) is an American journalist. Rather began his career in Texas and was on the scene of the Kennedy assassination in Dallas in 1963. His reporting elevated his position in CBS News, where he was White House correspondent beginning in 1964. He served as foreign correspondent in London and Vietnam over the next two years before returning to the White House correspondent position, covering the presidency of Richard Nixon, including his trip to China, Watergate scandal and resignation. When Walter Cronkite retired in 1981, Rather was promoted to news anchor for the CBS Evening News, a role he occupied for 24 years. Along with Peter Jennings at ABC News and Tom Brokaw at NBC News, he was one of the “Big Three” nightly news anchors in the U.S. from the 1980s through the early 2000s. He also frequently contributed to CBS’s weekly news magazine 60 Minutes. Within a year of Brokaw’s retirement and Jennings’s death, he left the anchor desk in 2005 following a controversy in which he presented unauthenticated documents in a news report on President George W. Bush’s Vietnam War-era service in the National Guard. He continued to work with CBS until 2006. On the cable channel AXS TV (then called HDNet), Rather hosted Dan Rather Reports, a 60 Minutes-style investigative news program, from 2006 to 2013. He also hosts several other projects for AXS TV, including Dan Rather Presents, which does in-depth reporting on broad topics such as mental health care or adoption, and The Big Interview with Dan Rather, where he conducts long-form interviews with musicians and other entertainers. In January 2018, he began hosting an online newscast called The News with Dan Rather on The Young Turks’ YouTube channel.

14 ; Roger Mudd
Dec. at 93 (1928-2021)

Roger Harrison Mudd (born February 9, 1928) is a retired American broadcast journalist who was a correspondent and anchor for CBS News and NBC News. He worked most recently as the primary anchor for The History Channel. Previously, Mudd was weekend and weekday substitute anchor for the CBS Evening News, the co-anchor of the weekday NBC Nightly News, and the host of the NBC-TV Meet the Press, and American Almanac TV programs. Mudd is the recipient of the Peabody Award, the Joan Shorenstein Award for Distinguished Washington Reporting, and five Emmy Awards.

15 ; Diane Sawyer
Age: 76

Lila Diane Sawyer (born December 22, 1945) is an American television journalist. Sawyer has been the anchor of ABC News’s nightly flagship program ABC World News, a co-anchor of ABC News’s morning news program Good Morning America and Primetime newsmagazine. Early in her career, she was a member of U.S. President Richard Nixon’s White House staff and closely associated with the president himself.

16 ; Howard K. Smith

Howard Kingsbury Smith (May 12, 1914 – February 15, 2002) was an American journalist, radio reporter, television anchorman, political commentator, and film actor. He was one of the original members of the team of war correspondents known as the Murrow Boys.

17 ; Jim Lehrer
Age: 88

James Charles Lehrer (; born May 19, 1934) is an American journalist and novelist. Lehrer is the former Executive Editor and a former News Anchor for the PBS NewsHour on PBS, and is known for his role as a Debate Moderator in U.S. Presidential Election campaigns. He is an author of numerous fiction and non-fiction books that draw upon his experience as a newsman, along with his interests in history and politics.

18 ; Frank Reynolds
Dec. at 59 (1923-1983)

Frank James Reynolds (November 29, 1923 – July 20, 1983) was an American television journalist for CBS and ABC News.Reynolds was a New York-based anchor of the ABC Evening News from 1968 to 1970 and later was the Washington, D.C.-based co-anchor of World News Tonight from 1978 until his death in 1983. During the Iran hostage crisis, he began the 30-minute late-night program America Held Hostage, which later was renamed Nightline, and then taken over by Ted Koppel.

19 ; Sam Donaldson
Age: 88

Samuel Andrew Donaldson Jr. (born March 11, 1934) is an American former reporter and news anchor, serving with ABC News from 1967 to 2013. He is best known as the network’s White House Correspondent (1977–89 and 1998–99) and as a panelist and later co-anchor of the network’s Sunday program, This Week.

20 ; Barbara Walters
Age: 92

Barbara Jill Walters (born September 25, 1929) is an American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality. Walters has hosted a variety of television programs, including Today, The View, 20/20, and the ABC Evening News. Since retirement as a full-time host and contributor, she continued to occasionally report for ABC News through 2015.Walters first became known as a television personality in the early 1960s, when she was a writer and segment producer of “women’s interest stories” on the NBC News morning program The Today Show, where she began work with host Hugh Downs. As a result of her outstanding interviewing ability and her popularity with viewers, she received more airtime on the program. Even though her production duties made her a significant contributor to the program, she had no input in choosing a successor for Downs when he left in 1971, and Frank McGee was hired. In 1974, at the time of McGee’s death, Walters became co-host of the program, the first woman to hold such a title on an American news program.In 1976, continuing as a pioneer for women in broadcasting, Walters became the first female co-anchor of a network evening news, working with Harry Reasoner on the ABC News flagship program, the ABC Evening News, earning an unprecedented US$1 million per year. From 1979 to 2004, Walters worked as co-host and a producer for the ABC newsmagazine 20/20. In 1997, Walters created and debuted as a co-host on The View, a daytime talk show with an all-female panel. She retired as a co-host of The View in 2014 after 16 seasons, but still serves as its executive producer.Since her retirement from The View, Walters has hosted a number of special reports for 20/20 and ABC News, as well as a documentary series for Investigation Discovery. Additionally, Walters continued to host her annual 10 Most Fascinating People special on ABC. Her final on-air appearance for ABC News was in 2015.In 1996, Walters was ranked #34 on the TV Guide “50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time” list, and in 2000 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

21 ; Brit Hume
Age: 79

Alexander Britton “Brit” Hume (born June 22, 1943) is an American conservative television commentator and political commentator. Hume had a 23-year career with ABC News, where he contributed to World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Nightline, and This Week. He served as ABC’s chief White House correspondent from 1989 to 1996. He then spent 12 years as the Washington, D.C., managing editor of the Fox News Channel and the anchor of Special Report with Brit Hume. After retiring as the anchor of Special Report in 2008, he became a senior political analyst for Fox News and a regular panelist on Fox News Sunday. In September 2016, he was named the interim anchor of On the Record, after the abrupt resignation of the show’s longtime host, Greta Van Susteren, and served in that capacity through the 2016 elections.

22 ; Jessica Savitch
Dec. at 36 (1947-1983)

Jessica Beth Savitch (February 1, 1947 – October 23, 1983) was an American television news presenter and correspondent, best known for being the weekend anchor of NBC Nightly News and daily presenter of NBC News updates during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Savitch was one of the first women to anchor an evening network news broadcast alone, following in the footsteps of Marlene Sanders of ABC News and Catherine Mackin of NBC News. She also hosted PBS’s public affairs documentary program Frontline from its January 1983 debut until her death in an automobile accident later that year.Shortly before her death in October 1983, Savitch also became known for her live broadcast of a short NBC News update in which her delivery was erratic and she appeared to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The incident caused widespread speculation that she was abusing drugs. She died three weeks later by drowning when a car in which she was a passenger accidentally drove into a canal during a heavy rainstorm. No drugs and very little alcohol were present in her system at the time of her death. Savitch was renowned for her audience appeal and her skills as an on-camera news reader, although she drew criticism for her relative lack of news reporting experience. Prior to joining NBC News, she was a popular local anchorwoman in Philadelphia, and before that, while working at a Houston television station, she was the first female news anchor in the South. Posthumously she became the subject of two biographies and a television film, Almost Golden: The Jessica Savitch Story, as well as television documentaries. The 1996 feature film Up Close and Personal starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert Redford was very loosely based on her life, with many details changed in order to produce a film more upbeat than Savitch’s troubled personal life. Her experiences as a pioneer female news anchor also helped inspire Will Ferrell to make the 2004 film Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.

23 ; Cokie Roberts
Age: 78

Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Roberts (née Boggs; born December 27, 1943), best known as Cokie Roberts, is an American journalist and a bestseller-author. She is a commentator on contract to National Public Radio as well as a regular roundtable analyst for the current This Week With George Stephanopoulos. Roberts also works as a commentator for ABC News, serving as an on-air analyst for the network. Roberts, along with her husband, Steven V. Roberts, writes a weekly column syndicated by United Media in newspapers around the United States. She serves on the boards of several non-profit organizations such as the Kaiser Family Foundation and was appointed by President George W. Bush to his Council on Service and Civic Participation.

24 ; Lester Holt
Age: 63

Lester Don Holt Jr. (born March 8, 1959) is an American journalist and news anchor for the weekday edition of NBC Nightly News and Dateline NBC. On June 18, 2015, Holt was made the permanent anchor of NBC Nightly News following the demotion of Brian Williams, making him the first African-American to solo anchor a weekday network nightly newscast.Holt is also known for his moderation of the first Presidential debate of 2016, and was praised for his role in fact-checking false statements made by both candidates. President Donald Trump later expressed his approval of Holt’s moderation during the debate, noting that he “thought it was very fair”.

25 ; Douglas Edwards
Dec. at 73 (1917-1990)

Douglas Edwards (July 14, 1917 – October 13, 1990) was an American network news television anchor. He anchored CBS’s first network nightly television news broadcast from 1947–1962, which was later to be titled CBS Evening News.

26 ; Garrick Utley
Dec. at 74 (1939-2014)

Clifton Garrick Utley (November 19, 1939 – February 20, 2014) was an American television journalist. He established his career reporting about the Vietnam War and has the distinction of being the first full-time television correspondent covering the war on-site.

27 ; Chris Wallace
Age: 74

Christopher W. Wallace (born October 12, 1947) is an American television anchor and political commentator who is the host of the Fox Broadcasting Company/Fox News program Fox News Sunday. Before joining Fox in 2003, he worked for ABC between 1989–2003 and NBC between 1975–1989. Wallace is the only person to have served as host and moderator of more than one of the major American Sunday morning political talk shows, which he did during his time at NBC.Wallace has won three Emmy Awards, the Dupont-Columbia Silver Baton Award, and a Paul White lifetime achievement award.

28 ; Bernard Shaw
Age: 82

Bernard Shaw (born May 22, 1940) is a retired American journalist and former lead news anchor for CNN from 1980 until his retirement in March 2001.

29 ; Christiane Amanpour
Age: 64

Christiane Amanpour

30 ; Connie Chung
Age: 76

Constance Yu-Hwa Chung (born August 20, 1946) is an American journalist. She has been an anchor and reporter for the U.S. television news networks NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC. Some of her more famous interview subjects include Claus von Bülow and U.S. Representative Gary Condit, whom Chung interviewed first after the Chandra Levy disappearance, and basketball legend Magic Johnson after he went public about being HIV-positive. In 1993, she became only the second female to co-anchor a network newscast as part of CBS Evening News. She was removed in 1995 as CBS Evening News co-anchor after a controversial interview with a fireman, during rescue efforts at the Oklahoma City bombing, which seemed inappropriately combative, and her interview tactics to get Newt Gingrich’s mother to admit her unguarded thoughts about Hillary Clinton.

31 ; Bill Hemmer
Age: 57

William Hemmer (born November 14, 1964) is an American journalist for the Fox News Channel, based in New York City. He is a morning co-anchor of America’s Newsroom. Previously, he reported and anchored at CNN between 1995 and 2005.

32 ; Ann Curry
Age: 65

Ann Curry (born November 19, 1956) is an American journalist and photojournalist who has been a reporter for more than 30 years, focused on human suffering in war zones and natural disasters. Curry has reported from the wars in Syria, Darfur, Congo, the Central African Republic, Kosovo, Lebanon, Israel, Afghanistan and Iraq. Curry has covered numerous disasters, including the tsunamis in Southeast Asia and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, where her appeal via Twitter topped Twitter’s ‘most powerful’ list, credited for helping speed the arrival of humanitarian planes.In June 2012, she became the national and international correspondent-anchor for NBC News and the anchor at large for the Today show. She was co-anchor of Today from June 9, 2011, to June 28, 2012, and the program’s news anchor from March 1997 until becoming co-anchor. She was also the anchor of Dateline NBC from 2005 to 2011.On January 13, 2015, it was announced that Curry would be leaving NBC News after nearly 25 years. In January 2015, Curry founded her own multi-platform media startup. She continues to conduct major news interviews on network television, most recently securing an exclusive interview with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif about the Iran nuclear talks.

33 ; Linda Ellerbee
Age: 78

Linda Ellerbee (born August 15, 1944) is an American journalist who is most known for several jobs at NBC News, including Washington, D.C., correspondent, and also as host of Nickelodeon’s Nick News with Linda Ellerbee. Her work on NBC News Overnight was recognized by the jurors of the duPont Columbia Awards as “possibly the best written and most intelligent news program ever.”

34 ; Frank McGee
Dec. at 52 (1921-1974)

Frank McGee (September 12, 1921 – April 17, 1974) was an American television journalist, best known for his work with NBC from the late 1950s into the early 1970s.

35 ; Judy Woodruff
Age: 75

Judy Carline Woodruff (born November 20, 1946) is an American broadcast journalist, who has worked in network, cable, and public television news since 1976. She is currently anchor and managing editor of the PBS NewsHour. Woodruff has covered every presidential election and convention since the race that culminated in the win of 39th U.S. president Jimmy Carter. She has interviewed several heads of state and moderated U.S. presidential debates.After graduating from Duke University in 1968, Woodruff entered local television news in Atlanta. Thereafter, she was named White House correspondent for NBC News in 1976, a position she held for six years. She joined PBS in 1982, where she continued White House reports for the nightly news program the PBS NewsHour, formerly The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, in addition to presenting another program. She moved to CNN in 1993 to host Inside Politics and CNN WorldView together with Bernard Shaw, until he left CNN. Woodruff left CNN in 2005, and returned to PBS and the NewsHour in 2006. In 2013, she and Gwen Ifill were named official anchors of the PBS NewsHour, succeeding founding presenter Jim Lehrer. Woodruff and Ifill shared managing newsgathering duties until Ifill’s death from cancer in 2016. Woodruff succeeded Ifill as the program’s sole main presenter.

36 ; Jane Pauley
Age: 71

Margaret Jane Pauley (born October 31, 1950), known as Jane Pauley, is an American television journalist and author, active in news reporting since 1972. She is the anchor of CBS Sunday Morning. Pauley previously held a 13-year position on NBC’s Today program, followed by 12 years as co-host of Dateline NBC. She has publicly acknowledged her struggle with bipolar disorder.

37 ; Robin Roberts
Age: 65

Robin René Roberts (born November 23, 1960) is an American television broadcaster. Roberts is the anchor of ABC’s Good Morning America.After growing up in Mississippi and attending Southeastern Louisiana University, Roberts was a sports anchor for local TV and radio stations. Roberts was a sportscaster on ESPN for 15 years (1990–2005). She became co-anchor on Good Morning America in 2005. Her treatment for myelodysplastic syndrome was chronicled on the program, which earned a 2012 Peabody Award for the coverage.

38 ; Brian Williams
Age: 63

Brian Douglas Williams (born May 5, 1959) is an American journalist at NBC News, currently serving as the chief anchor for the network’s cable news channel MSNBC and as host of the network’s nightly wrap-up program, The 11th Hour with Brian Williams.Williams is known for his ten years as anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News, the evening news program of the NBC television network. After Williams joined the program in December 2004, NBC News was awarded the Peabody Award for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina, and Williams accepted the award on behalf of the organization. In February 2015, Williams was suspended for six months from his position as Managing Editor and Anchor of NBC Nightly News for “misrepresent[ing] events which occurred while he was covering the Iraq War in 2003”, and on June 18, 2015 he was demoted to breaking news anchor for MSNBC.

39 ; Anderson Cooper
Age: 55

Anderson Hays Cooper (born June 3, 1967) is an American journalist, television personality, and author. He is the primary anchor of the CNN news show Anderson Cooper 360°. The program is usually broadcast live from a New York City studio; however, Cooper often broadcasts live from CNN’s studios in Washington, D.C., or on location for breaking news stories. In addition, he is a correspondent for 60 Minutes. From September 2011 to May 2013, he also served as host of his own eponymous syndicated daytime talk show, Anderson Live.

40 ; Max Robinson
Dec. at 49 (1939-1988)

Maxie Cleveland “Max” Robinson, Jr. (May 1, 1939 – December 20, 1988) was an American broadcast journalist, most notably serving as co-anchor on ABC World News Tonight alongside Frank Reynolds and Peter Jennings from 1978 until 1983. Robinson is noted as the first African-American broadcast network news anchor in the United States. Robinson was a founder of the National Association of Black Journalists.

41 ; Lesley Stahl
Age: 80

Lesley Rene Stahl (born December 16, 1941) is an American television journalist. She has spent most of her career with CBS News, having been affiliated with that network since 1972; since 1991, she has reported for CBS’s 60 Minutes.

42 ; Charles Collingwood
Dec. at 68 (1917-1985)

Charles Collingwood (June 4, 1917 – October 3, 1985) was an American journalist and war correspondent. He was an early member of Edward R. Murrow’s group of foreign correspondents that was known as the “Murrow Boys”. During World War II he covered Europe and North Africa for CBS News. Collingwood was also among the early ranks of television journalists that included Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid, and Murrow himself.

43 ; Shepard Smith
Age: 58

Shepard “Shep” Smith (born David Shepard Smith Jr.; January 14, 1964) is an American television news anchor on the Fox News Channel. He serves as the channel’s chief news anchor and as managing editor of the breaking news division. Smith is the former host of Fox News’ evening newscast, The Fox Report with Shepard Smith, and Studio B. In October 2013, Shepard Smith Reporting replaced Studio B.

44 ; Katie Couric
Age: 65

Katherine Anne Couric ( KURR-ik; born January 7, 1957) is an American journalist and author. She recently served as Yahoo’s Global News Anchor. Couric has been a television host on all Big Three television networks in the United States, and in her early career was an Assignment Editor for CNN. She worked for NBC News from 1989 to 2006, CBS News from 2006 to 2011, and ABC News from 2011 to 2014. In addition to her television news roles, she hosted Katie, a syndicated daytime talk show produced by Disney–ABC Domestic Television from September 10, 2012, to June 9, 2014. Some of her most important notable roles include co-host of Today, anchor of the CBS Evening News, and correspondent for 60 Minutes. She also reported for nearly every television news broadcast across ABC, CBS and NBC. Couric’s 2011 book, The Best Advice I Ever Got: Lessons from Extraordinary Lives, was a New York Times best-seller. In 2004, Couric earned induction into the Television Hall of Fame.

45 ; Greta Van Susteren
Age: 68

Greta Conway Van Susteren (born June 11, 1954) is an American commentator, lawyer, and former television news anchor for CNN, Fox News, and NBC News. She hosted Fox News’s On the Record w/ Greta Van Susteren for 14 years (2002–2016) before departing for MSNBC, where she hosted For the Record with Greta for roughly six months in 2017. A former criminal defense and civil trial lawyer, she appeared as a legal analyst on CNN co-hosting Burden of Proof with Roger Cossack from 1994 to 2002, playing defense attorney to Cossack’s prosecutor. In 2016, she was listed as the 94th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes, up from 99th in 2015.

46 ; Wolf Blitzer
Age: 74

Wolf Isaac Blitzer (born March 22, 1948) is a German-American journalist, television news anchor and author who has been a CNN reporter since 1990. He is the host of The Situation Room. Blitzer also serves as the network’s lead political anchor.

47 ; Marlene Sanders
Dec. at 84 (1931-2015)

Marlene Sanders (January 10, 1931 – July 14, 2015) was an American television news correspondent, anchor, producer and executive who worked for ABC News in the 1960s and 1970s and moved to CBS News in 1978. She is known for being the first woman to achieve several milestones in the then male-dominated field of television news. Shortly after joining ABC News as a correspondent in 1964, Sanders became the first woman to anchor an evening news broadcast for a major network when she substituted for the regular anchor, who had become ill. She was also the first woman to report on the Vietnam War from the field. In 1976, ABC promoted her to vice president and director of documentaries, making her one of the first women to reach upper management in the field. She also won three Emmy Awards for documentaries she produced for CBS.

48 ; Martha Raddatz
Age: 69

Martha Raddatz (; born February 14, 1953) is an American reporter with ABC News. She is the network’s Chief Global Affairs Correspondent. She reports for ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir, Nightline, and other network broadcasts. In addition to her work for ABC News, Raddatz has written for The New Republic and is a frequent guest on PBS’s Washington Week. Raddatz is the primary fill-in anchor on This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

49 ; Stone Phillips
Age: 67

Stone Stockton Phillips (born December 2, 1954) is an American television reporter and correspondent. He is best known as the former co-anchor of Dateline NBC, a news magazine TV series. He also has worked as a substitute anchor for NBC Nightly News and Today and as a substitute moderator on Meet the Press. Prior to his tenure at NBC, he was an ABC News correspondent for 20/20 and World News Tonight. He is known for his clear delivery and gravitas which was satirized by Phillips himself in appearances on The Colbert Report. Phillips was among Stephen Colbert’s many guests for the sing-along at the end of the series’ finale episode.

50 ; John Dickerson
Age: 54

John Frederick Dickerson (born July 6, 1968) is an American journalist and a reporter for CBS News. His current assignment is 60 Minutes and CBS News’ Election specials. Most recently, he was co-host of CBS This Morning along with Norah O’Donnell and Gayle King.. He served as an interim anchor of the CBS Evening News until Norah O’Donnell took over in the summer of 2019. Previously he was the host of Face the Nation on CBS News, the political director of CBS News, chief Washington correspondent for CBS News, and a political columnist for Slate magazine. Before hosting Face the Nation, he was the longtime chief political correspondent at Slate. Before joining Slate, Dickerson covered politics at Time magazine for 12 years, serving the last four years as its White House correspondent.

51 ; Elizabeth Vargas
Age: 60

Elizabeth Anne Vargas (born September 6, 1962) is an American television journalist who is the lead investigative reporter/documentary anchor for A&E Networks. She began her new position on May 28, 2018, after being an anchor of ABC’s television newsmagazine 20/20 and ABC News specials for the past 14 years. She was previously an anchor of World News Tonight.

52 ; Jake Tapper
Age: 53

Jacob Paul Tapper (born March 12, 1969) is an American journalist, author, and cartoonist. He is the Chief Washington Correspondent for CNN, weekday television news show The Lead with Jake Tapper, and Sunday morning affairs program State of the Union. Prior to joining CNN, Tapper worked for ABC News. The White House Correspondents’ Association honored his work as Senior White House Correspondent with ABC News with three Merriman Smith Memorial Awards for broadcast journalism.Tapper contributed to the coverage of the inauguration of President Obama that earned an Emmy Award for Outstanding Live Coverage of a Current News Story. Tapper was part of a team that was awarded an Edward R. Murrow award for Video: Breaking News for “Target bin Laden: The Death of Public Enemy #1.” His book The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor debuted at number 10 in November 2012 on The New York Times Bestseller list for hardback non-fiction. Tapper’s book and his reporting on the veterans and troops were cited when the Congressional Medal of Honor Society awarded him the “Tex” McCrary Award for Excellence in Journalism.The Republican primary debate Tapper moderated in September 2015 drew more than 23 million viewers, making it the most-watched program in the history of CNN and the second-most watched primary debate ever. He also moderated the Republican presidential debate in Miami on March 10, 2016, which drew almost 12 million viewers and, according to Variety, “garnered acclaim for its substance”.

53 ; Rachel Maddow
Age: 49

Rachel Anne Maddow ( (listen), MAD-oh; born April 1, 1973) is an American television host and liberal political commentator. Maddow hosts The Rachel Maddow Show, a nightly television show on MSNBC, and serves as the cable network’s special event co-anchor alongside Brian Williams. Her syndicated talk radio program of the same name aired on Air America Radio. Maddow holds a doctorate in politics from Oxford University and is the first openly lesbian anchor to host a major prime-time news program in the United States. Asked about her political views by the Valley Advocate, Maddow replied, “I’m undoubtedly a liberal, which means that I’m in almost total agreement with the Eisenhower-era Republican party platform.”

54 ; Maria Shriver
Age: 66

Maria Owings Shriver (born November 6, 1955) is an American journalist, author, and former First Lady of California. She was married to former Governor of California and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, from whom she filed for divorce in 2011. She has received a Peabody Award and was co-anchor for NBC’s Emmy-winning coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympics. As executive producer of The Alzheimer’s Project, Shriver earned two Emmy Awards and an Academy of Television Arts & Sciences award for developing a “television show with a conscience”. She is a member of the Kennedy family; her mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, was a sister of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Ted Kennedy. Shriver is currently a special anchor and correspondent for NBC News.

55 ; Brianna Keilar
Age: 41

Brianna Marie Keilar (born September 21, 1980) is the senior political correspondent and anchor for CNN in the Washington, D.C. bureau. She previously worked as a White House correspondent, Congressional correspondent and general assignment correspondent for CNN in Washington. Prior to that, Keilar worked at CNN Newsource as a national correspondent, also in Washington. She began hosting CNN Right Now with Brianna Keilar, which airs at 1:00 PM ET, on November 12, 2018.

56 ; Andrea Mitchell
Age: 75

Andrea Mitchell (born October 30, 1946) is an American television journalist, anchor, and commentator for NBC News, based in Washington, D.C. She is the NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, and reported on the 2008 presidential election campaign for NBC News broadcasts, including NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, Today, and MSNBC. She anchors Andrea Mitchell Reports airing from 12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m. ET weekdays on MSNBC, has appeared on and guest hosted Meet the Press, and is often a guest on Hardball with Chris Matthews and The Rachel Maddow Show.

57 ; S. E. Cupp
Age: 43

Sarah Elizabeth Cupp (born February 23, 1979) is an American television host, political commentator, and writer. In August 2017, she began hosting S.E. Cupp: Unfiltered, a political panel show, co-hosted by Andrew Levy, on HLN and later CNN. She is a former panelist on the CNN political debate show Crossfire, author of Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media’s Attack on Christianity and co-author of Why You’re Wrong About the Right. She was a panelist on Real News on TheBlaze, a co-host of the MSNBC talk show The Cycle, and guest host on Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld. She is a frequent guest panelist on Real Time with Bill Maher.

58 ; Carole Simpson
Age: 80

Carole Simpson (born December 7, 1940) is an American broadcast journalist, news anchor, and author.

59 ; María Elena Salinas
Age: 68

María Elena Salinas is an American broadcast journalist, news anchor, and author. Called the “Voice of Hispanic America” by The New York Times, Salinas is one of the most recognized Hispanic female journalists in the United States. She was the co-anchor of Noticiero Univision, the primary evening news broadcast on Univision, and the co-host of the news magazine program Aquí y Ahora (Here and Now). Salinas has been working for more than three decades in the U.S. and in 18 Latin American countries. She has interviewed Latin American heads of state, rebel leaders, dictators, and every United States president since Jimmy Carter.

60 ; Don Lemon
Age: 56

Don Lemon (born March 1, 1966) is an American journalist and author. He is an award winning news anchor for CNN based in New York City, and hosts CNN Tonight.

61 ; Sylvia Chase
Dec. at 80 (1938-2019)

Sylvia Chase is an actress.

62 ; Geraldo Rivera
Age: 79

Geraldo Rivera (born Gerald Michael Riviera; July 4, 1943) is an American tabloid talk show host, reporter, attorney, and author. He was the host of the talk show Geraldo from 1987 to 1998. Rivera hosted the newsmagazine program Geraldo at Large, hosts the occasional broadcast of Geraldo Rivera Reports (in lieu of hosting At Large), and appears regularly on Fox News programs such as The Five.

63 ; Oprah Winfrey
Age: 68

Oprah Gail Winfrey (born Orpah Gail Winfrey, January 29, 1954) is an American media executive, actress, talk show host, television producer and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and ran in national syndication for 25 years from 1986 to 2011. Dubbed the “Queen of All Media”, she was the richest African American of the 20th century and North America’s first black multi-billionaire, and has been ranked the greatest black philanthropist in American history. She has also been sometimes ranked as the most influential woman in the world.Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in inner-city Milwaukee. She has stated that she was molested during her childhood and early teens and became pregnant at 14; her son was born prematurely and died in infancy. Winfrey was then sent to live with the man she calls her father, Vernon Winfrey, a barber in Tennessee, and landed a job in radio while still in high school. By 19, she was a co-anchor for the local evening news. Winfrey’s often emotional, extemporaneous delivery eventually led to her transfer to the daytime talk show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated. Credited with creating a more intimate confessional form of media communication, Winfrey popularized and revolutionized the tabloid talk show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue. Through this medium, Winfrey broke 20th-century taboos and allowed LGBT people to enter the mainstream through television appearances. In 1994, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.By the mid-1990s, Winfrey had reinvented her show with a focus on literature, self-improvement, mindfulness and spirituality. Though she was criticized for unleashing a confession culture, promoting controversial self-help ideas, and having an emotion-centered approach, she has also been praised for overcoming adversity to become a benefactor to others. Winfrey had also emerged as a political force in the 2008 presidential race, delivering about one million votes to Barack Obama in the razor close 2008 Democratic primary. In 2013, Winfrey was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama and honorary doctorate degrees from Duke and Harvard. In 2008, she formed her own network, Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).

The post The Most Influential News Anchors of All Time first appeared on PR Business News Wire.